Flow is a state we experience when we are fully absorbed in an activity, accompanied by a motivated and energetic focus. In a moment of team flow, we experience this together while performing mutually dependent tasks for the team’s interest. We then perform at our best as a team, experience greater satisfaction and happiness, and are truly meaningful to what the team was created for.

By conducting both quantitative and qualitative research, we found out the conditions and experiential characteristics of team flow. You can find the scientific publications here. To help professionals working together in teams identify the conditions for team flow, we developed a Team Flow Canvas. Through various methods, team members can work together in preparation for a joint activity to concretize and shape the conditions step by step. Very practical! Examples of methods are structured brainstorming sessions with post-its, LEGO SERIOUS PLAY, appreciative inquiry, or handstorming. Many methods can be used or thought up. As facilitator, choose what fits best with the team members involved!

The Team Flow Canvas helps team members to gradually create the conditions for experiencing team flow. Always use the Team Flow Canvas to kickstart a new collaboration or project and bring yourself and your team back into team flow every time!

You can download the Team Flow Canvas here. For an English version, you can email us. It is recommended to print it on A0 or A1. Preferably as large as possible. If you do not have a printer, you can order printed versions with us per 10 pieces. We will then send them to you. Mail us at: info@flowconcepts.nl

In this blog, we will briefly explain and instruct on the suggested steps on the Team Flow Canvas one by one. Want to hire us to guide a team session using the Team Flow Canvas? Then send an email to: info@flowconcepts.nl

1) Intrinsic Motivation

To experience team flow, it is essential to start with the individual. After all, you want each team member to be intrinsically motivated to participate in the intended collaboration. From our research, we know that intrinsic motivation in collaborations is based on what one finds meaningful, challenging, or fun. Shared intrinsic motivations arise from shared values, aspirations, and fun. In addition, it is vital that team members feel comfortable in the team, that is, that the atmosphere and team spirit are right. On the Team Flow Canvas, we therefore formulated a number of questions at step 1 that team members may answer individually at the start (of a new project, season, period, sprint, or year). In doing so, it is crucial to write down the answers to the questions before sharing them. You will often find that many of the answers given overlap. It is important to draw attention to that as well. This is because the shared denominators in the answers are excellent input for shaping the collective ambition in Step 1. Want to add some more questions to step 1? Especially do so! Here are some suggestions:

• What connects you to your team(s)?
• What is your unique contribution to the team?
• Where is your challenge in joining this team?
• What will you bring and take away in working together on this team?
• What are your expectations around working together on this team?
• What do you need to feel like a fish out of water within this collaboration?
• Who would you like to be there for in working with your team members?

2) Collective ambition

Now, based on the shared answers in step 1, briefly and powerfully describe the collective ambition of the (project) team. Assume that a collective ambition can never be fully captured in words. It does not have to be perfect. It is purely a first step. It may be formulated abstractly and poetically, but that is not necessary. It may also be very concrete. Be careful not to formulate team goals that must be achieved within a certain time frame. That’s not the point, that’s the next step. Here are some guidelines for formulating a collective ambition. The formulated collective ambition:

• Comes from the shared intrinsic motivations of all team members.
• Expresses what one is there for as a team.
• Expresses what one wants to mean to each other.
• Expresses what one wants to mean to those to whom one delivers something (chain partners, internal departments, customers, suppliers, patients, supporters, citizens, society, etc).
• Is inspiring and enthusiastic.
• Expresses the atmosphere and/or style in which one likes to work together.
• Expresses what one excels at as a team.
• Expresses why this team is able to meet certain challenges.

The collective ambition, as mentioned above, can be formulated with some fancy phrases and/or some powerful statements. Both are good. This possibly reinforced with some images or metaphors. Images and metaphors often say more. The ultimate goal is for everyone to feel like working together after reading the collective ambition. The formulated collective ambition then forms the core of the intended collaboration. From this comes a common language from which to communicate, set goals, divide tasks and make choices.

3, 4 and 5) Team goals

Now that the collective ambition has been established, you can begin to agree on concrete team goals. Team goals are often milestones in collaborative projects. So things that you deliver or achieve together at a certain point in time. If you formulate several, do so in order of time. It is important that everyone stands behind the established team goals. When formulating team goals, it is sometimes advisable to reason backwards in time and always do so in line with the formulated collective ambition!

On the Team Flow Canvas, formulate at least 1 concrete challenging team goal. This should be the team’s goal that must be achieved or delivered first in time. Once you have this closest team goal clear, you can start working on tomorrow’s task assignment. Determine for each team goal how and when you will organize the evaluation (feedback method) with each other. This is both at the result level and at the process level. The evaluation of the result is purely about the delivered product or service. The process is purely about the collaboration process towards delivering the product or service. You could use the TeamFlow App (web application) to evaluate the collaboration process and optimize it in the future.

Here are some suggestions for setting team goals:

• Make sure the team goal is worded in a unifying way. For example, use the we form.
• Set team goals clearly (concretely).
• Make sure that the established team goal is (very) challenging to achieve, but realistic and/or achievable. In other words, seek out the edges especially when the team is ready to do the same.
• Try to make the established team goal sound as useful as possible. It should feel useful to take this step together or face this challenge together.
• Try to make the established team goal innovative as well.

6) Alignment of Personal Goals & Pooling of Forces.

After you have determined the team goals, discuss with each other for each team goal which tasks (activities) and/or roles must be taken up to achieve this team goal. This includes a deadline. Roles often do not have a desired delivery moment but are continuous or have an end date. Write down ‘continuous’ or the end date after which the role no longer needs to be picked up. The end date is then often the same as the team goal deadline.

