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Good
Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning by Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi Rating: ••• (Recommended) |
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Click on title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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White Hats In the midst of the stories about
corporate greed, deceit and corruption, there’s a great new book, titled Good
Business, from Milaly Csikszentmuhalyi that presents what the author and
colleagues learned from leaders who have done a good job. Explore this book
to uncover what obstacles and tendencies need to be overcome. We were
intrigued by the section about why we tend to choose pleasure over enjoyment.
Pleasure is temporary, while enjoyment builds psychological capital. Here’s
an excerpt from the end of the book on how good businesses operate (pp.
200-205): How Good Businesses Operate But
vision alone is not enough, for it has to be translated into the operating
practices of the institution. Lofty goals that are not eventually implemented
lead to cynicism and hypocrisy. What did we learn from these leaders about
how to "walk the walk" in managing good business? Probably
the most important principle of organizational behavior that emerged from the
interviews was the importance of trust, which is brought about by respect.
Any group of people working toward a common goal is held together by a
combination of two motives: self-interest and common interest. The former can
be bought by external incentives: pay, promotion, prestige. The latter
motive, common interest, must be earned through a demonstration of respect
for the value of the members of the team. Workers will not place themselves
at the service of a leader's vision unless they feel that the rules of the
organization are fairly applied, that their contribution is recognized, and that
their integrity is respected. To
achieve this end, managers must invest a great deal of their psychic energy
in monitoring and enhancing the well-being of the group. And before all else,
they have to develop self-discipline based on self-knowledge, which will
prevent them from acting capriciously and selfishly. Whenever a leader cuts
corners, shows favoritism, is unfair or thoughtless he undermines the common
interest of the group. If this happens often enough, the only motive keeping
the organization coherent will be self-interest. This not only lowers morale
but increases the operating costs of the organization, because a greater
amount of extrinsic incentives will be needed to keep people performing their
tasks. Robert Shapiro describes what it takes for a leader to establish a
common basis of trust. I
don't really believe in traditional power in large organizations, because I
don't think it works very well. You can't walk around and say: "Aha! I
saw you say something that wasn't true. You're fired." It's just not
possible. . . . You are in a position to start conversations. You are in a
position to influence what people will talk about and think about. And from
that point on, what effect it has is a direct function of the quality of the
conversations you've initiated. It either resonates with people, appeals to
something that matters to them, or it doesn't. It
either feels authentic to them and feels like something they genuinely want
to engage in, or it doesn't. And
there's no way of compelling it. It's an invitation. The
"invitation" that Shapiro describes is a time-consuming, open-ended
process, and one that lacks the clarity of the old commanckmd-control mode of
operation. Genghis Khan, for one, would have been appalled by it.
Nevertheless, it is the only way to shape a group of people held together by
organic solidarity, by common purpose. Such a group will be largely
self-organizing, and open to the future—an evolving organism rather than a
closed system. When such a group of people works together freely on a common
task, the bonds that arise can produce a tremendously satisfying feeling of
community. Shapiro does not hesitate to call it love: . . . [T]here seems to
be a pretty widespread longing to have work that's on a "no
bullshit" basis, to have work that's real, that counts, that matters for
people, and to be in a place where you care about the folks around you and
know that they care about you. That really is a longing. . . . and this is
something that's a real taboo to talk about—that there were many
circumstances in the business world in which people genuinely loved each
other. As I say, it's not discussible, but there's just no other way to
describe it. . . . and it's not a coincidence that, at least as I see it,
that also is the environment that is most likely to produce extraordinary
achievement and extraordinary financial performance. Beyond
providing respect and a sense of common purpose, an organization that does
good business is also concerned with the personal
growth of its members. An evolving system is not
static but tends toward complexity. The most obvious expression of this
concern is providing opportunities for life-long education. As C. William
Pollard points out: The
other thing that's occurring is that business will provide the primary
vehicle for continuous learning. The idea that a certain part of our lives we
can go to school and learn, and then other parts of our lives we can go to
work and work, the difference between school and work, that line is blurring. But
it is not just technical learning that's at issue. Given the fact that adults
spend the bulk of their life at their workplace, an organization that does
not enable its members to grow as people—to grow in self-knowledge, in
wisdom, and in the ability to relate to others—is not doing them any favors.
