{"id":1182,"date":"2017-08-02T08:57:00","date_gmt":"2017-08-02T07:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/silta.es\/juantatay\/2017\/08\/02\/how-to-spot-and-spark-flow\/"},"modified":"2017-08-02T08:57:00","modified_gmt":"2017-08-02T07:57:00","slug":"how-to-spot-and-spark-flow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silta.es\/juantatay\/how-to-spot-and-spark-flow\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Spot and Spark Flow"},"content":{"rendered":"

by @uicynthia Track and Facilitate Your Engineers\u2019 Flow States In This Simple Way | First Round Review<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2018The more a job inherently resembles a game \u2014 with variety, appropriate and flexible challenges, clear goals, and immediate feedback \u2014 the more enjoyable it will be regardless of the worker\u2019s level of development.\u2019 ~ <\/span>Csikszentmihalyi<\/a><\/p>\n

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Perhaps more important than recognizing flow, then, is recognizing its absence. Typically, engineers who fall out of flow will land in one of three common ruts:<\/div>\n

Apathy \u2014 Low Skill and Low Challenge<\/span><\/div>\n
Maxwell looks for one big red flag to spot this one: a consistent failure to chime into the conversation. An apathetic team member offers no suggestions about product features or team processes. They don\u2019t share an opinion of job candidates, and try to avoid weighing in on ideas when asked. \u201cIt’s almost as though they’re hoping they don’t get called on,\u201d she says. \u201cThey’re not being challenged, and they don’t care.\u201d<\/div>\n
Managers at larger companies in particular may need to look out for one specific type of apathetic employee: \u201cRester Vesters\u201d or people who just phone it in until their stock options fully vest.<\/div>\n

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Anxiety \u2014 Low Skill and High Challenge<\/span><\/div>\n

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When someone is pushed to tackle challenges their skill set can\u2019t accommodate \u2014 or at a pace that isn\u2019t feasible \u2014 anxiety is an understandable outcome. Maxwell urges leaders to keep an ear out for telltale anxiety-based phrases, and know how to translate them.<\/div>\n
\u201cListen for things like, \u2018Oh, this is a speculative fix,\u2019 or \u2018I wouldn’t normally do things this way, but given the time constraints\u2026,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cPeople who are feeling anxiety might also start blaming others for not meeting a deadline. Or they may say, \u2018I have too much on my plate right now.\u2019\u00bb<\/div>\n

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Boredom \u2014 High Skill and Low Challenge<\/span><\/div>\n
\u201cUsually people will fall into boredom because their skillset has increased. They’ve taken a leap forward, they\u2019ve learned a lot. Maybe they just shipped something or conquered an obstacle, and now they don’t feel like they’re being challenged,\u201d says Maxwell.<\/div>\n
A bored engineer is usually executing the same tasks again and again, finishing them quickly and then spinning their wheels waiting for a new assignment. \u201cBoredom might manifest as resentment over how projects are being assigned across the team,\u201d says Maxwell. Keep an eye out, too, for anyone who creates unnecessary projects, or over-engineers simple problems, just to flex underused muscles. \u201cIf you see an increase in exotic, latest-and-greatest libraries entering your codebase, you might have a bored team.\u201d<\/div>\n

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Between The Extremes<\/span><\/h2>\n
Of course, human emotion \u2014 like human workplaces \u2014 is complex, and people will likely spend some portion of their time moving between states. Those periods of transition, as someone moves out of flow in one direction or another, can be particularly impactful times to guide employees back toward flow:<\/div>\n

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Doubt \u2014 From Flow Toward Anxiety<\/span><\/div>\n
When someone takes on greater challenges, without expanding their skill set to meet them, it\u2019s logical that they would begin to experience self-doubt. In these cases the person suspects they\u2019re lacking the skills to achieve the task. They might start to take offense to otherwise harmless code reviews. Or get stuck in analysis paralysis. They might spend a lot of time seeking advice from senior developers.<\/div>\n
Left unchecked, the danger is that doubt becomes infectious. Engineers in this state may begin to not only doubt the value of the project but their leadership team, too. \u201cThey may begin to think, \u2018Are they making good decisions? Have they put us in an unreasonable timeline? Are they asking us to do something that’s just not possible?\u2019\u00bb says Maxwell.<\/div>\n
When you see reports plotting themselves on the graph in this direction, encourage them to speak up about any concerns they\u2019re having. Simply acknowledging those feelings of doubt can be the fastest way to move back into flow. \u201cOne good rule of thumb is think smaller<\/em>. That means breaking a task into smaller parts to build up confidence. Or celebrating smaller wins than you would otherwise,\u201d says Maxwell. \u201cIf that fails, they may need some scaffolding. Get the person in a pair-programming situation so the world doesn\u2019t feel like it\u2019s resting only on their shoulders. As the person regains confidence, introduce more independent work.\u201d<\/div>\n

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Nostalgia \u2014 From Flow Toward Boredom<\/span><\/div>\n
The move toward boredom typically follows a period of skill-building; the engineer no longer feels challenged because they\u2019ve grown. Falling out of flow in that direction is often marked by feelings of nostalgia. \u201cThey want to recreate what it felt like to be in flow, and they don’t know exactly how,\u201d says Maxwell.<\/div>\n
There\u2019s a hopefulness to this moment, though. A person experiencing nostalgia doesn\u2019t want<\/em> to be bored; they want to recapture the feeling of learning and growing. And that\u2019s prime material for a manager looking to coax that engineer back into a productive state. \u201cHelp them identify what they\u2019re nostalgic for. For example, is it the size of the team, or the ambition of the project?\u201d Work with them to recreate the conditions they\u2019re missing, while they\u2019re still fresh in their mind.<\/div>\n
The best managers will use every tool at their disposal to understand what\u2019s going on within their teams, including, of course, their own observations. But while looks are famously deceiving, quantitative assessments are more concrete. In many cases, giving your team an objective way to articulate dissatisfaction is the only way to uncover important trends.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by @uicynthia Track and Facilitate Your Engineers\u2019 Flow States In This Simple Way | First Round Review \u2018The more a job inherently resembles a game \u2014 with variety, appropriate and flexible challenges, clear goals, and immediate feedback \u2014 the more enjoyable it will be regardless of the worker\u2019s level of development.\u2019 ~ Csikszentmihalyi Perhaps more important than recognizing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,53,31,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cosillas-empresariales","category-eficiencia","category-la-vida-misma","category-psicologia"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/silta.es\/juantatay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/silta.es\/juantatay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/silta.es\/juantatay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silta.es\/juantatay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silta.es\/juantatay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/silta.es\/juantatay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/silta.es\/juantatay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silta.es\/juantatay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/silta.es\/juantatay\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}