Inside Out Culture

Flow states with Jamie MacPherson

• Inside Out Culture • Season 1 • Episode 31

Share episode

In this episode of the Inside Out Culture podcast we talk to workplace culture consultant Jamie MacPherson about the role of flow states in culture.

Key topics covered include:

  • Why clarity is important from productivity
  • How giving teams agency improves intrinsic motivation
  • Why learning helps to maintain momentum
  • Why doing less can lead to more work getting done

Find out more about Jamie:

Jamie MacPherson

https://www.linkedin.com/company/cultureeq/ 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamie-macpherson-b48a3b/ 

---

Join us as we reveal strategies to close the gap and craft a workplace where values are not just spoken, but lived and breathed, paving the way for a more authentic and engaging organisational culture.

Instagram: @insideoutculture

Email your questions to: insideoutculture@gmail.com

Receive the Culture Leaders Action Sheet: bit.ly/iocpmail

Colin:

Welcome to the Inside Out Culture Podcast, where we look at insides of working culture and provide ideas, insights and actions for you to take on the outside. I'm Colin Ellis.

Cath:

And I'm Cath Bishop, and in each episode we'll examine a different question or a different organization, and we'll use case studies, research and our own insights and experiences to help you change the way things get done in your world.

Colin:

We hope you enjoyed today's episode. Please like, subscribe and, of course, let us know what you think.

Colin:

Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Inside Out Culture podcast and, Cath, I'm delighted to say we have our first guest.

Cath:

I know it's exciting, isn't it? We wanted to bring some additional voices. We're always looking for other perspectives on the topic of culture and we are delighted to be joined by Jamie McPherson, who I have personally facilitated alongside and can attest to being a brilliant facilitator. It's also a sports psychologist, so brings lots of different perspectives. But, Jamie, welcome and tell us a bit about your background.

Jamie:

Thank you. Thank you very much for inviting me along. Hello everyone. So I'm Jamie, as Cath said, worked for about seven or eight years with Cath in terms of facilitating cultures, facilitating high performance. My background is 25 years working with people and performance in both organisations and in sports 22 years in UK and Europe, three years in the US.

Jamie:

Came into the world having done a master's in sports psychology, which, in terms of culture, can seem like a sort of a strange circuitous route, but actually I think sports psychology is looking at cultures of teams and organizations and what separates the highest performance from kind of medium or low performance, and taking that thinking and that expertise hopefully both into business, but also in elite sport as well. So I've worked with companies like Microsoft and Coca-Cola, but also, when I was in the US, alongside corporate clients, I provided sports-like support to the Women's American Rowing Squad leading up to the 2008 Beijing Games. So I was a Brit helping the Americans. And, yeah, what I'm really interested in is cultures, the interactions within cultures and how that facilitates high performance, and particularly something called flow, which is a kind of performing state of mind.

Cath:

So we're going to get to that, absolutely, we're going to dive into all of that and I love the sort of multiple perspectives, different size of companies, different countries that you bring to this and breaking it down. Then, yeah, your definition of culture. So tell us a bit more. You started there saying it's the interactions. How else do you think about what culture?

Jamie:

is, yeah, good question. I think culture is quite a big, nebulous topic. Often people talk about needing to change cultures. I think people implicitly recognize that culture is really important in terms of how it contributes to kind of output, but ultimately I would say that culture is about the interactions. So what is the quality of an interaction between two people within a team, within a function, within an organization? Whatever the qualities of that interaction will affect essentially the output of that interaction.

Jamie:

And I would say that what you're looking to do is try and enhance three things. Through an interaction, is somebody clearer about what we're trying to do, both at an individual level or as a collective kind of team level? To what extent, through an interaction, am I not just clearer but also more interested? I think the sexy word is engagement, but ultimately, through an interaction, do I feel like I'm more interested in what I'm trying to do, what we're trying to do? And then thirdly and I think it's more of a sexy kind of phrase nowadays is that sense of have I learned through the course of an interaction? So, am I clearer? Am I more informed about actually what I need to do, more of which might be doing the same thing but keep doing it or maybe things I might need to change because that will improve performance, that will improve output.

