The previous blog about Solar Team Eindhoven featured the story of Carijn and Yvo, who became world champions last week (October 2019). In it, we found that team flow starts with collective ambition, a shared intrinsic motivation that everyone thinks: I want to be part of that! From this, shared goals can be set, and individual team members can contribute. So, in this way, personal goals are aligned, and team members are consciously deployed to their strengths. In this way, you take on one challenge after another as a team and get more and more into flow, provided the communication is open and constructive and everyone feels safe.

But how do you make sure for yourself that you stay in flow? And what happens when you don’t experience flow for a while? Does everyone always have to experience flow in order to contribute to the team process? Do you still belong on the team if you don’t?

These questions preoccupy Tommie Perenboom a lot, then and now, after four years. We look back with him at his participation in Solar Team Eindhoven 2015 and discuss the beautiful and challenging moments.

Introducing

I am Tommie and since two weeks I graduated for the study of industrial design from TU Delft. When I almost finished my bachelor’s in 2014, I wondered what I wanted to do next. I thought it would be nice to gain some extra experience as a board member, and Solar Team Eindhoven offered the opportunity to do something for society at the same time. I applied for an Industrial Design position. After that application round, the former board let me apply for the organization as well. It felt quite flattering to me that they asked me to be head of marketing and communications. So I did that for 1.5 years, including 2 months in Australia. Then I took some time off and finished my master’s degree in Delft.

Personal flow, different for everyone or just not?

Everyone is unique, and each person has personal preferences for activities to get into flow. However, some basic conditions have been scientifically identified that make it easier to get into flow when they are present. For example, the chances are increased if there is a clear goal, immediate feedback, a level of challenge that matches one’s knowledge and skills, and an environment in which one is not afraid of failure and is not easily distracted. Tommie says the following about this:

I’ve been working on it a lot more lately. What allows me to work effectively and efficiently, to work comfortably? What I notice is that I have more focus in the morning. In addition, having a clear goal and sharing the team feeling that we are all going for it. You also need that team to get support from each other when things are difficult, so that you can tap the person next to you and say: “I’m having a bit of trouble with this, want to go for a coffee?

Furthermore, I am very susceptible to the idea of someone breathing down my neck and checking with me to see if I am doing my job correctly. I have always achieved the best results when I feel I am free to do things my way and experiment. In terms of surroundings, I notice that it is different every time: sometimes you want silence, sometimes music and sometimes there can be some buzz. I hardly ever drink coffee, usually no more than one cup a day, otherwise I lose my focus.

So you can see that Tommie is consciously concerned with what is beneficial to get into flow, but also what actually hinders his flow. Flow involves a sense of wanting to be in control of the situation, focus and concentration on the present moment. You act in one fluid motion, become totally absorbed in the activity and lose all sense of time. You act from autotelicity; an intrinsic motivation in which the activity itself is experienced as rewarding.

What went wrong?

Of course, it helps to be intentional about experiencing flow. But which personal characteristics work to your advantage and which to your disadvantage in this regard? Tommie tells us the following:

What I always really enjoyed and got a lot of energy from was presenting in general, giving information and making people enthusiastic about our project. There were almost always a few people coming up to me after the presentation saying they thought it was incredibly cool, but also that they thought I presented it very well. Those compliments gave me some appreciation. That gave me energy. See? I can do something, I do have something to contribute or I do add something to the team.

In addition, visiting companies like Google. Who doesn’t think it’s cool to stop by there and see what just the office looks like. Or pick up one of the various awards we won. We also presented on the children’s program Klokhuis. That kind of activity gave me a lot of energy because I always really enjoyed presenting and could express myself in it.

What I remember very well is that I was allowed to do the Accenture Innovation pitch, we were through to the finals and for that I had to do some pitches and explain things. And there were some jury members from Accenture, ASML and Philips, among others, which of course I found quite exciting. But I stood there very firm and relaxed and even joked a bit back and forth with the audience. At that moment I really felt I was immortal. I was totally in it and that gave me a very nice feeling, I was totally in the flow.

I don’t know if she meant it, but I later heard a juror from ASML say that she thought it would be cool to have me at the company. That gave me very much that affirmation that I was unconsciously working on so much. I got a lot of energy from that but it was only short-lived. Now I see that as a kind of toxic moment, a reversal moment that I now realize that I was looking for my happiness outside of me instead of within myself. Still a beautiful moment, still cool, just a completely different perspective.

