The Best Research on Team Flow
Here are my top 13 articles (and dissertation) showcasing the science of Team Flow.
Free downloadable links to all of the studies below.
The Conceptualization of Team Flow.
ABSTRACT: “Despite the noted potential for team flow to enhance a team's effectiveness, productivity, performance, and capabilities, studies on the construct in the workplace context are scarce. Most research on flow at the group level has been focused on performance in athletics or the arts, and looks at the collective experience. But, the context of work has different parameters, which necessitate a look at individual and team level experiences. In this review, we extend current theories and essay a testable, multilevel model of team flow in the workplace that includes its likely prerequisites, characteristics, and benefits.”
Conceptualizing group flow: A framework
ABSTRACT:This literature review discusses the similarities in main themes between Csikszentmihályi theory of individual flow and Sawyer theory of group flow, and compares Sawyer’s theory with existing concepts in the literature on group work both in education and business. Because much creativity and innovation occurs within groups, understanding group collaboration characteristics, including group flow, is critical to designing, leading, and sustaining effectively creative groups. Sawyer’s theory, being the first to describe flow within groups, can be difficult to conceptualize because of the high number of included constructs. By synthesizing the ideas, we propose a simpler model for conceptualizing group flow consisting of the principles of vision, ownership and contribution, and effective communication. We propose that using this condensed version of Sawyer’s leading principles might enable more research on this important topic, as well as improved practice in developing and leading innovative groups.
Group Flow and Group Genius by Keith Sawyer.
Keith Sawyer views the spontaneous collaboration of group creativity and improvisation actions as group flow, which organizations can use to function at optimum levels. Sawyer establishes ideal conditions for group flow: group goals, close listening, complete concentration, being in control, blending egos, equal participation, knowing team mates, good communication, and being progress-oriented. Collaboration is an essential ingredient of group flow and is vital to the Montessori classroom.
ABSTRACT: “Team flow occurs when a group functions in a high task engagement to achieve a goal, commonly seen in performance and sports. Team flow can enable enhanced positive experiences, as compared to individual flow or regular socializing. However, the neural basis for this enhanced behavioral state remains unclear. Here, we identified neural correlates of team flow in human participants using a music rhythm task with electroencephalogram hyperscanning. Experimental manipulations held the motor task constant while disrupting the corresponding hedonic music to interfere with the flow state or occluding the partner's positive feedback to impede team interaction. We validated these manipulations by using psychometric ratings and an objective measure for the depth of flow experience, which uses the auditory-evoked potential of a task-irrelevant stimulus. Spectral power analysis at both the scalp sensors and anatomical source levels revealed higher beta-gamma power specific to team flow in the left middle temporal cortex. Causal interaction analysis revealed that the left middle temporal cortex is downstream in information processing and receives information from areas encoding the flow or social states. The left middle temporal cortex significantly contributes to integrating information. Moreover, we found that team flow enhances global inter-brain integrated information and neural synchrony. We conclude that the neural correlates of team flow induce a distinct brain state. Our results suggest a neurocognitive mechanism to create this unique experience.”
Group flow: A scoping review of definitions, theoretical approaches, measures and findings
The purpose of this article is to provide a scoping review of the current literature on group flow… Components (e.g., synchronization), antecedents (e.g., trust), and outcomes (e.g., well-being) of group flow were identified in publications that presented empirical studies, some of which that showed similarities between characteristics of group flow and individual flow and others that showed aspects unique to group flow. Overall, this scoping review reveals the need for a systematic research program on group flow.
ABSTRACT: “Team flow is a positive team state that may augment team performance and well‐being of team members. Although gaining momentum, the topic of collective flow ina work team context is still largely unexplored and little is known about what factorsfoster it. In addition, research into this topic has so far been conductedpredominantly outside real‐life organizational work settings. In the study reportedon in this paper, 386 respondents from 60 teams in four public organizations indifferent domains were included in a survey study. Results of a multilevel analysisshowed that, at the between‐group level and the within‐group level, team goalcommitment was positively associated with team flow, and collective efficacy beliefsserved as a mediator in the relationship between team goal commitment and workteam flow. Moreover, at the within‐group level, support was found for a positive,mediated association of team proximity with team flow and for a moderating role ofcollective challenge‐skills balance. Conclusions from this study provide more insightsinto the complex mechanisms involved in establishing collective flow within a workteam context, with implications for both researchers and managers”
Promoting the emergence of Team Flow within the Workplace.
ABSTRACT: An important question in the field of team research is how teams can optimize their collaboration to maximize their performance. When team members who are collaborating towards a common purpose experience flow together, the team, as a performing unit, improves its performance and delivers individual happiness to its members. From a practical point of view, it is relevant to know how team flow experiences arise within professional organizations. The aim of this study is therefore to get more insight into the how the elements of team flow emerge. We conducted interviews with team members, business leaders, and team experts, and in addition a survey with team members. The results provide confirmation of the existing research on team dynamics, flow, group and team flow and indicate that a collective ambition, professional autonomy, and open communication must be deliberately and carefully cultivated to set the stage for the other team flow prerequisites and thence for team flow to emerge.”
