Good Business; Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

I found this book to be a fabulous journey of self-discovery. It showed me how to celebrate my uniqueness both in my personal life and also in the workplace. Mihaly gives us a the equivalent to a google map (complete with turning directions) to achieve personal and corporate success.

We’ve all felt moments when we’ve enjoyed our work so much that time seemed to go by much faster than we expect. Mihaly defines this feeling as “Flow”, a temporary ecstatic psychological state where we become so engrossed in constructive activities and a sense of discovery and learning that time itself seems to be altered. 

“Flow and Happiness” is the first of the book’s three sections. Happiness is central to a sustainable life. Several examples of “100 year managers” who “get it” such as Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia are used in the book to show how smart companies build sustainable futures by centering on the happiness of its employees. Yvon Chouinard’s life evolution from blacksmith, to mountain climber to outdoor apparel inventor shows all of us how one man’s unequivocally desire to find meaning (Flow) in his own life provides happiness and Flow today for all of his employees.

In order to find meaning and Happiness, Mihaly suggests we need to understand the two pillars of Happiness; differentiation and integration. Differentiation is the celebration of our own uniqueness and then developing ourselves into what we were meant to be. Integration is realizing that we live in a community of other differentiated people with equal desires and rights to evolve through their own cultural symbols, artifacts and environments. These two pillars, also referred to as “agency” and “communion” develop in our life from the time we are self aware through adolescence and into adulthood. If we are properly exercised through our early adult years, we continually refine our intellect while realizing that we are just a part of a much larger, infinite community. Happiness is not realized unless we have refined senses of agency and communion.  

Mihaly now sets the stage for one of his major concepts; “Happiness does not simply happen to us. It’s something that we make happen.” Enjoyment is his next big concept which he describes as those things we do that “nourish our spirit” like dancers dancing and mountain climbers climbing and chess players playing chess. “Enjoyment” is something that we feel when we constructively put our minds or bodies through toil in the celebration of our differentiation. “Flow” is then that feeling we get when we seem to be carried away by an outside force and are moved effortlessly through moments of highest enjoyment. How do we get to “Flow”? When we commit ourselves to Happiness and nourish our spirit with Enjoyment we will be rewarded with Flow.

Mihaly lists the eight factors we feel when we are in Flow:

1. Goals are clear.
2. Feedback is immediate.
3. A balance between opportunity and capacity.
4. Concentration deepens.
5. The present is what matters.
6. Control is no problem.
7. The sense of time is altered.
8. The loss of ego.

Mihaly links a child’s ability to feel flow in their life to the availability of social capital in their environment—an infrastructure that presents life as less daunting. He explains this as an important point in children’s lives that helps them grow out of adolescence and into adulthood through an environment that has a strong spirit, helping them deny immediate gratification with future expectation of greater returns. The major point; one must invest in social capital in order to harvest future psychological capital. 

This is the critical link from the personal world to creating flow in the workplace. Mihaly outlines crucial guides to business owners for constructing environments in the workplace that facilitate flow in their employees. Read the book to find out more!

Visionary business leaders who are “doers” rather than “enablers” have five qualities:

1. Optimism.
2. Integrity.
3. Ambition and perseverance.
4. Curiosity.
5. Empathy and mutual respect.

With these five qualities, business leaders have a greater tendency of creating environments which help their employees realize frequent moments of Flow. This is the major point of the book. Mihaly provides many helpful guides with examples to create your own roadmap for personal and corporate growth. 

By laying the psychological groundwork of differentiation and integration, Mihaly helps us see that those of us who don’t work on being happy can’t experience authentic Flow. We live our life to its fullest when we work for happiness, concentrate on enjoyment and live our lives in the context of a diverse community. Mihaly explains one of the reasons Flow is not felt by more people in today’s world or workplace is because our consumer culture devalues work (enjoyment) and emphasizes pleasure (gratification).

I will stop here. I hope I’ve given you a taste of the intrapersonal tools that lead to interpersonal success in this useful book. The book is very readable and stays away from academic lingo. Mihaly explains difficult psychological concepts using a writing style that is as easy to read as a well planned meal is to eat. For each concept, a strong beginning, smooth confirming facts and a terrific finish!