Author: FinKingma

When was the last time you were working on something and completely forgot the time? You were so immersed in your activity that you actually forgot your next meeting and got there late.

A state of flow

This is called a ‘state of flow’. Csikszentmihalyi writes about this state of flow in his book. He describes this as an ecstatic state. Being in a state of flow feels like immersing yourself completely in whatever you are doing. Nothing matters, but the task you are focusing on right now.

Some great side effects are that the state of flow also increases our happiness and our performance. Whenever we enter this ecstatic state, we are more capable of solving the complex problems we are facing on a daily basis.

Match your task challenge to your current skill level

You can achieve this state of flow by working on something that:

• Requires an above average skill level.
• Has an above average challenge level.
• The challenge level matches your current skill level.

When the challenge of your task does not match your current skill level, two things can happen:

• Anxiety. When you are working on a task of which the challenge level is too much for your current skill level, you will experience anxiety. Over time you will experience pressure and stress. If you continue in this state for a longer period, this could even lead to physical complaints like a burnout.
• Boredom. But if you work on a task which is too easy for you, you will get bored. The most direct consequence is that you will start making mistakes, simply because you don’t take your task seriously. But over time this could also lead to demotivation because you stopped learning new things.

Beware of distractions

But there is one other thing that can break your state of flow: distractions.

Getting in a state of flow takes time. For a normal person, it takes around 20 minutes to reach a state of flow. So every time you get distracted by a phone call, WhatsApp message or a colleague with a question, it will take time to get back into this state of flow. Unfortunately, we are subject to distractions a lot throughout a day.

Some simple tricks to handle such distractions:

• Disable notifications of emails and WhatsApp messages and only check them when you have time.
• Use the rubber duck. Place a rubber duck on your desk whenever you are trying to get into a state of flow (and let your colleagues know you are not to be disturbed when the rubber duck is present).

Whatever you are working on, try to enter the state of flow. It will improve your happiness and performance.

I remember when the Product Owner stepped into our room with a new user story. He asked if we could make a minor change to one of our web pages. What he did not know is that nobody understood the code, nor the ancient documentation that was written for this webpage.  After running a few tests we even discovered that half of the features did not even work. We made a proposition: we implement this user story if we get three extra weeks to rebuild this page and rewrite the documentation. Luckily our awesome Product Owner understood our situation and we managed to get these extra weeks.

This type of motivation is called autonomy and is the subject of this blog post.  Autonomy is the need to be self-directing, to have the freedom to decide how we live our life. At work, this could be understood as doing what’s right, instead of what’s expected of you.

Autonomy is highly dependent on the other two motivational factors: Mastery and Purpose. Because as we grow more competent in our skills (mastery) and discover what our environment wants to achieve (purpose), we can determine for ourselves what the biggest problems are in our environment, and how we can solve them. And that’s what autonomy is all about: the need to be able to do the right thing, the right way.

Don’t forget responsibility

Autonomy is not just about having the freedom to do things the right way. Because with this freedom, we become empowered to change our environment. But we must never forget the words of uncle Ben: “With great power, comes great responsibility”. And with empowerment, comes responsibility as well.

This is a common problem in IT organizations. With the rise of Agile, many organizations have given their teams more freedom to deliver great software. When these teams don’t make responsible decisions or fail to live up to expectations, they will lose the trust of their stakeholders, and the company.

How to motivate based on autonomy

Autonomy is the most complicated factor in creating a motivational environment. Especially because based on your employees’ mastery and purpose levels, they will require more or less autonomy. The need for autonomy is different per person, but also different over time. And to make matters worse, the person who wants autonomy is never the person who can give it. In most cases, managers are the ones who must provide the right amount of autonomy for their employees.

As you can imagine, this isn’t easy for managers either. To understand how to effectively motivate employees based on autonomy, keep the autonomy slider in mind:

The Autonomy Slider

The idea behind the autonomy slider is:

1. You don’t just give people full autonomy, you gradually increase their level of autonomy, based on how much responsibility they can handle. Every time your employees prove they can handle this and want more, you can increase their level of autonomy, by adjusting the slider.
2. You specify which responsibilities come with a certain freedom. Make sure employees understand how to fulfill these responsibilities (make sure the team understands what you mean with terms like predictable). There is no fixed amount of levels of autonomy, just add new levels as your employees grow.
3. As an employee, you can also initiate the discussion to get more autonomy. As long as you accept the responsibility that comes with it. That’s exactly what we did as a team, in the example I started this blog post with.