Jamie:

If you get all of those three things right through interactions, then generally I think two things happen. One, I'll enjoy my experience of being in a work, being in a team, more, and secondary, performance improves. So for me it's interaction, For me it's a quality of the interaction, which could be leader to team, but it could be kind of teammate to teammate as well. And then the output of that is am I clearer, Am I more interested or fascinated with what we're trying to do and am I learning? And all of those things together can improve performance.

Jamie:

And so, jamie, those I mean 100% agree around the interactions, and I thought it was interesting. You mentioned the link between sports psychology and culture, because I've had quite a few of those conversations with sports psychologists recently and it always comes back to interactions in your conversations with leaders and organizations. Is that something that you feel that there's an understanding of, or there's an acceptance of that actually, if we improve the interactions between humans, it generates greater intrinsic motivation which can lead to results, or do you think it's still misunderstood?

Jamie:

I think, particularly from leaders, there's always a tendency to be thinking about the future, the goals, uh. The next step, which is obviously keen and important and so therefore, what can get overlooked, is the now, which is the interaction, and almost, I suppose, sports psychology over time kind of educates people in the sense of, if you want a particular result, actually the paradox is you need to get more and more focused with the process, which is the stuff you can control, I think, with leaders, they can get seduced into. We need to set visions and strategies, which are all really important, but they can miss that. Actually, if I have a really good interaction with you in my team or you as a kind of a peer leader, if we have a better interaction by definition helping grow clarity, grow interest, grow learning then the next interaction will be easier and then the next interaction will be easier in the service of wherever we're trying to get to. I think it also, and so therefore hopefully reigns in that sense of actually as a leader.

Jamie:

Whilst there are all these big things that I'm accountable for, what also is key is how I show up in the moment, and actually, if I get those things right, then the rest is more likely to fall into place.

Jamie:

And the second thing I think leaders can often feel like I'm responsible and I'm accountable for all these things.

Jamie:

I'm accountable for 200 people or 400 people and it's like I'm accountable, but I have very little control over that, and that can sometimes not be good for someone to feel like, well, where do I control, where do I influence?

Jamie:

But thinking about the interactions as a way of kind of resting back a bit, of actually day to day, I can control how I show up, what impact I have on the people in the teams I'm having conversations with, and that gives me an empowerment and a focus which means that it's like a ripple. Then it becomes a bit of a ripple effect. So I think it's important to remember as a leader, that actually it's the impact that ultimately makes a difference and getting people to focus about that. But at the same time, you've kind of got to have the two things in mind what's the end state we're trying to get to, what's two-year strategy, what's three-year strategy? But almost it's thinking about what does that mean for how I show up as a leader in this moment in this team meeting, mean for how I show up as a leader in this moment, in this team meeting, in this conference, where I am maybe sharing an update or sharing a story of a new direction. Change Does that make sense?

Cath:

Yeah, no, totally. That's making me sort of think a lot about conversations I have and how I'm often trying to rebalance almost the focus of tasks and people. But what actually you're saying that I think would be much better and I'm going to steal is to think about the balance of tasks and interactions. So planning, giving people a way they want to plan their day. The electronic calendar pops up all the sort of tasks and the meetings. But I think if we can start to see those as a series of interactions and the to-do list is you know how do I have better interactions in order to get the task done then that maybe helps us to kind of, you know, actually get the yeah, the quality of those conversations to change.

Cath:

Often when there's a leadership or when there's a culture change program you mentioned this sort of at the beginning it's something that lots of organizations do. They want a shift, they want to go from here to there, and yet I don't always see it focused around interactions. How does that work? How can we help people to translate the culture change they want to see through this means of interactions? What is it that people often miss out, overlook, forget, overplan, underplan? What are those sorts of conversations that you have with organizations to help them get better at the culture change they want.