At that time, I was very much looking for satisfaction outside of myself. If people outside of me said I was doing well, then I was fine. During my Solar Team period this search for confirmation from others got very out of hand, but I think that four years later I have reached a point where I am starting to appreciate myself. It’s now much more about what I think about myself and that I dare to share that and not be afraid that people won’t understand me. I think it’s not that you only get satisfaction from having your own ideas implemented, but especially by sharing your ideas and working together toward a collective ambition and your personal goals. Standing up for yourself and being assertive is important here because you are the only one who can stand up for your desires. Finding common ground with everyone is not done by eliminating yourself and conforming to others. This is what I did a lot during my Solar Team period. I learned that the common goal comes from the personal goals, but if you don’t share the personal goals and obey others’ personal goals then you don’t feel like you are part of the common goal either.

The risk of ‘just flow’

You would say that you get the best out of yourself when you are always in flow. Yet it can have negative consequences if you keep striving for this without giving yourself rest and reflective moments. Without rest and reflection, people often drift into obsessive behavior, excessive risk-taking, tunnel vision, exhaustion and neglect of long-term goals and values. Whereas Tommie first joins a wonderful project with great enthusiasm and motivation with a very nice collective ambition, a year later he wishes himself into the hospital and no longer feels anything for the success of the project. How could it have come to this? And what would it have taken to prevent it? Tommie says the following about this:

For the scrum mornings I was often reluctant, there I felt very much like I was being controlled if I didn’t do a task. We were also way too ambitious in the tasks at the time, at least I was for myself. For example, I chose six tasks in a day where realistically I could only really do two. So I didn’t complete four of them and as a result I felt I had failed, which meant I felt like a dick in front of that little group. That was the case every morning and it took a lot of energy. I was also not working in a goal-oriented way. I was doing PR and communication, which is not tangible and I didn’t make it tangible, which gave me the feeling of not building anything.

On top of that, I found it very difficult to distinguish substantive discussions from emotional discussions. If I received feedback, I felt like I was being attacked. Every Monday we had a meeting in which everyone justified their own part to the rest. I would talk about communication; everyone has an opinion on that. Then you also have the feeling that you are being judged and that it is not good enough. That was also a huge energy guzzler. These are all things that were going on at the time and piled up together and I ended up in a negative spiral. This pretty much literally nailed me.

I was so exhausted at one point that I was just hoping that an accident would force me to rest. Not long after that, I fell off my bike and landed on my head. I was taken to the hospital and was found to have a mild concussion. The doctor recommended taking one to two weeks off and resting. So I actually got exactly what I asked for but after two days I already felt like I was letting my team down, so I went back to work. As a result, I still didn’t feel better. Two months later we were in Australia and of course I was still exhausted for a while there, but because everyone is tired you think to yourself ‘this is just part of it’. I kept thinking to myself ‘I’m so broken and tired, I can’t do anything anymore, all I can do is stare groggily ahead’. I really couldn’t do any more work. I just wanted rest. Actually the whole challenge didn’t interest me anymore.

Eventually I also fell in Australia and then broke my leg in Alice Springs, in the middle of Australia. Fortunately, there was a hospital nearby where I was carried to. Titanium was put in my leg through surgery and I spent a week in the hospital. I couldn’t go anywhere, so really compulsory rest. Then the emotional release of that whole year came out and I sent a very long email to the team about how I felt that past time. People were very surprised, they hadn’t realized at all that I had felt this way. To their idea, I was always so cheerful and upbeat. So in that respect I had a very good mask on to hide that.

I should have spoken out earlier at the time about how I felt and taken myself more seriously in that. You don’t feel okay, do something about it, talk to someone about it. But I kept thinking to myself that I should be there for the team and solve my problems myself. I didn’t give in to that. While that was precisely why I couldn’t be there for my team. It may be cliché but you can only be there for your team if you are also there for yourself.

In addition, at that time I also felt I didn’t have a friend you can share it with within the team. Because people outside the Solar Team don’t really know that much about what you are talking about or they are too busy with their own things. Also within the Solar Team my social needs were not really met. It’s not bad at all when you don’t find that within the team. So be it and you can do something about it, you can organize a nice dinner every now and then, that’s fine. If that doesn’t work it’s fine too, but then the question is, ”Where do you get it from?” At the time, I also didn’t make sure I left at 5 o’clock on Tuesdays to be at my regular friends’ night out in the evening so I could recharge for a while. I blame myself very much for that. If you have that need and you don’t get it within the team, you could have found it elsewhere.

Especially in Australia, when I was out with my leg, it bothered me. I actually had responsibility for the media car along with a trailer on it. But I then sat in the back of a camper van, because I always had to keep my leg up. I spent a lot of time sitting in the back of the camper, looking out the window, listening to the radio every now and then for form’s sake, but it didn’t really interest me that much either. I felt completely left out. That hurt a lot. I only now realize that I never really felt part of the team. I still don’t know why.

I did talk about it later with the guys and they would say, ”how did you get that?” and then they would very kindly give me an arm around the shoulder or a pat on the back of, ”you just belong, you’re part of the team too, aren’t you?” I still don’t know how I got that into my head. Feeling and reality are not always the same.

