HappyVentures

One of the ways that you can keep focus and momentum in your work, and really begin enjoying your business, is to find your natural motivation and work with your strengths...

Before Positive Psychology became a "movement" there were a number of voices in the wilderness who were researching and imagining a world where optimal experience (rather than dysfunction) would be used as a guide for how to live a more fulfilling life.

One of these voices was Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (chick-sent-me-high) and he popularised the concept of "flow". Flow is that state of being where you get lost in whatever you're doing, time seems to alter and before you know it, it's dinner time... According to Csik's theory, creating "good work" is a combination of experiencing Flow and contributing to something larger than yourself.

Flow is simply getting the balance between skills and capacity right. They've found that the conditions for experiencing Flow are:

1. The goals are clear
2. Feedback is immediate
3. There is a balance between opportunity and capacity
4. Concentration deepens
5. The present is what matters
6. Control is no problem
7. The sense of time is altered
8. There is a loss of ego

And the contribution part can be achieved through what Csik called Growth Toward Complexity (social, cognitive, emotional) - which happens as a result of two processes: Differentiation and Integration (realising we are individuals as well as part of a group). Phew... simple ;-).

ACTION Applying the wisdom of Flow to your work

1 .You've probably experienced Flow at some time in your life. Think of an activity you really enjoy doing, something where you find you get completely immersed in it and seem to lose all concept of time when you're doing it.

2. Write down what you do when engaged in your Flow activity. What do you like about it? How does it differ from the activities that you're not that fond of doing?

3. Take all the elements of your Flow activity and now, apply them to a current work activity. How is your work activity different?

And if we look at applying Csik's conditions...

Do you have a clear goal?
Do you have the skill to reach the goal?
How do you get feedback?
What opportunities to expand your capacity are there within this activity?
How could you use this to learn and grow?
And if you could loosen your control of everything and stop micro-managing, how could you allow your natural capacity to flourish?
And, what if you ditched the ego and started giving and sharing (rather than taking or defending)?

Now, what does your work look like when you're in Flow?

Stop struggling. Begin enjoying.

Business books are boring and dry, right? Not in this case, where the viewpoints and experience of this CEO of one of Brazil’s largest and most diversified companies is so different from anyone else’s. Semco has no business plan, no written mission statement, no separate offices (bosses get no secretaries or PAs). Everyone, including production line workers, sets their own working hours and their preferred working days. Anyone can have a siesta in one of the workplace hammocks, and Semler has an aversion to firing people (in one example in the book, he offered an underperforming employee six different changes of job, figuring eventually she’d find somewhere to suit her. On her sixth job, she did). Semco doesn’t even have a defined type of service that they provide - they’ve done everything from build industrial scales to managing other companies’ HR departments.

Now there are lots of companies who are heralded for doing some of these things, but Semco has a radical commitment to work freedom and democracy. It's so unique, people waited for two years to tour their offices. I think it’s exciting in this day and age of bottom-line-first and Work Choices legislation that anyone would start a company like this. Ricardo Semler is not a natural writer - he meanders like a drunk. He’s also the first to admit many workers are afraid of too much freedom. For example, he says none of their male employees have taken the paid paternity leave option. Nonetheless, The Seven Day Weekend is a wonderful wake-up call to employees slaving in crap jobs, CEOs addicted to cowboy capitalism and happy venturers writing their own rulebook.

This review first appeared on ABC Coast FM 1 September 2006. You can read all Carolyn's reviews at www.noosabooklovers.com

With rising petrol prices (and moving out of the big smoke), connecting with friends, family, colleagues and clients can be a costly and time-consuming prospect. So I've had to check out other meeting "options".

I first came across the wonder of "teleconferencing" when I did my coach training. I found out that you can get hundreds of people on one telephone call (or a "bridge line") and deliver a class or have a discussion or really do whatever you want.

Now, at about the same time that teleconferences became part of my life, I was doing coaching triads by phone and discovered the "Three Way Chat" feature that is available on most Australian phones. With "Three Way Chat", each person on a call can call two others, and you can set up a telephone daisy chain. (You've just got to remember not to get too carried away in conversation when you ring the second person, and forget to reconnect the other callers... oops ... did I do that?)

I've been using both conferencing technologies for about five years now and I love them. You can check out how to do a Three Way Chat at the front of your White Pages telephone book (in Australia anyway). And if you have more than three or four people, you may wish to investigate a conference line. You can get free US lines at places like www.freeconference.com. You do need to check that your telephone service provider has capped international calls, or get an International Calls Phone Card from someone like GoTalk (available at newsagents) where you'll be paying a couple of cents a minute to call the US.

It's much cheaper than travelling all over the countryside, and it also opens up WHO you can connect with. Suddenly there are no geographical boundaries... just negotiating time zones.... Bring me the Tardis!

I've been re-writing my website this week. It's been a culmination of a few months of work with my coach (known to my friends as "my coach Kate") clarifying the who, what, how, why (!), etc of my business and, most importantly, how I can most effectively communicate it. At one point in our conversations I just had this exasperated rant about who and what I actually wanted to work with... It surprised the heck out of me, and I realised I'd found what I was truly passionate about. It went something like this:

I want to help you have the job, work, career, business that makes you jump out of bed in the morning thinking "Yeah...Bring it on!"

I want to help you live a long, healthy life.

I want to help you have a deep inner peace that guides you in your life.

I want to help you find happiness.

I want to help you know who you are and what you are on this earth for.

I want to help you feel confident in always walking your own path.

And after five years of developing my coaching and my understanding of human behaviour, I believe I now have the strategies and techniques that make it happen.

I'm ready.

Are you?

I have two spots available in my coaching program. If any of the things on the list above sound like something you'd like more of, then drop me a line. (You can check out pricing, structure, etc at www.worklifedesign.com.au/superservices.htm)

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AUSTRALIA: QLD: SUNSHINE COAST

Coach Meet

Calling all coaches on the Sunshine Coast... Come meet other coaches on the coast, share resources, techniques, experiences, knowledge, and more. Next meet is on Friday 27 October, 2006 from 3.00pm to 4.30pm at Mooloolaba. Call Trish on 07 5485 1811 to find out more.

happy ventures is for business owners who realise a successful business is not only reflected by your financial bottomline but also by how much you enjoy what you do. happy ventures is published sort-of-monthly by Trish Weston and unless otherwise attributed, everything is her opinion. She'll occasionally back something up with evidence and research, but only if it improves the story. If you have any feedback or suggestions, please feel free to email her.

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