Jef J.J. van den Hout - Team Flow: The psychology of optimal collaboration

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We human beings have an innate need to connect with each other, and all the more so in individualized Western societies. In an era when trust, respects, support, and psychological safety are both highly prized and difficult to achieve, we are lonelier than ever and in desperate need of a means to connect with one another.

At work we suffer from abuses of power, bureaucracy, politics; from incentives for competition, fear, and low morale; and from a host of other ills that keep us from collaborating effectively. Pigeonholed in jobs that do not allow growth and use of skills, people slack in their work and hate what they have to do.

Looking at the future of our planet, we need talented people to help solve these challenges and reinvent the future.

None of these challenges has an easy solution, but in team flow, there is a key that might help. The ideas and research contained in this book show ways that teams can connect with one another, collaborate effectively, and be empowered to give their best performances.

The acronym TEAM that the authors provide: Together Everyone Achieves More, is a truism that provides a guideline for how humankind can evolve. Through optimal experiences, the possibilities of what teams can accomplish are endless.

With this book, which is based on years of scientific study, Jef and Orin are providing a tool that teams can use to increase their odds of experiencing flow at work. And it could not have come at a better time. Millions of workers spend 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, and 45 weeks a year for 40 years working in the organizations around us. Take a human lifetime, subtract 25 years for training and another 25 for retirement and youll see that people spend roughly a third of their lives working in organizations.

In the advanced economies of the Western world, the following attitude has become increasingly uncommon: Sure boss, you can tell me what to do between 9 and 5, so long as you pay me enough to do what I really want to do between 5 and 9. We are no longer prepared to barter away that enormous chunk of our time on this earth. Increasingly, workers demand meaning from their work, to know the intrinsic reward of losing themselves in their work. They want to feel that they, and the people they work with, are making the most of themselves. Jef and Orin show what organizations can do to foster those kinds of flow experiences. The book helps leaders and professionals create and manage their teams in ways that increase the likelihood and frequency of collective flow experiences while at the same time reducing stress and apathy.

The central element of their theory is the concept of a collective ambition: to strongly desire the same thing together. A collective ambition is hugely valuable for its ability to motivate professionals and increase job satisfaction, productivity, and cooperation. These are all prerequisites for the team flow experience. A jointly created and broadly supported collective ambition is what opens the door to team flow.