Rules of thumb:

• Make it visible. Whether you use this slider on employees or for entire teams, make sure the freedom and responsibilities are visible to them at all times.
• Management facilitates. With employees gaining autonomy, the role of management becomes more facilitating and less directing. The time of you telling people what to do will be over. Facilitating is about creating a common understanding of what we want to accomplish and letting teams find their own way to get there.
• People make mistakes. Whenever people try new things, they will make mistakes. Whenever employees take on new responsibilities, expect them to make mistakes. Don’t try to correct these mistakes beforehand, or else they won’t learn from them. Encourage them to make these mistakes and learn from them.

Always remember that autonomy is something that you scale up or down, based on the needs of your employees. And remember that autonomy doesn’t come cheaply, it consists of both freedom and responsibility.

After all, autonomy is the need to be able to do the right thing, the right way. The need to be self-determined.

As to what happened with the story of the webpage that we rebuild? Two months later, our Product Owner told us how rebuilding this page has reduced the number of calls to the complaints department with 90%! Normal user stories can’t tweak those kinds of numbers, but standing up for what’s right clearly can. So next time you see an opportunity like this, stand up and fight for what’s right!

I was 21. I just graduated from MBO college, it was night and I was strolling around town with a couple of friends. We just celebrated our graduation and did not want to go home. After a few hours, we got lost and arrived at this big haunted mansion. We saw a sleek figure standing at the entrance. He was looking directly at us, and asked: “Would you like a tour?”, inviting us in. For a second we looked at each other and then we succumbed to our curiosity, following the man into the mansion. With no idea what could happen next.

Throughout my life, I have done several stupid things like the example above. And I knew these were not my brightest moments, but my curiosity simply took over. I wanted to explore or discover something (and I also love to get a good story out of it).

But whether you love taking risks and doing stupid things, or you prefer to dive into books and study in a safe zone, we all have the same internal drive to learn, to grow and to become the best version of ourselves. This is called ‘mastery’ and it is the subject of this blog post.

Mastery or Competence

The term ‘Mastery’ for motivation was coined by Dan Pink in his book Drive. However, the original theory of Intrinsic Motivation (Self Determination Theory) used a different word: competence. Both words more or less mean the same thing, however:

• Mastery focuses on being the best at something.
• Competence focuses on being effective in your environment.

The big distinction here is that competence specifies the environment, stating that learning is only motivational if your new skills are relevant in your day-to-day environment.

Example: when I give a presentation about cooking noodles at my IT client, I can expect a low turnout. But if I talk about how cooking noodles have helped me understand software code, I can expect a much higher turnout. People will be motivated because they think they can learn something relevant to their job.

Organizing a motivational environment based on mastery

The most important ingredient for a motivational environment, based on mastery, is to create a platform for people to learn. Important is to have participants reserve an X amount of time to gather at location Y with the sole purpose of gaining and sharing knowledge. The most effective way is to schedule a recurring moment where people can share knowledge. Some examples of platforms are:

• Innovation Days. One day every 6 weeks, on which employees decide what they work on. As long as they present their newly gained knowledge at the end of the day.
• Lunch Sessions. Having presentations and brainstorms during lunch. In advance, participants can vote or share their favorite subjects, or movies that they want to broadcast during the lunch session. You could play TED videos for example.
• Recently I heard about the Morning Study. In which you reserve one hour during each morning (daily from 10 till 11 for example), during which team members have time to read books about their field of expertise, watch TED videos, or debate new practices of work.

What can you do yourself?

Every individual can make a difference. With these simple tricks you can start to create a motivational environment based on mastery, without the need to organize entire platforms:

• Ask for and give feedback. Feedback is the primary measurement to discover if what you have learned is relevant in your environment. By giving feedback, you motivate someone to keep/stop behaving in a certain manner. And by receiving feedback, you will discover if what you have learned can contribute to your environment.

• Try and fail. Experimenting (and making mistakes) is the best way to grow and to learn new things. If you only know the fastest way to the bus stop, you will have little understanding of the area. Perhaps you are even missing out on a spectacular view along the way. Try different approaches to learn new things and to truly understand how things work.

So whatever your role in within your company, you can help to create a motivational environment, based on mastery. Just give and ask for feedback, and keep on experimenting.

And as for the haunted mansion… our guide was playing pranks on us the whole time to scare us off. But we managed to stay with him until the end of the tour, and then we even watched a nice Phil Collins DVD together. The mansion was beautiful and we got some nice history lessons about the building.