Social Flow

9 Social Triggers for Entering Flow

“Flow” is a word thrown around a lot in business books. I’ll simplify it for your quickly: Flow is an optimal state of consciousness, a peak state where we both feel our best and perform our best. It is a transformation available to anyone, anywhere, provided that certain initial conditions are met.

Flow might be the most desirable state on earth; it’s also the most elusive. While seekers have spent centuries trying, no one has found a reliable way to reproduce the experience, let alone with enough consistently to radically accelerate performance.

Except action and adventure sports athletes. Quite simply, the zone is the only reason these athletes are surviving the big mountains, big waves, and big rivers. Advancements in brain-imaging technologies like fMRI and consumer “quantified self” devices allow us to apply serious metrics where once was merely subjective experience.

Finally, we can figure out exactly what these athletes are doing to reliably reproduce this state, then apply this knowledge across the additional domains of self and society.

Part of what we found, as outlined in my new book The Rise of Superman, is that there are flow triggers. Circumstances that speed entrance into the state.

9 of these triggers are considered “social triggers.” How to work more effectively by working together.

Why is “together” such an effective strategy? For starters, the obvious. Humans are a social species. We’re competitive, cooperative, sexually attracted, and all the rest. These are all exceptionally powerful motivators. As a result, when other people are present, we pay more attention to the present. Community drives focus into the now—it’s arguably the simplest flow hack in the world.

Within your community setting, these 9 social triggers to help the group enter the elusive flow state:

Social Trigger #1

Serious Concentration

In sports, complete concentration is required because games move fast. You need to be aware of your teammates and opponents. If they lose focus and start thinking about what is for dinner, or other things, they’ll quickly be overrun.

To create similar flow in social settings, it can help to ensure everyone has their maximum attention to the here and now and blocked off from other distractions.

Social Trigger #2

Shared, Clear Goals

Groups need to be clear about what their collective goal is in order for flow to happen.

The key to group flow is a balancing act: creating a goal that provides enough focus so the team members can tell when they are close to a solution, but one that is open enough for creativity to exist.

Social Trigger #3

Good Communication

Constant communication is necessary for group flow. Even while deep listening, the conversation must move forward. This follows the most important rule of improv: “Yes, and…”

Listen closely on what is being said, accept it, and build upon it. Nothing blocks flow more than ignoring or negating a group member.

Social Trigger #4

Familiarity

The group has a common language, a shared knowledge base and a communication style based on unspoken understandings. It means everybody is always on the same page, and, when novel insights arise, momentum is not lost due to the need for lengthy explanation.

Social Trigger #5

Equal participation (and skill level)

Flow is most likely to happen in a group setting when all participants have an equal role in the project. For this reason, all members should have similar skill levels. Think of professional athletes playing with amateurs. The professionals will be bored and the amateurs frustrated.

Social Trigger #6

Risk

The potential for failure. Innovation and frequent failure go hand in hand. There’s no creativity without failure, and there’s no group flow without the risk of failure.

Mental, physical, creative, whatever—the group has to have some skin in the game to produce group flow.

Social Trigger #7

Sense Of Control

This trigger combines autonomy (being free to do what you want) and competence (being good at what you do). It’s about getting to choose your own challenges and having the necessary skills to surmount them.

Social Trigger #8

Close Listening

We’re fully engaged in the here and now. In conversation, this isn’t about thinking about what witty thing to say next, or what cutting sarcasm came last. Rather, it’s generating real time, unplanned responses to the dialogue as it unfolds.

Innovation is blocked when one or more participants already has a preconceived idea of what the person is going to say, or how to get to a goal. Doing so keeps them from listening to what is really said and working from there.

Social Trigger #9

Always Say Yes

This means interactions should be additive more than argumentative. The goal is the momentum, togetherness, and innovation that comes from amplifying each other’s ideas and actions.

It’s a trigger based on the first rule of improv comedy. If I open a sketch with, “Hey, there’s a blue elephant in the bathroom;” then, “No, there’s not,” is the wrong response. With the denial, the scene goes nowhere. But if the reply is affirmative instead: “Yeah, sorry, there was no more space in the cereal cupboard”—well then that story goes someplace interesting.

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Turns out social triggers are relatively easy to trip. Why does group flow show up most frequently in work conversations? Because they tend to involve shared goals, carry an element of risk (because there’s money involved in work), include familiar partners, and require more concentration. How easy is it to produce group flow? Merely chatting on the job can be enough to put you in the state.

Unfortunately, not every company is this innovative. As Keith Sawyer, a professor of psychology, education and business at the Washington University in St. Louis points out in his 2008 book, Group Genius: “It can be hard to find this kind of experience in large corporations, which tend to reward closing up communication, narrowing the channels, and minimizing risk. That’s why people who seek out group flow often join startups or work for themselves. Serial entrepreneurs keep starting new business as much for the flow experience, as for the additional success.”

Of course, becoming a serial entrepreneur or going into business for yourself, are both high-risk decisions. Not a surprise, right? The flow path is no place for the timid. But does this mean we’ll have to unearth a wellspring of hidden courage to continually access this state? Most certainly. Yet this is not quite as difficult as it seems. Turns out there’s hidden leverage available, both a secret balm to make you braver and one of the best flow hacks yet discovered: community.

Steven Kotler is a New York Times bestselling author, award-winning journalist, and co-founder and director of research for the Flow Genome Project. His most recent book The Rise of Superman, is available for preorder now. You can get 45% off the cover price and other bonuses by pre ordering now.