| Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning | 
 enlarge | Author: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 180248
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.6
ISBN: 014200409X
Dewey Decimal Number: 650.1
EAN: 9780142004098
ASIN: 014200409X
Publication Date: March 30, 2004
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 ***UW-Milwaukee Course Text*** - Great Read March 29, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Work can and should make you happy. If it doesn't something is wrong, according to the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Good Business: Leadership, Flow and the Making of Meaning. We spend much of our lives working, and it is not just a waste of time and energy when we do not enjoy it. Our output suffers, which the author argues is bad for society, not just for ourselves. Hungarian-born Csikszentmihalyi wrote the groundbreaking 1990 book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience that brought his research into human behavior to a wider audience. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, described Csikszentmihalyi as the world's leading researcher on positive psychology. In 1999, after a long career teaching psychology at the University of Chicago, he began teaching the subject to MBA students at the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University. He is also the director of the Quality of Life Research Center, a nonprofit institute in Claremont, California. The book centers on the topic of flow. Flow means being so absorbed in an activity that we shut out distractions and worries to devote all our energy to the task at hand. It can occur in work or play, but the focus in this book is on how people can find flow when they work, and how leaders can encourage flow in employees. Flow occurs when there is a balance between high challenges and skills. Flow is unlikely in an activity until we become proficient in it. It's also not static. Without continual challenge, boredom creeps in. "The important factor to keep in mind is that personal growth is contingent on the balance of opportunities for action and the capacities to act that a person encounters at work," he writes. He describes seven other components of flow: clear goals, immediate feedback, deepening concentration, focus on the moment, personal control, a sense of altered time and loss of ego. However, flow by itself is not sufficient for a happy, productive and meaningful life. We must be engaged in a worthy, ethical enterprise, working toward aspirations beyond ourselves and, ideally, with effects beyond our lifetime. Good Business contains snippets of interviews with top executives, such as Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, and Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, chosen not only for their success in business, but because of their strong social conscience. Csikszentmihalyi's argument is that business is now our most crucial institution, so it has an obligation to the quality of life not just of its employees, but of society. He also quotes people who find flow in such activities as writing poetry, rock climbing and surgery. Flow is not just for executives, or those with exotic jobs or hobbies. His research shows that flow happens in service workers, such as janitors, or in workers on assembly lines. Finding flow is important, but happiness is the bottom line. Csikszentmihalyi says happiness usually follows fulfilling our potential, which rests on two separate but simultaneous processes. One is differentiation, the recognition of our unique characteristics and our sense of responsibility for survival and well-being. The other is integration: realizing that we are "completely enmeshed in networks of relationships with other human beings, with cultural symbols and artifacts, and with the surrounding natural environment. A person who is fully differentiated and integrated becomes a complex individual -- one who has the best chance at leading a happy, vital, and meaningful life."
Good Business is a good book. But it's not a "how-to" with neatly compartmentalized bullet points and acronyms for success. There aren't simple strategies and steps that can be applied after you're through reading. There aren't quizzes or assessments to rank your or your organization's degree of Flow.
On Hapiness & Success: Good Business June 29, 2006
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Hungarian author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, director of the Quality of Life Research Center (QLRC), and author of such works as: "Beyond Boredom and Anxiety," "Flow: The psychology of optimal experience," "Being Adolescent," "The Evolving Self & Creativity," and "Flow and the Psychology of Discovery & Intervention," can now add another work of art to his collection. "Good Business: Leadership, Flow and the Making of Meaning" is the latest publication by Dr. Csikszentmihalyi. Like many of his works, "Good Business" relies on creativity, innovation, and the development of flow to achieve the bottom line. Through its explosive accounts of interviews by leading business men and women, Csikszentmihalyi presents a strong argument for developing human well-being in the work place. "Good Business" just might change the way workers and business leaders view success.
 Average June 28, 2006
2 out of 7 found this review helpful
Good Business is a must read if you are traditionalist in the business world, but can be skimmed if you are a modernist. Csikszentmihalyi enhances many modern beliefs in how leaders in organizations should engage in their activities and provides great examples from various CEOs and business leaders. I would give the book 2.5 stars out of 5!
