I recently attended the International Project Management Day (IPM Day), which is hosted annually by the International Institute for Learning (IIL). The event includes multiple live keynote speaker presentations, additional on demand webinars, discussions forums and more. Various trending topics are covered, providing a forum for project managers around the world to collaborate and hear new insights and best practices. Although I did not attend all the sessions, I would like to share a couple of new insights I gained from the keynote sessions I listened in on.
The Art of Impossible: Achieving and Sustaining Organizational Peak Performance
Author and Executive Director of the Flow Research Collective, Steven Kotler, provided fascinating insights on how to achieve peek human performance. He studied how people achieve the impossible in action sports and other areas in record time and discovered that the biology of the impossible happens when you are in a state called “flow”.
What is flow? “Flow” is defined as an optimal state of consciousness where you feel and perform your best and where you are so focused on the task at hand that everything else disappears.
According to Kotler, there are many advantages of being in the state of flow such as:
- 500% more motivated and productive
- 240% faster in being able to learn and remember things
- 400% improvements in overall creativity and innovation
- 100% increased happiness and wellbeing
- Amplified grit, resilience, empathy, collaboration, and cooperation.
So how can we get into a state of flow and achieve some of these incredible benefits?
It all starts with motivation (what gets you into the game), learning (allows you to continue to play), and creativity (how you steer). Steven went on to discuss three important triggers that can result in high levels of flow. The first is complete concentration where you can focus for 90-120 minutes at a time. The second, as shown in the diagram below, is the flow channel which is the sweet spot between anxiety and boredom where the task at hand slightly exceeds our skills set by ~4-5%. The last important element of flow is immediate feedback, and this is best determined as a team based on the project you are working on. The key question to ask is, “what is the minimal feedback required for optimal flow?”. According to Kotler, if you can maximize this formula for flow and innovation, CC (complete concentration) + C/S (challenge skill balance) + IF (immediate feedback) you will be able to maximize team and organizational creativity and innovation.
During the Q&A section of the presentation someone asked about how teams can reach group flow with remote teams. Kotler talked about the importance of having “collective ambition” where everyone on the meeting shares the same central mission and is on the same page. This made me think about the importance of completing the project charter as part of the IS PMO methodology. Completing the project charter is not only an important initiation phase document but also a way to start building team flow!
Mr. Kotler’s final piece of advice was that we are all more capable than we think we are, and we really don’t know what we are capable of. The only way to find out is to lean in and give something new a try.
If you are interested in learning more, check out the website www.getmoreflow.com. Steven Kotler also wrote many books on this topic such as The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is also a great read.
A Burst of Possibility with Benjamin Zander at the Piano
Conductor & founder of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra & Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, Benjamin Zander, used music to show how we can look at things in a different way to open new possibilities in the projects that we are leading. We all have a choice to choose possibility and adjust our perspective to look at things in a more positive way and avoid what he calls the downward spiral. He also talked about the importance of using our attitude, energy, body language, and love in a positive way to move a team to reach higher levels of melodious harmony. One of the ways he assesses the team’s level of harmony is by looking at the nonverbal cues specifically by looking into their eyes to see if they sparkle. If they are not shining/sparkling, then he knows that he needs to adjust his approach to get more shine/sparkle and harmony in the students that he teaches music to. His definition of success is how many shining eyes he has around him! With such a large part of my job as project manager being communication, I thought that this was a great tool to add to my toolbox. Although I have read various studies in the past about nonverbal cues accounting for 90% of your communication, I never made the connection that the nonverbal cues are what determines the level of harmony or music in a team. I am amazed by the simplicity of his analogies in terms of how to motivate teams in the context of project management.
If you are interested in learning more about this topic, Benjamin Zander coauthored The Art of Possibility with his late wife Rosamund Stone Zander. He also has a great Ted Talk on music and passion.
These are the insights that I learned from this year’s IPM Day and I look forward to next year’s event!
Theresa – Thank you for sharing what you learned at some of the IPM Day sessions. We should all get in the habit of sharing lessons when we watch, read, or attend educational events.