以下为本期播客的文字整理稿：
Matt Abrahams: In my early studies in managing anxiety around public speaking, I learned about the concept of flow. You’ve looked deeply into flow. I’m wondering, though, for our listeners who might not be familiar with it, can you share a bit about what flow is and what the benefits of flow are?
But when you’re in a flow state, this dynamic is reversed. You don’t need to exert effort and self-control to keep going. You need to exert effort and self-control to stop yourself. So if you’ve ever seen a child or if you yourself have ever been playing a video game and someone comes in and says, can you stop? We need to go do something else. And you say, sure. And then forty-five minutes later, you’re still doing what you’re doing. That was a flow state.
The benefits of flow are many. When you’re in a flow state, you tend to perform better at the task. And also, flow has benefits for mental health and well-being. The more flow people experience, the happier they tend to be in their daily lives.
Matt Abrahams: I certainly remember when I was studying anxiety management around communication, that getting into that present moment, being in the flow of it, uh, reduced the feelings of anxiety and actually increased enjoyment.
David Melnikoff: Yes, Tetris is the classic example of a flow and disengagement.
Matt Abrahams: I would get in the flow and lose total track of time. So, how can one get into a state of flow and are there different strategies for maintaining a state of flow?
My work suggests that that’s not true and we don’t really need to get into the details of the work. We can just see that this is not true if you walk into any casino and go look at the people playing slot machines. There’s nothing easier and less challenging in the world than putting a quarter in a slot and pulling a lever.
But a slot machine is one of the most potent sources of flow there is. People will be in an almost trance like state, engaging in this activity that is nowhere near any sort of Goldilocks zone of challenge. So if it’s not a moderate level of challenge, what is the source of flow? The source of flow, according to my research, is engaging in an activity that allows you to reduce uncertainty about your future, engaging in actions that reduce possible future outcomes, or ideally eliminate all possible future outcomes, except for one.
The elimination of possible futures induces a state of flow. So concretely returning to the case of a slot machine. Before you pull a lever on that slot machine, there are dozens and dozens of possible outcomes, specifically financial payouts, and you’re highly uncertain about which of those outcomes will be realized.
Then you pull the lever and then those symbols appear on the reel and all of that uncertainty is suddenly eliminated. You’ve reduced many, many, many possible futures to one. And that hit of uncertainty reduction draws you in, sucks you in and induces a state of flow. And what’s sort of magical about the slot machine is you can do it right over again as many times as you want, and you’ll get that same hit of uncertainty reduction again and again and again. And this implies various strategies for cultivating flow in your daily life.
Specifically, you can frame your goals or your tasks in ways that inject uncertainty into what you’re doing, allowing you to then reduce that uncertainty through your actions. So suppose you’re a basketball player and you’re practicing free throws, and your goal that you set for yourself is to make each individual ball in the basket. There are two possible outcomes, and every time you shoot the ball, you reduce two possible outcomes to one. That’s not a lot of uncertainty being reduced. Reducing two things to one thing. And therefore, you will not experience very much flow. If you set your goal, this binary framing of success, failure.
So how can you inject more flow setting a goal to not achieve individual baskets, but to set a streak that is as long as possible. If your goal is to achieve a streak, then possible outcomes are more than two. It’s not just make or miss. You can make zero in a row, one in a row, two, three, four, five. There are literally infinite possible outcomes. And now, the act of shooting the ball reduces an infinite number of possible outcomes to one. So now, simply by reframing what you’re doing in terms of streaks rather than binary success or failure, you’ve injected more uncertainty into your activity, which you can then reduce by taking action and experience more flow in what you’re doing.
This is precisely why, whether it’s a gaming app or a learning app like Duolingo is filled with streakification. They want you to think in terms of streaks because streaks allow you to reduce a lot more uncertainty than binary success failure.
Matt Abrahams: It’s fascinating. Several things you said just really intrigued me. You teach organizational behavior, you’re in a business school. How do these principles you’ve just described apply directly in business? In running meetings or in our interactions with others, the goals that we set for our role, the way in which we create our strategy. How do these all come together?
