The Flow of Optimal Performance


Optimal performance in anything we do comes from our ability to “forget ourselves” and enter that inner state often called the “flow” or “zone.” When we are in it, we do your best; when we are not, we under-achieve. The key is getting ourselves into that state.

Very few people know how to access this optimal state of being. Most of us have a couple of these experiences in our lives, but it doesn’t happen often. The good news is that we can learn pretty straight forward methods and tools that make this highly desireable state far more accessible. No, I am not talking about drugs or magic pills.

Flow Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Flow Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, has been researching this inner state for many years. In an interview with Wired magazine, Csíkszentmihályi described flow as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost.”

Mihaly’s research coincides with my own: a key to generating a flow experience is being in the sweet spot of the intersection between skill level and the challenge at hand: being skilled enough to not have to think about the task to perform it, and being challenged by the task enough to have it draw you out of your ego self to execute it well.

The flow is a shift of inner state out of ego and into Being. You have experienced this shift before, likely more often than you might initially realize. Certainly, if you think about it, you can recall a time when you skied “over your head,” played tennis “out of your mind,” delivered a speech “beyond expectations,” had an intimate conversation with a loved one that “blew your mind,” or simply lounged on the beach in silence and got “transported” to some other place.

I know this inner state of optimal performance well, and am convinced that my ability to generate it was the foundation of my own excellence as an athlete. In the 1980’s at the Optimal Performance Institute, I taught students how to intentionally create this inner zone, and watched hundreds of them deliver personal bests once they learned how to produce it in their activities and lives.

At OPI, we found very clearly that performers could learn to use breathing, body awareness, mental rehearsal, focusing, and concentration techniques to increase their flow experiences. When I first started teaching this work right after graduate school at Stanford, I was concerned that some people might consider it “touchy feely.” Back then, it sometimes was, only because we didn’t know how to talk about it in really pragmatic ways. But now, thirty years later, we certainly do.

Flow is extremely important to conscious change leaders because the more we can support stakeholders in this direction, the more committed to our change initiative they become and the more they contribute to its success. Plus, what could be more important for ourselves than learning how to manage our own inner state to perform consistently at a higher level? Knowing how flow works in us also gives us greater understanding of these deeper human dynamics so we can design our change efforts to unleash more of the potential of our workforce.

The best approaches to this “inner management” are multi-dimensional, addressing body, mind, emotions, and spirit, because they are more direct, complete and effective. Over the next six months, I will begin to offer programs through the Change Leaders Network that will develop and apply three distinct levels of flow experience:

1) Level One: Optimize: How to Manage Your Inner State for Optimal Performance and Fulfillment;

2) Level Two: Transform: How to Re-Program Self-Limiting Behavior Patterns;

3) Level Three: Mastering: How to Transcend Core Beliefs on the Path of Personal Mastery.

Stay tuned for these development opportunities.

In the meantime, please let me know your personal stories of flow and performing optimally, “out of your head,” where you excelled at an extraordinary personal level. How would you describe those experiences? What were they like for you?

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Endorsements

With this extensively upgraded second edition, Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson solidify their status as the leading authorities on change leadership and organizational transformation. This is without question the most comprehensive approach for leaders who are serious about making change a strategic discipline. Beyond Change Management is an intelligent book by two of the most knowledgeable and accomplished masters of their craft, and it’s one that every conscious change leader should adopt as their guide to creating more meaningful organizations.

Jim Kouzes
Coauthor of the bestselling The Leadership Challenge and The Truth About Leadership


Read this great book by Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson and learn how to use their multi-dimensional approach to lead transformation masterfully and consciously!

Marshall Goldsmith
World-renowned executive coach
Author of the New York Times best-sellers, MOJO and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There


An important move toward a more integral business consulting approach, very much recommended for those interested in the topic and ways to actually apply it. 

Ken Wilber
Author, The Integral Vision, A Brief History of Everything, and over a dozen other best-sellers


Dean and Linda are core to the field of conscious change leadership, and continue to stretch and push its boundaries in this rich and deep compendium. This is a must read from two consummate thought leaders who have devoted their careers to developing highly successful change leaders. Read it and immediately improve your change leadership or consulting success.

Bev Kaye
CEO, Career Systems International
Author of Love 'em or Lose 'em: Getting Good People to Stay


This book is about mastery of leading the transformational change process written by masters of the craft.  For corporate leaders and consultants who consider themselves committed students of the process of organizational change.

Daryl Conner
Chairman, Conner Partners
Author of Managing at the Speed of Change and Leading at the Edge of Chaos


Beyond Change Management is a timely how-to guide for leading change in the 21st century. It provides both a conceptual roadmap, and practical tools and techniques for successfully transforming organizations.

Noel Tichy
Professor, University of Michigan
Co-author with Warren Bennis of JUDGMENT: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls


Once again, Dean and Linda have nailed it! Beyond Change Management is an extraordinary book examining the shifts in change management that have occurred over the years. This book offers real, practical solutions for change practitioners to become extraordinary conscious change leaders.

Darlene Meister
Director, Unified Change Management
United States House of Representatives


Powerful business solutions to the current chaos facing many organizations today. Dean Anderson and Linda Ackerman Anderson get to the heart of change, the human touch, by using timeless techniques and tools.
Ken Blanchard
Co-Author of The One Minute Manager and Leading at a Higher Level


Having applied this methodology for two years to manage change inside Microsoft, it has been instrumental in our ability to land change effectively, engage employees and deliver results quickly. The Change Leader’s Roadmap allows us to lead change with precision and minimal outside consulting, while at the same time growing change leadership capability internally. This is the most complete change methodology we have found anywhere.

Pete Fox
General Manager, Corporate Accounts
Microsoft US


This newest edition of The Change of Leader’s Roadmap is an invaluable, comprehensive and practical guide for envisioning an organization’s desired future, designing the structures and practices necessary to make it happen, and implementing them effectively. The book describes the change process in nine distinct phases and outlines the activities and tasks that need to occur in each phase. It provides change leaders with an essential map for successfully traversing the complex and uncertain terrain of transformational change.   

Thomas G. Cummings
Professor and Chair, Department of Management & Organization
Marshall School of Business
University of Southern California


This is the next best thing to having Dean, Linda and the Being First team riding alongside your complex change initiative. The Change Leader’s Roadmap breeds confidence in senior executive “Champions” to guide not just a successful transformational change, but most importantly, to develop the mission critical organizational CULTURE that will ensure unparalleled return on investment. Nothing I have seen in my 32 years of leading change comes close.

Jeff Mulligan
Former CEO, Common Wealth Credit Union
Mayor, City of Lloydminster


After implementing more than 2000 business strategy and operational excellence initiatives, we set out to find the best change methodology and toolbox in the world. The methodology this book describes is it! Study it thoroughly, because the thinking, process approach and pragmatic tools really work!

Thomas Fischer
Director COO
Valcon Management Consultants A/S
Copenhagen


A practical, step-by-step guide for change leaders, managers and consultants. The book provides conceptually grounded, real world, time tested tools and guidance that will prove invaluable to those faced with navigating the challenges of leading organizational change in today's turbulent times.

Robert J. Marshak, Ph.D.
Senior Scholar in Residence
MSOD Program, American University
Organizational Change Consultant