Csikszentmihalyi: Evolution, Leadership & Change.
When I first volunteered to read Csikszentmihalyi for this class, I was intrigued. Csiks is a psychologist, and I have always read his books from a different frame of reference than leadership. In Optimal Experience, Flow, and Creativity he writes about individual experiences in doing work that is meaningful and the state of mind that flow creates. In his 2003 book Good Business, he writes about how flow can bring “much needed fulfillment into the workplace of the future.” The title of The Evolving Self (1993) led me to believe I was going to hear more about flow and the individual growth it can create. I was surprised but then quickly understood how his themes of evolution and the interconnected world relate to leadership and change.
In The Evolving Self, Csikszentmihalyi takes a broader approach to individual growth and experience. He focuses on how individual and collective leadership intersect with the issues of the 21st Century and beyond. He does this by first illustrating how evolution provides humans with a small, but important window in which to make change. He writes, “My intention… is to reflect on what we know about evolution and to develop the implications of that knowledge for everyday action.”(4) Even though we feel powerless to affect a force like evolution - something so much larger than ourselves – we do have the power because humans are capable of consciousness about our choices. Our actions can be focused around “approaches to life that improve its quality and lead to joyful involvement.”(5)
Csikszentmihalyi’s audience for The Evolving Self is the entire human race. He is looking at human development within a larger scheme, while paying attention to how anyone can affect change. He highlights what many feel is a predetermined trajectory, only to argue that evolution is not guarantee or predetermined; it is always changing. Csiks points out that humans are the only creatures on the planet that have the propensity for history-making because of our ability to think critically; humans can break out of the “fatalistic belief system” that encourages people to avoid taking responsibility. His purpose is for people to start taking control of evolution, becoming an active part of the process, and identifying our ‘free-will.’
In arguing that the world is increasingly interconnected and that no one is able to completely avoid the way other people choose to live, Csiks points out that “it is together that we shall either prevail or disappear.” (8) He also makes the point that we are largely unused to thinking and working together toward the larger goals of the human race.
Csikszentmihalyi links much of his other work on optimal experiences to the ideas in The Evolving Self, where he writes, “individuals who develop to the fullest their uniqueness, yet at the same time identify with the larger processes at work in the cosmos, escape the loneliness of their individual destinies” (11-12). He is arguing for a change in human leadership, and is challenging the focus on prosperity for our own comforts. Who will lead us to contribute to the common good and change our way of thinking about this world we live in? Is it you? Or is it we?
Although I felt, at first, that Csikszentmihalyi’s writing was going to be too philosophical to present options for change, I changed my mind while reading his first chapter. I feel he did a good job of linking larger processes to way that people think on a daily basis and addressing the ways that people argue that they are unable to make a larger change by themselves. He presents the amazing human capacity for leadership, “having a self-reflective consciousness allows us to write our own programs for action, and make decisions for which no genetic instructions exist.” (22)
Csikszentmihalyi points out the importance not only of genetics, social or learned behavior, but also human choices around behavior. We have the power to choose our path and our impact on the world. We can continue to blindly operate in the environment the way we have, or we can work towards changing the way we think. We can find “ways to improve [our] chances of survival through cooperation.” (21). We can do that by developing a commitment to the commons or developing an overarching human identity to find a way to work together. But “unless such a species identity takes precedence over the more particular identities of faith, nation, family, or person, it will be difficult to agree on the course that must be taken to guarantee our future.” (19)
My critique of Csikszentmihalyi would be that although he brings us from evolution all the way to individual action, he fails to illustrate what that looks like on a real grass-roots level. He fails to be a leader of that change by suggesting ways to create a pan-earth identity or an apolitical environmental vision himself. Sometimes understanding how our individual actions are the starting point is the most challenging. So I will fill in for Csiks, updating for the year 2008.
In action today, our commitment to evolution and a larger human cause means finding a place deep inside of each one of us that can decide we don’t need to drive an SUV that wastes gas just because it is more comfortable, or that we can live closer to places we work so as to drive less, or that we can forgo the convenience of disposable Styrofoam dishes. “The awesome powers we have stumbled into require a commensurate responsibility” (18). Csikszentmihalyi argues that respecting the evolutionary process and nature means making decisions with a larger view and finding new selves. Can ‘we’ do this? Maybe that is where our individual leadership mettle is tested.
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Csikszentmihalyi's work in positive psychology -- focusing attention on human strengths and creativity -- speaks to me of the "visioning" aspect of leadership. An individual who can communicate a compelling, positive vision that taps into the abilities and creative capacities of each individual in the group/family/company moves the entire group forward in an organic way.
Csiks' work with "flow" tells me that my satisfaction is dependent on what environmental input I chose to pay attention to -- what aspects of the endless stream of sensory choices I invest with my "psychic energy." (11) By making choices, I make a commitment to action, and challenge myself to grow -- another organic concept.
The shared responsibility of the human race, as the species that became self-conscious and began transforming the rest of the planet to its own purposes, is a compelling framework for considering group behavior. This consciousness, Csiks says, "can lead either to safety or to destruction." (15) His comment that we are programmed to pursue selfish ends to preserve and replicate the information encoded in our genes (17) is, again, an organic view of mankind -- a single developing organism. But an organism with self-awareness, one that can actively make choices based on its history and a committed attention to the environment, one that also has an ability to focus its efforts toward a desired outcome, is one powerful organism! Having a self-reflective consciousness allows us to write our own programs for action and make decisions for which no genetic instructions existed before.(22)
I encourage all of us to spend a few minutes of our psychic energy considering the questions in the "Further Thoughts" discussion at the end of our reading. My responses to the themes of interconnectedness, evolution, chance, freedom, good/bad, and self have been helpful to me in developing a leadership "voice" that better conveys my personal values, and they have served as the basis for many useful conversations. - nan
Posted by: Nan Jahnke | February 16, 2008 04:35 PM