Book Review

Question

Option A: On pages 92-96, Csikszentmihalyi discusses three reasons flow doesn’t happen in the workplace. Either drawing from your own experience or the experiences of other people you know, write a detailed post explaining how your workplace experience (or that of the other person) presented obstacles to flow. You are free to tie what you say to the content of Chapter 5 and/or Chapter 6, but do keep this personal, concentrating on your experience or the experience of the other person. If you don’t have an example from the workplace, feel free to talk about experiences within other organized settings, such as clubs, non-profit initiatives, or student organizations.
Book name: Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2004). Good business: Leadership, flow, and the making of meaning. New York, NY: Penguin.

Answer

Workplace Experience Presenting Obstacles to Flow

My friend once shared with me his experience while working at a high-end actuarial firm in New York City. He had graduated among the best in his class and had done some of the professional papers that ensured he qualified as an Associate Actuary. Furthermore, before his employment, he had four years’ experience attained while working at a local bank. However, he happened to have been employed as a Junior Consultant in the Consultancy Department at the firm, a position which did not match his skills and prowess. He was only required to prepare reports and presentations based on desk research, conduct interviews with customers and present outcomes to the senior partners of the firm. Additionally, he would occasionally coordinate some minor projects depending on the amount of workload assigned to him by his superiors.

He narrated to me how trapped he felt while working at the firm primarily because he was overworked and was not accorded the chance to exploit his optimal potential. He always had the desire to take his career a notch higher, but he could not flourish under the present workplace conditions. His goals and aspirations were not well-positioned to match those of the organization. Priority was given to all organizational objectives at the expense of employees’ career development goals, aspirations and preferences. According to Csikszentmihalyi (2004), the concept of flow is often misconstrued especially in cases where there is a lack of clear-cut goals and imbalance of skills and challenges. Such factors often lead to massive job failure since the flow is positively correlated with achievement and its robust development could impose substantial repercussions in aggregating workplace satisfaction and boosting performance and accomplishment levels at large (Csikszentmihalyi,2004). It is imperative that employers match activities and create workplace environments that are favorable to flow to increase experiences of flow in the workplace to improve overall performance.

References

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2004). Good business: Leadership, flow, and the making of meaning. New York, NY: Penguin.