So it is important that there is enough safety within a team to be able to share everything with each other. So without a safe climate and open communication, there is a high likelihood of major negative consequences such as team member attrition.

So was this why the Solar Team adventure was only a negative experience?

No, definitely not! For example, it was very cool to witness the preparation. We had already done the whole ride backwards once, ‘trip up’ we call it. That means we also slept in the desert, went through emergency scenarios so we knew exactly what to do if something happened. It’s super cool when all that effort of a month and a half comes together during the race. You know that everyone is going through quite a bit, which of course makes you a little cranky at times, but basically everyone does the things that need to be done without complaining. That’s really cool to see.”

I also learned an awful lot from it. I am very conscious of that. If I want to go home at 5 o’clock at work, I go home and I don’t stay there because everyone else is still there. And I used to do that. Little things, like completely losing yourself in detail work I don’t do anymore. What is the goal? Will this help me reach my goal, yes or no? Schedule the week ahead and stick to it. Things like that bring peace of mind. At the graduate company where I worked there was also someone who is very rational, which I used to feel very quickly attacked by. Now I can almost completely separate that from my emotion. I see now that my Solar Team period taught me that.

Experiencing a moment of flow together:

It is not that a moment of (team) flow cannot occur if there is no optimal environment. On the contrary. Team flow often occurs precisely when the environment is not optimal, such as during a moment of crisis. However, it does help if the basic conditions for flow or team flow are present. You can agree these with each other. For example, you can set a common goal together that is challenging for the team as a whole, establish an open system of communication and set rules of conduct and values that ensure the psychological safety of all team members. This increases the likelihood of team flow, a moment that in retrospect is often thought, “” Wow, something really nice happened here.“” What were the beautiful moments Tommie experienced during his participation in Solar Team Eindhoven:

A real team flow moment I experienced during that time was on the day of the car presentation. We announced that the car would be running, so everyone came to watch and take pictures of a running car. The whole year has been working toward this moment and I have been totally prepared for the presentation I was about to give with a colleague. And then we found out just before the presentation that the car is not running. It’s all ready, I’m all prepared to announce a moving car, with a nice punchline at the end where at that moment the car is going to drive and now just before the presentation, it turns out that it doesn’t drive.

Now what? I can’t present a running car that doesn’t drive. We also don’t know what is wrong with the car, for that we have to take it completely apart. You have to imagine that you are looking at a big 3D puzzle that is incomplete but you don’t know which piece is missing.

Without really thinking about it, immediate action was taken. Stella Lux was shielded and the engineers were given all the space they needed to do their thing and find out what was going on. No one is going to bother them with that now. My job now is to completely focus the presentation and come up with a new punchline in case the problem cannot be solved. Meanwhile, keeping up appearances that nothing is going on.

After taking the car apart and looking for the fault, it turned out that a fuse had blown. The engineers quickly managed to replace it and we were able to fix it before the presentation. I was able to give the original presentation and nobody noticed the crisis situation we were in 10 minutes before.

What’s funny is that when we had driven a show lap, we stopped in front of the press to take pictures of the car with the team. And at that moment the same fuse blew again. While the car still had some way to go to get back on stage. Fortunately, the car is made of very light material and it doesn’t take much force to push it forward. So we all put a hand on the car and the press took pictures of us as we proudly walked along with our car ”driving away.” In reality, we were just pushing it forward…. So we crawled unseen through the eye of the needle, where everyone was standing with their noses on top of them.

The crazy thing is that we didn’t look back on this afterwards either. It all went very naturally and we didn’t really think about how it all went. It was just a successful day, we presented the car as planned. Another milestone was reached and now on to the next one.

So what do you think team flow is?

Team flow for me is a collective flow you share together, problems you solve together, milestones you achieve together, as well as things you celebrate and laugh at the same humor you create. Creating the same vocabulary about situations or discussing things. I think it’s very important that you’ve created your own culture. That culture is very important for flow and it needs to be cultivated as well as guarded.

© Bart van Overbeeke

Reflection

In closing, we ask Tommie about his most important lesson:

I still find out things that I say, ”wow.” I may have learned some skills in that time, but reflecting afterward, that gives so much experience and then at once you see what you’re getting out of it and how you can put that to use. Only then does that realization come. I still have that now, after four years. I still learn things from that experience and in the end I did it for that. I wanted to learn a lot of things and I certainly have. Maybe not so much at the design level or at the organizational level, but learning to stand up for myself for example, to be assertive and to get myself into the flow. Protecting myself when I don’t want to work anymore, that I go home when the day is over instead of staying up until 9 p.m. because I feel like I have to stay up to show that I’m going for it. That’s golden.

Tommie Perenboom has joined Flow Concepts in October 2019. Flow Concepts is very pleased with this new addition and hopes to bring teams within many organizations into flow with Tommie!