“The fact that happiness is never complete or constant is one of its virtues,” says INSEAD Prof. Manfred Kets de Vries. That is why the pursuit of happiness has remained a focus for human beings throughout history.
The pinnacle of human happiness is reached through “flow” experiences, which are defined as the mental state in which the person is completely immersed in what he or she is doing, feeling full of energy, dedicated, capable of performing the task successfully and thoroughly enjoying doing so.
Is it possible to achieve this state of well-being at work? Does the type of company where one works have any bearing on that?
The answer to both questions appears to be yes.
Family-business owners attain higher levels of well-being at their jobs than other owners and employees. This is the finding of the study “Subjective Well-Being and Families in Businesses: A Study Using the Experience Sampling Method,” carried out by Lucía Ceja, a researcher for the IESE Family-Owned Business Chair. The article won the Premi Cambra for best research paper on family business.
Approaching the subject from the perspective of positive psychology, the study defines subjective well-being as the high frequency of “flow” experiences in which the person becomes completely absorbed out of personal pleasure and enjoyment. During the activity, time flies while actions, thoughts and movements happen nonstop, one after another. The individual is completely wrapped up in the activity, using his or her skills to the best of his or her ability.
What Causes Flow?
According to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the father of the concept of flow, there are nine factors that often accompany this experience of personal well-being.
- Clear goals
- A high degree of concentration
- A loss of self-consciousness
- Distorted sense of time
- Direct and immediate feedback
- Balance between personal ability level and the level of challenges presented
- A sense of personal control over the situation or activity
- The activity being intrinsically rewarding
- Becoming so absorbed in the activity that awareness is narrowed down to the activity itself: action-awareness merging
Measuring the State of Flow
How does one measure flow? One of the more novel aspects of this research is the method used for collecting data, known as the experience-sampling method (ESM). This allows for the gathering of both contextual and content-related information from the participants’ everyday lives.
A total of 30 people from Spain and Mexico took part in the study: 10 family-business owners, 10 entrepreneurs from non–family businesses and 10 employees. Each was given a PDA with an alarm set to go off randomly six times a day – three during work hours and three during free or leisure time. This went on for a period of 21 days, weekends included.
Each time the alarm rang, the participants had to answer six questions: What had they been doing? How challenging was that particular activity? What was their skill level for doing it well? How much enjoyment did they get out of doing it? How interesting was it to them? How quickly did the time pass while doing it?
Personal Well-Being, Successful Family Business
In the context of a family-owned business, the concept of flow is important. The well-being of the company’s owner affects, by extension, that of the entire family, which can lead to the business functioning more effectively.
The findings of this study show that family-business owners tend to have flow experiences at work more often than other entrepreneurs and employees.
There are a number of reasons for this. First, family-business owners tend to have clearer goals and objectives for their professional activities. They also perceive a balance between the challenges entailed by the job and the skills needed to perform it. This leads them to become more involved in what they are doing, to be focused and to feel more absorbed by their tasks.
The family-owned business creates flow experiences in its family employees since it offers a safe environment that is full of resources for finding balance among the different spheres of life and, hence, facilitates work-and-family conciliation.
In this context, they perceive their job as something significant, which could derive from a sense of continuity, since the business will be handed down to their descendants. Moreover, they see the family-owned business as a source of wealth for the family and for society, which brings them even greater satisfaction and makes them even more involved in what they are doing.
A Tool for Increasing Motivation
One of the most important goals of the family-owned business is to keep employees motivated, committed and happy. If flow represents the pinnacle of human happiness, then promoting it is the best way to achieve intrinsic motivation among employees.
Thus, family-business owners should create job positions, for both themselves and their employees, that are highly challenging and, accordingly, hire and train people who have the competencies needed to accomplish these tasks successfully.
One useful way to verify the balance between challenge and skills is to evaluate workers periodically via experience-sampling methodologies, such as those used in this study. The data collected will provide the company with key information for maintaining the well-being of the family, the business and its employees.
According to this research, the non-owner employees seldom experience flow. This is because their job positions lack both autonomy and clearly defined objectives.
To promote flow experiences, workers need to feel they are in control of the tasks they are performing. That will give them more confidence and allow them to put their energy into accomplishing their work objectives.
Therefore, it is vital to create a working climate that gives autonomy and control to employees. Likewise, it is important to encourage the employees to recognize and use their personal strengths to the best of their abilities while performing their work tasks. This will prove far more effective than trying to control their behavior through any external motivation.