Jamie:

Good question. I think culture change at its basis is around changing a destination point. So actually the first piece in a culture change is what's the change in performance, what's the change in destination that a team or a function or maybe a big part of a business is trying to achieve, which could be increasing kind of market share or things like that, a getting that clear, I think, first of all. Secondarily, I think there's something around to those three kind of steers that I suggested earlier is being thoughtful around. If that's our new destination we're trying to get to, what does that mean in terms of how do we generate clarity for an individual, for a team, for a function within that large piece? So what does clarity look like? What's their role in? And this is in terms of what they do and what they need to achieve. So, in terms of communicating that or thinking about that, there's something about how you show up as a leader to go well, how do I help somebody build clarity, which could be about visions and about how you storytell and how you provide goals. But it could also be about asking questions and creating a space for people to define that for themselves within the wider kind of parameter. Secondarily, I think there's something for me around giving space and time, particularly at the beginning of a culture change program and we've obviously been part of them together which is around leaders selling at one level but, at another level, giving people space to identify what's interesting, what's engaging, what's exciting, what's amazing about where we're trying to get to and I think this is cliche yin and yang, but the yin and yang of I'll give you some things, I'll give you some possibilities about why this might be interesting and fascinating, which hopefully role models the sense that this is an exciting future to go to as a leader for the team, but also that I give you space and almost participate in a conversation where I'm listening to you to go what might be interesting or exciting about going on that journey for you. So, therefore, you have space to go.

Jamie:

Actually, us breaking into America is exciting for me because I can see a possibility of career growth where I get to work in America or get to work in Europe, wherever that kind of vision might be sending us outset, having space again to ask the question of people what are we learning or what have we learned so far? That gives us confidence that we can go on this new journey. So learning so far could be about what allows us to be successful in various contexts, and I think that the basis of those successes carry forward, whatever the direction is. It's telling us we do these things well, we'll be successful and we'll have momentum and progress, whichever direction we're going in. But having space on a regular basis to ask that question, to get people to self-identify A the progress or the reasons why we can be, and then to the kind of the learning and also to the clarity what's allowing us to be successful and how do we bring that into a new direction.

Jamie:

So I think A there's a destination point, but then the paradox bit and the cultural bit is leaders thinking and being thoughtful around. Actually, how do I, in an interaction which could be a conversation, it could be a team meeting, it could be a conference, how do I provide sufficient clarity or create space for people to create sufficient clarity and what that means for them, for their team? What are the goals, what are the metrics we might need to hit? Secondarily, to identify and share and actually sell what's exciting about that for the business, for you as a leader, but to give them space for people to identify. Well, that would be exciting for me or otherwise. And then, thirdly, to spend time getting people to reflect on what are the reasons why we can, what are the reasons, what's been, for example, successes or things that we've overcome, and what's allowed us to do that, because all of that knowledge can be carried into whichever direction you're going. There's quite a lot of stuff there.

Jamie:

I think one of the challenges, though, to lasting culture change, if you want to call it, or cultural evolution and you touched on it there. You talked about leaders being thoughtful about creating space, and yet many people listening to the podcast will suffer from time poverty. They literally have no idea. No time, and maybe this is a good segue into flow. To what extent, then, is having the time to do this critically important? And then how do you believe and you know, kind of this would be a good conversation for us all to have is how do we believe that organizations need to change, or what do they need to change, in order to kind of give priority to building relationships, being thoughtful about communication, actually creating time to do the things that provide the foundation for change, rather than them just saying we're implementing a new system and with that will come the change, which we all know that it's not the case. So, yeah, time poverty is that part of the root cause of why we don't get the change that we're looking for? You think?

Jamie:

I think, yeah, time poverty is a massive thing.

Jamie:

I think in our work we've done together, I think the key thing is getting organizations and getting cultures to stop in a really effective way.

Jamie:

So when I say stop, stop, it's to create space to reflect in such a way that it becomes weirdly valuable time which allows us to go faster.

Jamie:

Because the doing, doing, time poverty thing is that we're repeating the same behaviors and hoping that we'll get the same result, and stopping can feel like, well, we haven't got't got time for that, we can't stop that. But actually, if you review well enough and if you have those spaces that you use productively enough to go what's working, what do we need to change Then you can accelerate faster as a result and almost gain back the time that's lost. But I think that ultimately, high-performing cultures are much better at doing the and, which is being very focused and doing the do and reflecting in such a way that they can then which is stopping to such a way that they can do their do better and more effectively and with more alarm, so that they get into that kind of process of actually we're not doing, doing, doing all the time. We are as good at stopping to improve performance as doing to improve performance. If that makes sense, I mean that.

