How can your employees get more job satisfaction and be more productive? A two-part question, with one potentially surprising answer.
Give them more challenging tasks to do! This may sound counter-intuitive, but Hungarian psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says that it is absolutely the right way to go.
“The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his fellow researchers have been working to understand a phenomenon experienced by artists who immerse themselves in their work without the need for food, water or even sleep; this research is focuses on understanding how people can reache great satisfaction perfomerforming at their best.
Participants in the study were asked, at randomly chosen time intervals, to describe their level of satisfaction or happiness and what they were doing.
Based on this research, a detailed description of a mental state call “flow” was created, also known as “the zone”. Simply put, if a person is performing a challenging activity and they have the relevant supporting skills they will experience a mental state of being fully involved, energized and happy.
When your employees are working on difficult tasks aligned with their skills, they will perform well and enjoy the process.
So now the challenge is to understand your team members’ skills and abilities and with your investment of time and effort this can be done.
To help you in understanding the fascinating topic of Positive Psychology I would like to recommend books by Martin Seligman and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and you can start with a TED Talk by Martin Seligman: https://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.)
Also, here is a link to Mihaly’s explanation of flow: https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow