That moment when creativity is flowing… when you are with your team and you are cooking on a project. The world and all of its problems melt away. Our lives have purpose, direction, meaning, and we can feel our passions rising within us. In these moments we find a bond and rhythm where we tap into our emotions, ideas, and feel invigorated.
Have you had meetings / sessions like this with your team? They exist … they are powerful and they don’t have to be random.
To find the ‘high’ of working together, you must capture this lightening. It is possible except the ingredients are unique to every organization. People are unique and so those powerful meetings where you ‘flow’ together is too.
How can you achieve flow for impactful meetings with your team?
If these types of meetings are unicorns, the best plan is to begin with post meeting reflections. Literally after each meeting, ask the team — was this meeting valuable; did we hit our goals; how do we feel? You’ll know in your heart how it felt, and that is the truest barometer.
In meetings where you feel a high and connection with the team, save the last 5 minutes to debrief with your team. Ask the following, so that you can steer the universe again in your favor:
- Why did this meeting have such a feel and flow?
- How did we organize / set the expectations that led to this result?
- What personality or meeting format contributed to this success?
- Who was involved? (do we see patterns of flow meetings vs fractured)
Now in one meeting you’ll not see patterns, but if you reflect and then continue future meetings with the same ingredients — they will.
We are not looking for a static guide for our business, venture, charity, or team. Instead finding how we draw out the best in our people.
Diving deeper, it is considered that flow state is found in autotelic (auto = self + telos = goal) activity, and is something we do for its own sake in which the experience is the main goal. This type of personality predicts greater flow experiences because such a person tends to engage in achievement-related activities for their own sake, in the moment, rather than to receive an external goal later on. You can discover your own predisposition, and see how you fall on this grid.
I have also found that these reflections — looking for flow vs fractured meetings helps find a true north.
True North are the passions, skill, and organic team capabilities that are unique and disproportionally valuable to the market.