Engagement

According to Mihály Csíkszentmihaly, a thought leader in positive psychology, flow is a state of total immersion in an activity. The concept of flow is an important idea for trainers, coaches, and performance consultants. You create a flow state by balancing the participant’s skill level and the challenge presented to him or her. If a task is too difficult, it results in frustration. Too easy, it results in boredom. If the difficulty level is optimized conditions exist for total engagement and flow.

Synopsis

Place a container in front of the room. Ask a participant to stand 6 inches away and toss some coins into the container. Ask the next participant to stand 15 feet away from the basket and toss the coins. Ask another participant to stand 3 feet away from the basket and toss the coins. Conduct a debriefing discussion about levels of engagement of the different coin tossing activities.

Purpose

To explore the concept of flow

Training Topics

  • Flow
  • Engagement
  • Motivation

Participants

Minimum: 4

Maximum: Any number

Best: 10 to 20

Time

5 minutes for the activity. 7 minutes for debriefing.

Supplies

  • Container (basket, bucket, bowl, or trashcan)
  • 10 coins

Room Set-Up

Set up the container in front of the room. Have about 20 feet of clear space in from of the container.

Flow

Explain the activity. Tell the participants that you are going to ask a few of them to demonstrate a coin-tossing activity from different distances. Instruct all other participants to act as spectators and observe the activity.

Place the container. Place a trashcan (or some other type of container) in front of the room. Explain that the goal of the activity is to toss coins into the container. Ask the spectators to stand around the container so they could watch the coin tossing activity.

Demonstrate the activity. Select a random player and give 10 coins to this person. Ask the person to stand about 6 inches away and toss the coin into the container, one coin at a time. When the participant finishes tossing the coins, count number of coins that landed inside the container. (It is very likely that all 10 coins landed inside the container unless the participant is extremely uncoordinated.)

Name the activity. Announce that this activity is called the Short-Distance Game.

Demonstrate the next activity. Select another random player. Lead the person 15 feet (or more) away from the container. Give 10 coins to this person and ask him or her to try tossing them into the container, one coin at a time. When the participant finishes tossing the coins, count the number of coins that landed inside the container. (It is very likely that none of the coins landed inside the container.)

Name the activity. Announce that this activity is called the Long-Distance Game.

Demonstrate the third activity. Select another random player. Ask this person to stand about 3 feet away from the container. Give 10 coins to this person and ask him or her to toss them into the container, one at a time. When the participant finishes tossing the coins, count the number of coins that landed inside the container.

Name the activity. Announce that this activity is called the Medium-Distance Game.

Debriefing

Conduct a poll. Ask all participants to decide which of the three games most people are likely to enjoy playing. Most people would choose the Medium-Distance Game.

Conduct a debriefing discussion. Use these sample questions:

  • If the player gets one point for each penny dropped into the basket, which game would result in high scores?
  • Which game would result in low scores?
  • Why did you decide most people would not like the Short-Distance Game?
  • Why did you decide most people would not like the Long-Distance Game?
  • Would different people find the Medium-Distance Game equally interesting? If not, why not?
  • Without changing the distance, how could you make the Short-Distance Game less boring and more engaging?
  • Without changing the distance, how could you make the Long-Distance Game less frustrating and more engaging?
  • Can you think of an activity in the workplace that is as boring as the Short-Distance Game? How could you modify this workplace activity to make it more engaging?
  • Can you think of an activity in the workplace that is as frustrating as the Long-Distance Game? How could you modify this workplace activity to make it more engaging?

Learning Points.

  1.  If an activity is too simple, people will find it boring.
  2.  If an activity is too difficult, people will find it frustrating.
  3.  If an activity is at an optimum level of difficulty, people will find it interesting and engaging.
  4. You can simplify or complicate an activity to bring it to an optimum level of difficulty.

More…

Review this Wikipedia entry: Flow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology))

Read this book: Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life. By Mihály Csíkszentmihaly. (ISBN: 978-0465024117)