Flow Conference 2024 Recap
There were many great insights and conversations at this year’s Flow Conference. From the latest academic insights to best practices, there is one thread of conversation that kept popping up throughout the day. What is it that we are selling to our clients?
Flow as a concept is relatively well-known in sports. Many high-performing athletes are familiar with the concept or at least work on different aspects of it with mental coaches. In the corporate world that is not always the case. Some of my colleagues were advocating for a Trojan Horse approach. Selling something more familiar to the business world hiding flow inside. And we had an interesting discussion on what that might be. There is the angle of looking at value streams and the flow of customer value from idea to market. It is tangible and a relatively easy-to-explain concept with measurable results. Faster time to market, higher customer satisfaction, business value realized. Nice, super helpful, and definitely contains flow elements. But we are all flow professionals at heart and there is so much more to it on an organizational and individual level. VCs tend to say they don‘t only invest in an idea but also the founding team. The yearly state of DevOps report has been telling us for years that there are common factors that lead to team satisfaction and performance. These factors just as well as the magic ingredients that investors are looking for are elements of flow. So what if we could connect the DevOps report factors to the dimensions of flow to show the impact flow can have?
Measurable results are definitely helpful when pitching to a customer but we as humans learn from stories. We have for centuries sat around the fire and listened to stories to make sense of the world and gather new perspectives. So if we think in pictures and stories what is it all about? The roles of consultants and coaches have been used and misused in so many contexts that the words in themselves are meaningless. Can we see ourselves as sherpas or mountain guides who help our clients safely scale the mountain? Providing moments of reflection and learning at base camp. Establishing belay so you can venture further without being afraid to fall. The metaphor of mountains and those who help you to summit provides space to integrate the different aspects of flow. Things such as purpose, motivation, skill challenge balance, and self-awareness come to mind. As does the flow of a story or game that gamers and game developers are familiar with. A communication scientist originally and a storyteller at heart those conversations resonated deeply with me. Finding the story or metaphor that helps you understand what flow is to you matters. But in the end, my product heart came through. The basic belief in user-centered product development is to find a user problem that is worth solving, deeply understand it, and develop a fitting solution. All else comes from that. So let‘s talk about the organizational user needs that flow can help with. In my eyes, there are three.
You as a leader. No matter the field your organization is in, where you are positioned in the market, or how well you are set up. Things change, quickly and frequently. To be able to lead through this constant change your personal flow matters. It helps you to manage yourself, focus, and find calm in the storm.
Your organization at large. How is value flowing? Where are things getting stuck? Is there alignment? Does everybody know where they are moving and why?
Teams and individuals. As important as it is for you as a leader to be able to find flow it is equally important for every single person, every team. Finding Flow means focus, purpose, quick feedback, and satisfaction with what you do and how you do it.
And this brings us right back to stories, metaphors, and even more powerful - pictures. I start each engagement by building a flow map. What are the areas within your organization and for you as a leader you want to work on? Which are the flow enablers influencing those areas? From there we can identify the levers we want to work on and start scaling the mountain.