 Finding Flow at Work June 22, 2006
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Artists, when describing the act of painting a masterpiece, will often claim that they felt "lost" in their work. Likewise, a basketball player may describe the experience of setting up the winning play as having an altered perception of time, as if twelve seconds actually extended for hours. When we are truly engaged and at the highest states of enjoyment, we experience the freedom of complete absorption in activity. Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi, Professor of Psychology at Claremont Graduate University, first coined the term "flow" in 1975 to describe this experience, and has written several books about the concept including the bestseller Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience in 1990. Through a series of interviews with successful business leaders who combine high achievement with strong moral commitment, Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning explores the connection between flow and work.
Csikszentmihalyi claims that our jobs have a significant influence on the quality of our lives. He explains that happiness is not something that happens to us, but rather is something we make happen. As such, work can be one of the most fulfilling aspects of life, provided that employees have an opportunity to do their best and to contribute to something greater than themselves.
He makes a profound distinction between the concepts of pleasure and enjoyment: pleasure is a conservative force that makes us want to satisfy existing needs and does not foster change, whereas enjoyment is not always pleasant, and can be sometimes stressful. Csikszentmihalyi describes enjoyment as the sensation of being fully alive, triumphing over the forces of entropy and decay. A mountain climber, for example, who is utterly exhausted after an dangerous climb but who wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world than at the peak of a mountain, perhaps does not experience pleasure, but does experience enjoyment. Likewise, while relaxing in a hammock at the beach may be pleasurable, it cannot compare to the exhilaration and "flow" felt by the mountain climber. Similarly, an employee who holds a demanding and stressful position may not experience pleasure on the job, but for some, the challenge presented by the work is often enjoyable and can lead to "flow." For others, however, a demanding job may be overwhelming and may be experienced as drudgery, not enjoyment. Csikszentmihalyi explores characteristics that are common to organizations that support flow.
Csikszentmihalyi claims that leaders of organizations can actively create conditions to ensure that every employee has an opportunity to fully develop and express their potentialities and as a result experience flow. He explains that clear goals, good feedback, and incremental challenges are important factors that facilitate employee growth. First, goals must be clear both on an organizational and individual level. An employee must not only embrace the goals for the organization, he/she must trust their leader's commitment to those goals and must see how his/her individual activities align with the larger vision. Likewise, employees must have access to effective and meaningful feedback, not only to improve performance, but to be reassured that the leaders of the organization care deeply about their work. Finally, challenges presented to employees must be matched with their level of skill. Tasks that are too easy make experiences of flow and enjoyment more difficult to create, whereas challenges that are too great are simply overwhelming. Csikszentmihalyi states that actively creating conditions for flow is one of the best strategies for getting employees to give their best.
The assertions in the book are not clearly substantiated by research. Most of Csikszentmihalyi's claims seem to be derived from his earlier works and mapped onto workplace situations, corroborated by anecdotal evidence captured in interviews. A careful review of the book's notes reveal that an overwhelming majority of the thirty-nine business leaders who were interviewed were male and over the age of fifty. It remains to be seen if a more diverse group would have provided different accounts of flow at the workplace. Nevertheless, the book is an uplifting read and reminds us that work can indeed be enjoyable. It contains many inspirational quotes and anecdotes from today's business leaders, and presents a unique perspective on finding happiness.
 Watered down rehashing of Flow November 28, 2005
5 out of 10 found this review helpful
One can't be sure that this book isn't deliberately exploiting a cynical belief that most business books are so bad, that if this weren't crappy, it wouldn't sell. Even for someone who believes in Csik's theory of flow, this book is a no-win blow-out. Instead of making clear statements backed by evidence, the book's tone and presentation are mere editorializing assertions. There is no reason to read this, when his original popularization, Flow, more carefully and clearly summarizes Csikszentmihalyi's interesting research.
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