Cath:

But that's always a bit of a tension when you've got those pressures yeah, it's a critical learning bit, and I think you know, you see that in sport where actually that the arguably the harshest performance arena there's just no point continually doing the same thing if it isn't really enabling you to get faster or jump higher or row backwards quicker or whatever it is. So, yeah, learning is a real theme coming out, clarity is a real theme coming out, and you talked about experience a few times as well, and we're using this word performance, and what is it that helps us get into a place of peak performance? And I know that's something you've been really interested in, both in your studies but also in the space of your work with companies. Tell us a bit more about that.

Jamie:

Well, I mean, it was the reason I kind of got into sports psychology in the first place is, you know, I used to play sport at school and I got of got into sports psychology in the first place. I used to play sport at school and I got to a reasonably high level as a cyclist back in the day, but I was always curious about how well I performed or not. And I basically had an experience when I was playing cricket, believe it or not at school. I was in the school team and we had a particular game which was called off because, for some reason, the school that we're going to be playing didn't weren't able to show up. So we had a practice match which meant that you were playing against your own team and there was a fast bowler in our team, a guy called steve caruana, who, fast bowler I was. I batted at number four, so I was reasonably okay, good, competent, but he used to scare me because he was a fast bowler. It's quite scary. So whenever we were in practice, it would be quite scary and things like that. Anyway, in this particular game and I don't know where it came from I just had this game, this performance, where, instead of being nervous and anxious and scared. I remember thinking after a while going, this is really easy, and where am I going to hit him next? I remember just thinking and this was crazy. I was like this is so different from how I would normally feel, to the point that I got to 47 and then I was retired because other people needed to have a go, but I was just left kind of going well, where's that come from? Then I went fast forward. I did a master's and I you study in a master's in sports psychology lots of little theories of performance. And this experience and a few others stuck in my mind as examples of where I was just free, I was playing at my best.

Jamie:

And there was an otherness commonly known nowadays as being in the zone. A very wordy Hungarian psychologist called Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi had stumbled upon, or he created a framework around experiences that people had talked about in this sort of strange terms of it was really weird, it didn't happen normally, yet it was clear that I was at my best. Interestingly, climbers often would talk about it Surgeons. So it's not just a sporting domain. There would be you know, surgeons would talk about it as well this sort of experience of being very absorbed, so you're completely in it.

Jamie:

The experience, or implicitly or explicitly, is very challenging, but you want to achieve that challenge, so it's got meaning for you. At the same time, you believe you have the skills to meet the challenge. So it's high challenge, but you've got high belief in your skills to meet it. But, as a result, your absorption draws you in. You feel like you're operating at your best, but you would tend to have more of a calmness come over you. You're not distracted, you have a sense of control, even though you recognize there are things going on in the experience which you can't control. And ultimately, the thing that was interesting is that people loved it for itself. They wanted the experience for itself, irrespective of what the outcome was, although the outcome was often and it's positively correlated with peak personal performances.

Jamie:

So part of my work is always around well, how do you get individuals or teams into this flow state? And the thing that carries is almost how do cultures facilitate that? Because we hear a lot, understandably, about working world and anxiety, stress, all of the things that get in the way of wellbeing. And yet this is an experience which, if you get it right, does the opposite. People love being in it, they love coming to work, they love being absorbed, they're producing their best work and that they love it just for the experience. I mean, they'll get paid and they'll get things like that, but it seems to be an experience which A is where humans let's go big picture are at their best, they're most satisfied, they're at their most intrinsically kind of best. And surely organizations that's kind of that's like the keys to the vault. It's like if you can create a cultural environment which facilitates flow and being in the zone, then so much is possible. And so a lot of my work is almost around.

Jamie:

Back to the beginning piece. How does an interaction help somebody get closer to being in flow and boiling down those kind of characteristics? That's where the if you have greater clarity, generally flow is more likely. If you're more interested, then meaning has gone up. You're more likely to have the energy to put in the effort towards clearer goals. And then, thirdly, if you're learning, then you tend to be more stimulated, you tend to be more interested, you tend to have more understanding of how to do that, which grows your belief in your skills, that you can do it. So that's the kind of concoction we're playing with and it's quite interesting as you get into, flow can be very Eastern and esoteric, but interestingly, in the research which sort of emerged, one of. Well, I'll ask, I'll ask you both what do you imagine is the most daily flow inducing activity in daily life, like an activity which by its very design is more likely to produce flow for people? There was an activity that people do day to day having a shower commuting.