You can say the winner of the sales competition, say there are fifty salespeople, and you say the winner of this competition is going to win a ticket for an all-expense paid vacation. Now, there’s only one winner here. And probably when you have forty-nine competitors, you’re, the likelihood of winning is not very high. So you sort of already know the outcome. There’s not much uncertainty for you to reduce by actually engaging in this sales competition. You could have alternatively had various prizes. A first place, second place, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and maybe if funds are limited, it’s not an all-expense paid trip for everyone.
But in this case, if the relevant outcome is not just win lose, but come in first, come in second, come in third, come in fourth, now there’s a lot more uncertainty available for the competitors to reduce through the competition. And that will induce more flow and result in greater performance.
Matt Abrahams: I find it interesting and counterintuitive, often when managers are trained and leaders are trained, it’s all about reducing uncertainty to make things clearer, you know, prioritize.
Matt Abrahams: On this podcast, we’ve talked to your colleague, Szu-chi Huang, and we’ve talked to Katy Milkman about goals and goal pursuit, particularly for individuals. This seems to me to be yet another tool that we can use in our own pursuit of the goals we have, fitness, health, well-being, being social. Do you yourself use some of these tools to help you engage in more meaningful goal pursuit?
Matt Abrahams: Yeah.
Okay so I sort of know before I start how long that streak is going to go. So for Steph Curry, streaks are going to be far more potent than me. So what should I do? What I should do is not think in terms of how many can I get in a row. What I should do is think, what are the fewest number of misses before my first success? Because that number is highly uncertain, much more uncertain than how many successes can I get in a row.
Matt Abrahams: I really like that. It’s motivational and it’s something that I think all of us can do in many different aspects of our lives. Some of my most flow-like experiences happen when I’m with others in conversation, playing a sport, interacting in some way. Is there research on how we can best collaborate with others to create shared flow experience? And what role does communication play in that, if any?
The more uncertainty you reduce, the more flow I’m going to experience during that conversation. So for you, that means a few things. One, it means that your feedback needs to be trustworthy. Second, you need to be clear. That’s kind of obvious. If you’re unclear, I don’t know what the heck you’re saying. Then of course, what you’re saying can’t reduce very much uncertainty for me. And third, you need to be sufficiently specific.
Maybe you’re a manager who is the kind of person who will give me one or two responses to the question, how am I doing? You might say, you are meeting or exceeding expectations, or you are not meeting or exceeding expectations. Now, if I’m a decent employee, I already knew that I was meeting or exceeding expectations. You’ve not reduced any uncertainty for me, for me to get information, what I need is something specific. I need to know, well, am I meeting or am I exceeding? If I’m exceeding by how much am I exceeding? And in what way am I exceeding? So you need to be trustworthy, clear, and specific in order for communication to be a source of flow.
Matt Abrahams: When I was in graduate school, I studied uncertainty reduction theory in communication.
Besides flow, do you have other advice or recommendations for how we can set goals we can achieve and work towards accomplishing them?
So whether you have a weight loss goal or a professional goal or any kind of academic goal or health goal, I would say attainability shouldn’t be the strongest focus. You want to find some sweet spots where there’s some degree of uncertainty about whether to what extent you’re going to achieve it. Of course, when doing this, you need to account for the cost of failing to achieve. But given that you really want to have the attainability of the goal be as uncertain as possible given the cost of failure.
Matt Abrahams: Before we end, I’d like to ask you three questions. One I’ll tailor specifically to you, and then the other two are questions I ask everybody on this show. Are you ready for that?
Matt Abrahams: I’m very curious, David, what is something you do to invite flow into your own life? Ever since I was a little kid, I loved putting Lego bricks together.
Matt Abrahams: I will use that as a way of getting into a flow state and for me that works very well. What are things that you do.
Matt Abrahams: So I’ve learned a couple things from that. One, I always have to knock on your door before I come in, I don’t want to get hit by an errant pen.
Matt Abrahams: Yes. Question number two, who is a communicator that you admire and why?
Matt Abrahams: Final question, and trustworthiness might be a component of that answer, is what are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe?
Matt Abrahams: Well, you have done a fantastic job today being very clear, being very specific, and I certainly trust you. We appreciate the insight and I encourage everybody to think about how you can build flow into your practice to help you better achieve the goals that you hold for yourself. David, thank you for your time.
