Promoting the Flow experience in work life, in an interview with Jussi Venäläinen
In this interview, flow expert Jussi Venäläinen shares his views on the usefulness of flow and how he has become an expert on the subject.
Together with Jussi Venäläinen, we made a Topaasia deck called “Flow” in Topaasia for everyone interested to try, which focuses on the conditions of Flow in the work community.
Who are you and what do you like to do with your professional life?
I am an expert in the Flow space and I help companies and knowledge workers to create the conditions for the flow space in the work of the individual and in the operation of the entire company. In practice, I give speeches, trainings, workshops and longer-term coaching.
Why is flow important and interesting to you?
In a way, flow mode is the intersection of almost all my passions as a theme. It combines many of your own passions, such as creativity, meaning, intuition, performance, productivity, wise work, neurobiology, and psychology. I am interested in the human mind, the human body, and the entire human experience in general. Flow is at the heart of all of these.
In addition, as a person, I am interested in experiencing more flow experiences and even creating one kind of big flow experience in my life in a way.
How did you end up being an expert on the subject?
I set out to get to know Flow and promote it because I was able to combine all my previous skills into a bundle. I have a degree in business, education and sports, and I have gained work experience in the world of education, wellness, consulting and also real-life games. Flow and delving into it is a natural outcome and total for me when I combine my skills and interests.
Last year, I wrote a book on flow ( Flow Mode)) in which I wanted to largely brighten up what I learned and accumulated knowledge around the topic.
For whom, for what situations and why is a deeper understanding of Flow important?
Is there anyone for whom flow would not be important? My answer is “no”.
Flow helps you do things with quality, faster and better whether it’s about doing, producing, or achieving something. When you want to do something good, whether it’s a hobby, a sport, or doing art, understanding and getting to Flow is helpful.
Flow also helps to do things better at work, although flow is less often associated with work compared to sports and the arts. I think the importance of Flow at work is especially important because a lot of life is spent on it. In the field of work, understanding Flow benefits both employers, employees, customers, and those close to employees.
In a broader picture, flow helps to live a more meaningful and fulfilling life. Understanding it teaches a lot about humanity, the human mind, the human body, and how and with what skills to make things more fluid, and how to eliminate friction again. I think this is important, and I argue that knowing these skills in one thing helps to apply the use of the skill elsewhere. For example, if you know how to focus on golf, this will help you transfer that skill and mind control to something else to do.
P akka Flow was built under four roof themes, why are these four countries in the pack?
For my book, I built the Flow Space Stairs model from the thematic entities and practical means to eliminate the friction associated with the emergence of Flow, and in this work, this outline became a seven-step model with three prerequisites and four supporting themes.
Three prerequisites for Flow mode:
+ Vireys mode
+ Concentration
+ Challenge
Four contributing factors to Flow mode:
+ Wise work
+ Creativity
+ Meaning
+ Community
However, the Topaasia “Flow” card deck is meant to deal with organizational and community issues instead of the individual, so I ended up demarcating and combining four of the seven steps into the themes that are relevant in my experience. I think about this from the perspective of what is most wrong with knowledge work and what is easy to grasp. The four suites in the Flow deck are: development – wise work – collaboration – meaning, creativity, challenge.
What is the Flow deck for?
To improve the flow of team and work community activities. Deck addresses the ability of individuals and the community to nurture a state of flow at work through concentration, wise work, community, meaning, creativity and challenge. With the help of the deck, you can detect the challenges for the organization’s flow and develop the work to flow more smoothly. It can be used for team development days or a monthly meeting, a management team development day, or as part of an entire work community development day. The more players have worked together, the better the deck works.
Where can you hear more about Juss and Flow?
- Watch a recording of the live stream with Jussi
Learn more
If you want to delve into the flow space at work, organization, hobbies or life, then at flow-akatemia.fi you can find more than 100 hours of material in the form of videos, blog posts and podcasts.
https://flow-akatemia.fi
Order flow – book: Flow mode – The wise gear of work