Jamie:

So, funnily enough, driving a car is a very flow-inducing activity which, if you think about it, the nature of the activity, is such that A when you're driving there's a degree of meaning. You don't want to crash that people and often people would talk. We've all had that experience in the days where we used to commute more regularly. Where we drive home on a route we know quite well and we get to that point where I go, I don't remember going around that roundabout because I'm so into the experience. I it's dropped below my level of awareness. I'm so in the moment. So you know the work becomes. How do you facilitate that?

Cath:

well, that's so interesting and and I mean I've thought about it a lot in the sports environment because it is that nirvana, you know it's when everything becomes easy, it's when you have more time, even though you're exhausted. In the middle of a race, yeah, suddenly, or you're really in. You know you're easily synchronous with the people in your rowing boat and uh, and it's beautiful, and you sense the boat lift up, you get that sort of x factor. That isn't just about effort, it's about sort of coming together. So I recognize that that sort of sense. Use the word absorption. I think about you're very in the moment, you're very present and you're absolutely not thinking about the result, you are thinking about the stroke and you're also not sort of thinking about it in an abc. I must put my oar in. You're sort of letting. You're letting your body the blueprint that you have, you're trusting it and you're kind of letting it happen, but also being alert to the environment. You know the roughness of the water and perhaps what else is going on in the race. So you know it's just things that are kind of in that balance and it's very.

Cath:

The other thing, though, that's a world where we were sort of spending all our time trying to get into these peak performance states. It's really, really hard to get there, and so, yeah, I'm interested to ask you a bit about how do we facilitate it. I recognize it in music and in some ways I wonder if music is. I feel music is easier, maybe because there isn't, you know, you're not going through lactic acid in order to sort of play music or in order to enjoy music. For me, music is something that brings me a state of I just lose. You know, I kind of am absorbed by what's going on and it absorbs me sort of mentally, emotionally, physically by what's going on and it absorbs me sort of mentally, emotionally, physically, and so that's the sort of other area I think of it in. But yeah, how do we facilitate it? You talked about clarity, this sort of sense of big moment, what else?

Jamie:

So I mean number one, something which is meaningful, so helping people think about, well, what does this mean for you? So a meaning is a big catch-all. It can be about interest, it could be about fascination. All of these adjectives, I think, speak to a level of interest where I'm drawn in. I remember working years and years ago.

Jamie:

We were doing focus groups with Safeway, the supermarket chain, and we were up somewhere in the north of england and this group were talking about what they enjoyed working in a in a big safeway store and it was all about. It was a cultural change program and there was this lady who'd been quite quiet, who's towards the end of the focus group spoke up and she talked about. She worked on the, on the cash register in the supermarket, and this was sort of mid-2000s where technology hadn't quite kind of caught up. But she talked about loving her job because she loved seeing how the numbers played out. So when she was talking about, what she loved about her job was seeing how the numbers would kind of scroll up, which took everyone by surprise, but it was like she could find there was a fascination to what she was doing. So asking people and getting people to think about what's interesting about that? What's interesting about that for you, I think, is a kind of a key piece, I think secondarily then there becomes a clarity, which we talked about. But I think there's two things here. Number one is asking what's the big thing it will give and what's the output. But also flow is around being clear on what I have to do in this moment. So the process stuff which in terms of culturally often is what's the team charter, what's the way that we've agreed that we're going to work together to have a really great meeting and because that's the process, we're going to listen to people. Clearly we're going to have a clear goal at the beginning of the meeting. We're going to do a review at the end of the meeting. We're going to be open and therefore people can give feedback to one another during the course of. These are all the process goals which allow that would be a second piece.

Jamie:

The bigger picture is being able to give each other feedback, and feedback is often like oh, things you need to change, but actually feedback about what's gone well, because another piece of think about flow is, if you don't have high confidence, it's going to be harder to achieve. So I think some of the work that you and I have done around evidence rules or belief rules, and getting people to think about where we've made progress builds that sense of belief, which builds that sense of actually, even though it's a challenging goal. We've done things like this before, so it means, therefore, your mindset is much more. We can do this and I can stretch myself and I can be less distracted and more focused, because often what takes our focus is doubt, thoughts that we can't do something, thoughts that we aren't going to be good at able to do certain things. But if you build belief, then belief tends to be. I know I can. These are the things I should be doing, that kind of stuff. So meaningfulness, clarity of goal, but clarity of how we'll do it, not just what we're trying to get to at the end.

