Hierarchies for Flow and Profit [Archive.org URL]

Businesspeople are mostly in the dark about how their organizational design — the “lines and boxes” signifying reporting relationships in a hierarchy — should be arranged. But most businesspeople can tell when it’s working and when it’s not, because they know when they’re in the “flow zone.” A number of researchers, most prom­inently the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, have identified the value of flow, the state in which people feel happy and fulfilled be­cause they are completely absorbed, caught up in the activity at hand. In organizations, flow typically takes place when the challenges of a job fit naturally with the capabilities that people bring to it.

Like this content? Why not share it?