From flow to TeamFlow

A musician who forgets everything around them during a performance. A programmer completely absorbed in a complex problem, who only notices hours later that it has grown dark outside. A chess player so concentrated that the next moves already appear as a pattern. Or a runner who has found the right pace and for whom the kilometres glide by effortlessly.

These are examples of flow: a state in which someone is completely absorbed in an activity. Attention is sharp, action feels almost self-evident and the awareness of time fades into the background.

But flow is not exclusively an individual experience. Teams too can experience moments when everything comes together. Team members are fully focused on the same task, rely on each other’s contribution and respond to each other almost automatically.

That is what we call TeamFlow.

What exactly is flow? Where does this theory come from? What is the difference between individual flow and TeamFlow? And why is this so interesting for organisations?

The origins of flow

Scientific interest in flow began in the 1970s with the work of the Hungarian-American psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.

He studied people who devoted a great deal of time and energy to activities for which they did not always receive a direct reward. Think of artists, musicians, chess players and athletes. They sometimes became so deeply absorbed in their activity that they hardly paid attention to their surroundings, fatigue or the passing of time.

For them, the activity was valuable in itself. They did not do it only for money, recognition or an end result. The experience during the activity was already an important reward.

Csikszentmihalyi used the term flow for this. People described the experience as if they were being carried along by a current. Their attention and their actions seemed to merge into one another.

Psychologists usually describe flow as a state of strong intrinsic motivation and complete concentration on the activity of the moment. Someone is intensely involved, yet at the same time experiences the activity as relatively effortless.

That last point can be confusing. Flow does not mean that an activity is easy. On the contrary, flow often arises precisely in activities that demand a lot of someone.

Not too easy and not impossible

Suppose an experienced pianist has to play only a simple nursery rhyme every day. The pianist has far more skill than the task requires. Boredom is the likely result.

Now turn the situation around. Give someone who has just had two piano lessons the task of playing Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3. The challenge is then far greater than the available skills. That is bound to lead to tension, uncertainty or frustration!

Flow becomes more likely when challenge and skills are well matched. The activity must be difficult enough to demand full attention, but not so difficult that someone sees no possibility of succeeding.

This is not about a perfect mathematical balance. Personal experience plays the main role. The question is whether someone experiences the task as both challenging and achievable.

Research shows that a high perceived challenge combined with strong perceived skills is associated with optimal motivation. When skills far exceed the challenge, boredom can set in. When the challenge is perceived as greater than the skills, the likelihood of tension increases.

Flow is therefore often found at the edge of what someone already masters.

You do not just do what you can already do. You have to genuinely apply your skills and possibly learn something new. At the same time, you have enough knowledge, experience and confidence to take on the challenge.

A fitting goal and direct feedback

A fitting challenge is not the only condition that makes flow more likely.

Clear goals and usable feedback also play an important role. When someone does not know what needs to be achieved, it becomes hard to focus attention fully on the task. The same applies when it only becomes clear months later whether an action was right or wrong.

A mountaineer receives constant feedback. Every movement provides information. Does the foot hold? Is the next grip within reach? Does the body stay in balance?

A musician, too, receives immediate information while playing. The sound reveals at once whether a note is hit correctly and whether the rhythm is right.

In the office, that feedback is less self-evident. Goals are sometimes broadly formulated, results only become visible after a long time, and employees are regularly interrupted by messages, meetings and new requests.

That does not mean flow at work is impossible. Research shows that flow is regularly experienced during work. Fortunately.

It does require an environment in which people can focus on a meaningful and sufficiently challenging task for a certain period of time.

A software developer can experience flow while solving a complex technical problem. A nurse during an intensive but well-coordinated procedure. A writer while working out a text. A carpenter while making a part that fits precisely.

The field is not decisive. What matters is how task, challenge, skills, goals and feedback relate to each other at that moment.

From individual flow to working together

The original flow theory focused mainly on the experience of an individual.

Later, more attention was paid to flow in social situations. People often work, play sport, make music and create together. That raised a new question:

Can a group as a whole get into flow?

That requires an important distinction.

Several people can experience individual flow at the same time without truly functioning as a team. Think of four programmers each working in concentration on their own assignment. They can all experience flow while hardly any coordination takes place between them.

In TeamFlow, more happens.

The individual activities are connected. Team members work towards a joint result and depend on each other to achieve it. The collaboration takes on a quality in which contributions connect and team members strengthen each other.

Jef van den Hout and his fellow researchers developed this step from individual flow to TeamFlow further. In their model they link the individual flow experience to the dynamics of the team as a whole. They distinguish between individual flow while working in a team and a genuine flow experience at team level.

In full TeamFlow, the individual team members experience flow in their own role, while the collaboration as a whole flows too. The team moves as one coherent system.

What TeamFlow looks like

TeamFlow may sound abstract, but the experience is often easy to recognise.

Think of a sports team that during a match hardly seems to need words to find each other. Players move at the right moment, see where space opens up and trust that a teammate will carry out their task.

Or of a surgical team in which everyone knows exactly what needs to happen. Information is shared quickly, team members anticipate each other and the shared attention is entirely on the patient.

TeamFlow can also arise within a project team. A designer brings in an idea, a subject expert immediately builds on it and a colleague sees how it can be carried out in practice. Nobody defends only their own part. The contributions build on each other.

An important characteristic is that this collaboration does not feel chaotic. TeamFlow is not an energetic brainstorm in which a lot is shouted but little achieved. On the contrary, there is shared direction, focused attention and visible progress.