Jamie:

I think there's something about feedback. I think is the piece. I think there's something about building belief, which is partly learning and reviewing are all bits which help shift the dial. I think, and I think it's key to say with focus and with flow that it's not a black and white experience. You'll have deeper levels of absorption of focus and less deep, and what we're trying to do culturally is, as I like to say, shift the deck more in favor of. I'm more absorbed, I'm clearer, I'm really fascinated. I've got the belief and the learning to know what to do if various things come up and therefore better performances come out, and I enjoy and I'm stimulated and I love the experience for itself so I've just written a whole new framework based on what you just said, that we can obviously now use and cope.

Jamie:

So I've got the a, b, c, d, e, f, g, of right of of delivery. So a is agency, so this is everybody kind of working together, feeling that they have a say we're kind of all one, we're in it. The B is belief. So then it's like gaining that clarity and having that sense of yes, we can do this. Then there's commitment. So we're all committed to this.

Jamie:

There's not one person on one side of the room going I don't believe we can do this. Then there's discipline to actually say we're going to not do that thing which we talked about earlier, but we're going to do this thing instead. Then there's encouragement, because we all hit roadblocks every now and again. There's that constant reminder that we can do it. Then there's feedback, to sort of say I like this, but here's one thing to think about, or this was really good, keep going. And that leads to goal achievement. So there we go a, b, c, d, e. If we had more time we could have done the whole alphabet, but let's just leave it there the a to g of flow in the workplace there it is, yeah, and I think, well, I mean I would say this because I'm biased, but a culture change can be quite nebulous.

Jamie:

B, often people come to culture because of the dysfunction of their current culture, be it because it's toxic, be it because they can't sustain high performance, whatever the reasons might be. And the thing I love about this is it flips it on its head, because if you get it righter rather than wronger, people are more engaged, people are more effective. Goals will come to you that you've set to achieve rather than chasing after them, and so therefore, in theory, it should become wholly more enriching for individuals, for teams, for organizations. I mean, I said it earlier, but I like to say you know, it becomes the keys to the vault in terms of what could be possible, particularly around paying attention to our A, b, c, d, e, f, g.

Colin:

Yeah, there we go.

Cath:

Beautiful. That's our takeaway, I think, isn't it? A to G, jamie, colin Cass. A to G of, yeah, reaching flow in the workplace. So, jamie, you're specialising even more in this space. Now Tell us how can listeners find out more about your thinking and what you do?

Jamie:

I think the best place is LinkedIn, so we have a Culture EQ as a LinkedIn page. Direct Message Me really interested to kind of help in terms of how do you further facilitate it. I think one of the pieces, too, is that often with organizations that I work with, there often are pockets where things are working better and they're more flow inducing and the question then becomes rather than it being a hook line, sinker, angling manual, complete change. It's how do we spread some of the thinking, particularly in terms of how leaders pay attention to these things, which can facilitate it across organizations and therefore, you know, have chase rather than chase results. Let results come to you and, at the same time, increase enjoyment and satisfaction and engagement for people within their organizations. Yeah, it's a fascinating kind of concept.

Jamie:

Great. Well, we'll provide links to Jamie, to his LinkedIn profile and also to CultureEQ as well. And, jamie, it's been so great having you on the show, and I think this has been a perfect example of flow, because when I first looked down to see how long we'd spent talking, it was 26 minutes. I'm like what? So? Yes, so, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom, your insights, your experience, and I don't know about you, Cath, but there's so much that I've taken from this, nevermind other people listening to it.

Cath:

Yeah, I've made a lot of notes. I really enjoyed the conversation. I always find it mind-stretching-provoking and, uh yeah, there'll be lots of thoughts going around my head the rest of the day good stuff.

Cath:

Thank you very much both of you. Thanks, jamie, for joining us cheers bye thanks for listening to today's inside out culture podcast.

Cath:

Please remember to like, subscribe and, of course, share with others who you think may be interested.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Cath Bishop

Co-host
Head Shot

Colin D Ellis

Co-host