I have the honor of a post in today's Harvard Business Review Blog: Help Your Employees Find Flow.
Holacracy. Results-Only Work Environments. These new, more flexible ways of working may be a step too far for many organizations. Still, greater employee freedom can create a better sense of “flow,” which enhances engagement, retention, and performance. This can be achieved by loosening your grip on work practices — but you don’t have to let go completely: remove obstacles, set boundaries and meaningful goals, then let work take its course.
Stefan Groschupf, founder and CEO of Datameer, a big data analytics company, talked with me about how he tries to reduce negative interruptions and increase “flow.” His industry is one of the most pressured to recruit and retain top talent. He’s finding that the organization is more productive (e.g., has more leads generated in marketing or has engineers moving through projects more quickly) with active management of interruptions and engagement to enhance flow.
Please take a look at the full post as Stefan Groschupf provides some great insights. Two things I loved about our conversation:
- He can test his beliefs given Datameer's focus on data-driven business. They are always tracking results. This isn't flow for the sake of flow. It's flow for the sake of business.
- When I asked him about examples related to my ideas of you can lead by letting go, he didn't back off. For him, it's about the work. This seemed to parallel the "Lead, Follow, and Get Out of the Way," conversation I had with Marc Klein, Event Manager and Associate Principal at Populous. The addition of technology may give leaders more confidence in their ability to keep track of the work process, and thus, enable them to let work go with the flow, rather than needing to keep a death grip on the business.