What is needed is the kind of workplace Robert Shapiro describes: "under
the right circumstances, people could integrate . . . within themselves and
learn about themselves, could grow, develop, could connect within the context
of a for-profit business organization." In contrast, a business that
ignores the complexity of human beings—ignores their need for love as well as
growth—and that only deals with employees as cogs in the process of
production, ends up diminishing them. The
best way management can help modvate workers to pursue common goals and grow
in the process of doing so, is by providing opportunities for flow
in the workplace. Assuming that an appealing vision has
been communicated, and trust established, then what remains to be done is to
make certain that organizational behavior does not deprive workers of the
enjoyment that comes naturally from being able to do one's best. To summarize
briefly the essential conditions for flow to occur, they are: clear goals
that can be adapted to meet changing conditions; immediate feedback to one's
actions; and a matching of the challenges of the job with the worker's
skills. A book could be written on each of these three simple requirements,
which have been described more fully in Chapters 3 and 4. When the goals are
clear and the challenges high but attainable the workplace can become as
exciting as the final game of the World Series and as soulful as a religious
revival. Shapiro
describes this feeling: [M]y predecessor in this job used to go around asking
people, "What was the best experience you ever had while you were
working here?" And they always talk about some kind of crisis—the flood
is coming and we have to protect the plant, or a customer called and said
they were going to cancel the order unless we could hit some standard we
never hit before. Whatever. Some challenge that's really difficult, maybe
impossible, and there's usually limited time to deal with it and it's way
beyond the capabilities that people thought they had. And for a period of
time they forget all the rules. Everyone tells the same story. It doesn't
matter what the crisis was, the stories are always the same. It'll be,
"Well, we worked really hard and we kind of forgot whose job was what.
We just all did it, and the best ideas came from very unlikely places, from
people who institutionally were thought to be incapable of having ideas. And
we really did a terrific job.". . . And they all felt great about it. It
would be difficult to find a better description of flow than this. The
"best experiences" people have, the ones they feel most positive
about, involve such moments of crisis where one is stretched beyond limits,
where one is challenged to be creative—and, with any luck, succeeds. These
moments of deep flow are the manifestation of what I have described as
"soul," that is, of a person's being transformed through his or her
efforts into someone more complex than he had been before. As
we have seen in previous chapters, when the conditions of flow are present,
the experience includes a focusing of attention on a limited task; a
forgetting of personal problems and of the self; a sense of control; and
obliviousness to time. These are the elements of the inner state of
consciousness that make whatever we are doing worth doing for its own sake.
If management can provide an environment in which such experiences can
flourish, the organization will run efficiently, and the staff will recognize
that instead of stifling them, the job supports their growth. If
flow is absent, work turns into drudgery, and the worker loses his or her
creative initiative. As William Stavropoulos says: "I think that you
have to do what you like, so when you get up in the morning you say: 'Hey,
I'm looking forward to this! I have some tough things to do. But I'm looking
forward to it, because I like it.' " Douglas
Yearley agrees with this assessment: "The first thing I say is enjoy
what you're doing, because if you don't enjoy it, it's tedium and then you go
off and do something else. Always maintain a sense of humor and balance
outside of work, so that you don't become so engaged that you lose
perspective with what's going on around you. Work hard, be ethical, but most
importantly, have fun. That's kind of trite, but I really feel it." Entrepreneurs starting a new venture, and leaders of organizations
involved in complex projects usually have many opportunities to experience
flow in their work—unless the challenges become overwhelming, or
alternatively, they become trivial and routine. Most of the leaders we
interviewed literally can't wait to get to the job each morning. Christine
Comaford Lynch's enthusiasm in describing her job is typical: "It's just
like, 'Wowl This is fabulous!' It's just so neat to explore ideas and then to
build stuff, and to interact with fascinating people. It's really fun also to
make your investors happy. That's fun. Especially the people of the first
fund who took a huge risk." While
executives may find many sources of flow in their work, what of the clerical
workers, salespeople, service employees? The people who clean the offices,
unload the trucks, answer irate customers on the phone all day? How much flow
do they experience on the job? In many organizations, management believes
that question is not relevant, as it does not consider it the firm's
responsibility to see to it that every employee has a job that is worth doing
for its own sake, and in which one can grow in complexity. This "take it
or leave it" attitude may work within the framework of a market model of
human relations, but in all the ways we have discussed so far, it is simply
not good business. For many readers, Good
Business, will resonate with approaches and practices that are being
followed. For all readers, Good
Business will leave you thinking about your organization and how it can continue
to be or to become a good business. Steve Hopkins, May 27, 2003 |
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ã 2003 Hopkins and Company, LLC The
recommendation rating for this book appeared in the June 2003
issue of Executive
Times URL
for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Good
Business.htm For
Reprint Permission, Contact: Hopkins
& Company, LLC • 723 North Kenilworth Avenue • Oak Park, IL 60302 E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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