The team members do not all act the same way. They bring different knowledge, roles and skills. It is precisely because those differences connect well that a shared rhythm arises.

An orchestra is a fine example. The musicians play different parts and use different instruments. Nobody delivers the complete music on their own. The result arises from the quality of the individual contributions and from the way they are brought together.

Four characteristics of TeamFlow

The TeamFlow model distinguishes four characteristics that together describe how TeamFlow is experienced.

Holistic focus

The attention of the team members is on the same task. Everyone understands what matters at that moment. That does not mean everyone does the same work. The different activities do contribute to a shared direction.

Mutual trust

Team members trust that colleagues can and will deliver their contribution. That trust concerns both expertise and intention. Team members believe that colleagues are competent and take the shared interest seriously.

Sense of joint progress

The team experiences that it is getting closer to the shared goal. Efforts visibly pay off and team members notice that their contributions help each other forward. That matters, because teams lose energy when they work hard but do not experience that they are getting anywhere.

Sense of unity

Team members experience that they are part of a coherent whole. There is a clear sense of we, without individual differences having to disappear. Unity does not mean there is never any discussion. Even during a tough conversation, team members continue to see themselves as part of the same team.

The combination of these four characteristics makes TeamFlow more than the sum of a few concentrated employees. It is a shared experience that arises in the interaction between team members.

TeamFlow is not the same as harmony

A team in flow is not by definition a team in which everyone always agrees with each other.

Differences of opinion can be exactly what is needed. A doctor who sees a risk must name it. A developer who doubts a technical choice must be able to discuss that doubt. A project worker who notices that a deadline is becoming unachievable should not stay silent to keep the atmosphere pleasant.

TeamFlow therefore does not mean that tension and disagreement are absent. It means that the team can make use of these differences without losing its shared focus, trust and unity.

A team that avoids every conflict may look friendly but still function poorly. Problems remain undiscussed, information is withheld and decisions are not genuinely supported.

Good collaboration, then, does not always feel comfortable. Sometimes it is precisely a sign of quality when people dare to ask each other critical questions.

What does TeamFlow deliver?

Flow is attractive because the experience itself is often felt as positive and meaningful. But its relationship with performance, learning, creativity and wellbeing also makes the subject interesting.

Review studies show that in many studies flow is positively associated with performance. This has been researched in work, education, sport and creative activities, among others. Positive associations have also been found with engagement, progress, creativity, job satisfaction and various forms of wellbeing.

Some caution is needed here. A positive association does not automatically mean that flow is always the direct cause of better performance. It can also work the other way round. Someone who performs well may find it easier to get into flow. In addition, good preparation, clear goals and strong skills can promote both flow and performance.

The same scientific care applies to TeamFlow. It is too simple to claim that every team in flow automatically achieves better results. That said, holistic focus, mutual trust, a sense of unity and of joint progress are particularly valuable for complex tasks in which team members depend on each other.

In practice, TeamFlow can help teams to:

• combine knowledge and skills better
• exchange relevant information faster
• experience more coherence in their actions
• hold on to energy and engagement
• deal better with complex challenges
• make more focused use of each other’s qualities
• achieve visible joint progress

This is not only about producing faster or more. Within a healthcare team, better coordination can contribute to continuity and quality of care. Within an education team, it can lead to more coherent guidance of students. Within a project team, it can help to recognise problems earlier and to make better use of different areas of expertise.

Can you organise TeamFlow?

TeamFlow cannot be enforced directly.

A manager cannot decide that from Monday morning a team must experience more unity, trust and shared focus. An inspiring meeting can give temporary energy, but that does not change the daily patterns within the team.

What you can do is work on the conditions that make TeamFlow more likely.

A team can clarify its common goal. Team members can learn to understand better which qualities each person brings. Agreements can be made about communication, decision-making and responsibility. And work can be done on an environment in which people dare to discuss questions, doubts and mistakes.

That is exactly where the TeamFlow model goes beyond merely describing a pleasant experience. In addition to the four characteristics, the model distinguishes seven underlying conditions. Those conditions give insight into the quality of collaboration and offer concrete starting points for development.

The presence of these conditions does not guarantee that a team is constantly in flow. After all, teams also deal with changing assignments, time pressure, staff changes and unexpected events. The conditions do increase the likelihood that focus, trust, progress and unity arise.

Moreover, these conditions are measurable. With a validated questionnaire, a team can map where it stands on each condition. This shows which conditions are already well developed and where there is room for growth. How to translate that insight into focused improvement is the subject of part 3 of this series.

TeamFlow as a direction for team development

The value of TeamFlow lies not only in the ideal image of a team in which everything comes together perfectly. The real value arises when the model is used to look at collaboration more closely.

Where does the team already experience shared focus? Where is energy lost? Do team members know what they want to achieve together? Are the qualities present really being used? Do people dare to voice relevant concerns? And are agreements kept?

By asking such questions, team development becomes more concrete. The conversation is no longer only about a general feeling that collaboration could be better. The team can explore which elements are already strong and which conditions are holding back joint progress.

In this way TeamFlow changes from an attractive theoretical concept into a practical compass.

Flow begins with someone becoming fully absorbed in a meaningful challenge. TeamFlow arises when the contributions of different people also begin to interlock. Not because everyone does the same thing, but because everyone contributes from their own role to a clear joint result.

But what happens when a team does have a clear goal, yet people do not dare to voice their doubts? Or when there is plenty of talent, but the qualities hardly connect? In part 2 we explore the seven prerequisites that make TeamFlow possible and why one weak link can still hold back an otherwise strong team.

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