Then also name which qualities of a person are desired in this regard. This is the basis for linking team members to the tasks and/or roles. Ideally, you should always link at least two people to a task/role. This way you always have a backup or wingman (advisor or helper). So formulate the tasks and roles as clearly as possible! The person who will perform them then knows exactly what is expected of him.

Is the division of tasks/roles clear? Then determine what additional focal points are for the execution. This may allow you to make the task or role more challenging for the couple in question. In order to experience flow, it is important that the assigned task or role is both challenging and achievable.

Finally, determine the feedback methods for each task/role and also link a date and time to that. Often this is at the same time as the team goal evaluation.

In this first inventory on the Teamflow Canvas, you do this only for team goal 1. Later you can do this for the other team goals as well. Decide together when it is best to do this. If the task/role list is too short use post-its and stick them underneath.

7) Open Communication

The alignment and evaluation moments defined above already form a system of communication and desired constructive feedback. But, you may want to make these even more open, direct or constructive. So fill in measures in this input field that provide this. For example, you can think of an open archive, digital platform, daily standups, etc. Anything that does not hinder or distract from progress, but rather promotes it.

8) Safe Climate

Safety is essential when facing (risky) challenges. Therefore, determine together what measures you can take so that everyone feels physically, psychologically and socially safe. Measures here can be determined very broadly. Consider, for example, wearing a helmet (physical), linking master-mate relationships (psychological), and agreeing on desired behavior (social). It is also very important here to cover unnecessary and/or unacceptable risks. So take a moment to take stock of this and take measures for this where you can!

For psychological safety, it is especially important to create a climate in which people dare to make mistakes in order to learn from them. So make the feedback moments psychologically safe for each individual team member. Make sure that appreciation is also expressed in such moments and that people listen to each other as to why things may not have gone well once. Give improvement suggestions (feedforward) in an understanding and respectful manner. Show empathy! It’s often not because of the person, but rather the system. So make the system (climate) in which you work together safe!

9) Mutual Commitment

By completing the fields above, team members are already making many mutual commitments with each other. However, you may want to agree on some additional commitments with each other that strengthen the mutual bond with each other and increase the achievement of the collective ambition and team goals. Then record these commitments here.

It makes sense to visibly post this inventory in the team environment. Then also incorporate it into existing (digital) planning systems (such as Asana, Trello or Productive, for example). When you are ready to draw up the task division for team goal 2, use a new Teamflow Canvas and go through all the steps again.

From Individual Flow to Team Flow

Actually experiencing team flow begins as individual team members experience flow when performing personal tasks and roles for the team. Hence, we provide a few more suggestions that you can use in preparation to incrementally increase the likelihood that flow can be experienced at the individual level when performing the distributed tasks and/or roles. We do this using the six conditions for individual flow:

• Intrinsic motivation / Satisfaction: When dividing tasks and roles, always choose a task or role that brings satisfaction and that you can enjoy. For example, because you find this task or role important, educational or just plain fun.
• Clear near goal: In preparing for task performance, look for clear (near) goals. So determine what the milestones or anchor points are in the execution of your personal tasks and roles.
• Challenge balanced with skill: Make sure the task or role performance is a positive challenge to yourself. A challenge that is balanced with what you can do. Perhaps you may put this challenge just up there; you can often do more than you think yourself capable of. It shouldn’t be high stress and it certainly shouldn’t be boring. So go find what your personal challenge level is for flow!
• Direct and constructive feedback: Make sure you receive direct and constructive feedback while performing your personal tasks or roles, so you know at any time how you are doing and what the next step should be.
• Supreme concentration: Maintain a state of supreme concentration while performing your personal task or role. You can achieve this by, for example, eliminating unnecessary distractions in the environment and in your own head. Distractions in your own head can also prevent you from concentrating sufficiently. Make sure your own head is empty. There are plenty of techniques for doing this.
• Sense of control over personal task or role performance: Try to avoid fear of failure as much as possible so that a sense of mastery over the situation can develop. This is also trainable by applying breathing techniques, self-talk or attention styles, for example.

Thus, the probability of the above six conditions being present during personal task or role performance can be increased by proper preparation. After preparation, one then proceeds to perform the tasks and roles. It is then important for each individual team member to let go of everything for a moment and concentrate fully on what is about to occur and to be fully in the “now”. It is then most likely that during the execution of the personal tasks or roles, the three experiential characteristics of individual flow will occur. The three experiential characteristics are:

• Sense of oneness with the task or role: You become one with the activity/task.
• Action and awareness come together during task or role performance: You are super alert and therefore act intuitively or spontaneously.
• Transformation of time awareness: The awareness of time disappears when it is not part of the personal task or role. Time then often seems to fly by or stand still at times because one is so deeply focused.

If both the conditions and the experiential characteristics for individual flow occur during personal task or role performance, we can actually speak of an individual flow experience. This flow experience can still vary in intensity. In the case of very challenging tasks that require a lot of concentration, we speak of deep flow; if the challenge and therefore the ability to concentrate are less intense, we speak of microflow. If everyone experiences flow at the same time, we can speak of team flow. The entire team then seems to act as one organism. We then share these beautiful moments of optimal cooperation with each other and often enjoy them for a long time afterwards!

In conclusion

Want to learn more about team flow and learn to work with tools like the Teamflow Canvas, the Teamflow Monitor, the Teamflow App, the Teamflow Game, etc? Then register here for one of our open Teamflow Training programs. Would you like to attend an in-company program with your colleagues, please send an email to: info@flowconcepts.nl.

We wish you lots of flow in working with your teammates!