Tolstoyan Flow

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

So wrote Leo Tolstoy in (1870). Tolstoy is a favourite observer of human nature. In partial fulfillment of my graduate studies in leadership and learning communities (training) at Royal Roads University, I drew upon the character of Levin and his immersion into process. Profound! It resonates with Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow which he describes as,

being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost.

Most of us have experienced this sense of morphing into the action of the moment--it is consummately satisfying. Sadly, however, most people do not experience this at work. It is usually a hobby or some passionately engaged activity outside of the workplace. For those of us lucky enough to have passion for our work, the challenge can be to remember that one person's flow is another persons "stuck"! For those of us who have or are now leading organizations, the challenge is to find ways to spot, enable and empower flow within structures that often work in the opposite direction.

How does flow factor into knowledge management? It's worth engaging over!