ABSTRACT: “More and more teams are collaborating virtually across the globe, and the COVID-19 pandemic has further encouraged the dissemination of virtual teamwork. However, there are challenges for virtual teams – such as reduced informal communication – with implications for team effectiveness. Team flow is a concept with high potential for promoting team effectiveness, however its measurement and promotion are challenging. Traditional team flow measurements rely on self-report questionnaires that require interrupting the team process. Approaches in artificial intelligence, i.e., machine learning, offer methods to identify an algorithm based on behavioral and sensor data that is able to identify team flow and its dynamics over time without interrupting the process. Thus, in this article we present an approach to identify team flow in virtual teams, using machine learning methods. First of all, based on a literature review, we provide a model of team flow characteristics, composed of characteristics that are shared with individual flow and characteristics that are unique for team flow. It is argued that those characteristics that are unique for team flow are represented by the concept of collective communication. Based on that, we present physiological and behavioral correlates of team flow which are suitable – but not limited to – being assessed in virtual teams and which can be used as input data for a machine learning system to assess team flow in real time. Finally, we suggest interventions to support team flow that can be implemented in real time, in virtual environments and controlled by artificial intelligence. This article thus contributes to finding indicators and dynamics of team flow in virtual teams, to stimulate future research and to promote team effectiveness.”
Flowing Together: A Longitudinal Study of Collective Efficacy and Collective Flow Among Workgroups
Towards a re-conceptualization of flow in social contexts
ABSTRACT: “The antecedents and outcomes of individual-level flow are well documented in a large body of literature. However, flow does not only occur in isolation - quite to the contrary, recent evidence suggests that social interaction can facilitate the experience of flow. Therefore, we propose a taxonomy, which distinguishes five different flow states according to two global factors: interactional synchrony and self-other overlap. Solitary flow bears all characteristics developed by Csikszentmihalyi. Co-active flow is facilitated or hampered by the presence of other people. Private interactive flow emerges on the grounds of a minimal unidirectional interaction with more passive others; only the active subject is in flow. In shared interactive flow, a fully synchronized activity between group members takes place and all group members are in flow. In group flow, all members reach a level of complete self-other overlap with the group, which leads to a collective experience of flow on the group-level. In addition to differences and commonalities of the different types of flow, suggestions for how to induce and study social flow are discussed.”
BONUS:
ABSTRACT: “Social media is a popular platform for daily communication and collaboration which supports interaction with online groups and communities. Prior research has investigated flow experiences in social media but only from an individual perspective. In this article, we examine group flow in the context of social media use. The key role played by the IT artifact, as well as the social nature of such use, require the addition of two new antecedents to group flow: IT identity and social identity. We propose that in conjunction with traditional flow experiences, group members’ IT identity and social identification with the group will be strong predictors of group flow experiences. We further propose that group flow will lead to increased group exploration of the focal technology. Our research thus contributes to the growing literature on group flow by further developing its nomological network in social media usage contexts.”
ABSTRACT: “Although they superficially belong to different genres of music, Black Sabbath and Joy Division share a fundamental commonality in that their music was shaped by – and powerfully depicted – bleak urban industrial environments. This article highlights a number of specific ways in which both bands’ music depicted (and was influenced by) this environment, including an unusually bass-heavy sound, the repetitive and continuous quality of their music, an austerity of sound, the rigid structure of songs and performances and lyrical content. Both bands attained such a high – or pure – degree of environmental expression because they were examples of the phenomenon of ‘group flow’. I examine the aspects of group flow identified by psychologists and show how both bands exhibited these, including a highly cooperative creative process, a lack of conscious deliberation and a prolific and spontaneous output. It was their group flow that enabled the two bands to ‘channel’ their environment directly and powerfully.”
Team Flow: From Concept to Application. This is Dr. Jef van den Hout’s groundbreaking Dissertation on Team Flow.
And finally, one of the most fascinating classic papers on group flow…
Bosozoku: Flow in Japanese motorcycle gangs
ABSTRACT: A recurrent feature of most societies is tension between the generations, a tension that often finds expression in more or less open, more or less ritualized conflict between youth and their elders. This conflict has been said to be directly proportional to the rapidity of social change and to the amount of new information unavailable to their elders that each new generation must assimilate (Davis 1940). Japan is no exception to this trend. At least since the end of World War II, youth movements of various sorts have expressed, in various forms of ritually organized behavior, a departure from the goals and norms of adult Japanese society. Perhaps one of the most visible of such forms has been juvenile motorcycle gangs, particularly the bosozoku groups, which include mainly young men between 15 and 21 years of age. The term bosozoku means “violent-driving tribe” or “out-of-control tribe,” and the name implies the character image that both group members and outsiders assign to participants in the so-called runs that are the most important activity of the groups. The number of individuals associated with bosozoku gangs rose from about 12,500 in 1973 to about 39,000 members with some 24,000 vehicles in 1983 (Keisatsucho 1981; Homusho 1983). During the same period the number of arrests associated with their activities increased from 28,000 to 54,819 cases, which included 48,278 traffic and 6,541 criminal citations (Keisatsucho 1981, 1983, 1984).
This classic paper showcases how being part of these motorcycle gangs provides a “heightened sense of self to the participants through the enactment of a heroic role in front of the public, and through the use of skills and discipline. In addition, the run provides a sense of belonging to a community and a shared experience of collective effervescence.”