Can we create group flow or stay in the zone as a team....?

Having seen a resurgence of articles looking at FLOW, having seen articles from Thrive Global, Sydney Morning Herald and most recently RedBull Fitness (https://www.redbull.com/za-en/how-to-find-flow-tips), being an area of personal interest to me started me thinking around concepts about the subject. Mainly I wanted to consider or open for discussion how we as coaches can enhance performance environments or learning atmospheres to get players individually or as a group into flow or more frequently “in the zone”….

Firstly, a refresher; flow – also known as the zone or transient hypofrontality – is a state of mind where we lose our sense of self. This engaged state of mind in which whatever you're doing feels nearly effortless was named ‘flow’ by Hungarian-American psychologist and former professor of the University of Chicago, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in 1975, when he discovered that people are at their most creative, productive, and happy when they are completely absorbed in a task. Basically, flow is the optimal state of consciousness. Cziksentmihalyi defines flow as “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it.” (Cskikszentmihalyi, 1990). He identifies a number of different elements involved in achieving flow which includes a balance between challenges and skills, no worry of failure, immediate feedback to one’s actions and distractions are excluded from consciousness.

I’ve previously discussed ideas such as Zone of Proximal Development which refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner. Vygotsky believed that when a student or athlete is in the zone of proximal development for a particular task, providing the appropriate assistance will give the student enough of a "boost" to achieve the task and keep them in a state of flow for longer as example. However, as sports coaches, how could we develop a combined state of self-awareness with dynamic group principles to ensure we have a creative, productive team culture?

As outlined by Dr Josephine Perry in the RedBull article, for a chance of cultivating flow requires what is known as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, or in my opinion, marking off areas within Self Determination Theroy. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has five layers: Physiological, Safety, Social belonging, Esteem and Self-actualisation, with SDT principles fitting into the top layers. Each layer should be fulfilled before the next one is effective. However, fulfilling SDT Basic needs shall also result in positive psychological consequences such as adaptive coping strategies for personal development and flow experiences, ideal for player development and both consequences required for athletes as part of personal development. Satisfying the basic needs of autonomy, competence and relatedness or connection to others shall “foster self determined motivation” (Hollembeak, 2005) and has been associated with “higher self-esteem, higher task engagement and lower anxiety” (Deci, 2001), which allow athletes or players to develop intrinsically defined motivation for goals or development within their sport. The difficulty for coaches is finding the group balance; in dynamic sports and developing social or cultural groups, how can we offer opportunities or challenges with no worry of failure and immediate feedback to player or athlete’s actions to offer them flow like feelings?

While Csikszentmihalyi’s research focuses on the area of work and creative output, he sees that the state of flow is applicable to relationships and team situations; even times of adversity can transform into a challenge rather than a setback. He even concludes that there are people who have developed their flow to such an extent that they are able to translate every potential threat into an enjoyable challenge, and thereby maintain an inner tranquillity as a continuous state of mind. He calls such a person an “autotelic self,” someone who “is never bored, seldom anxious, involved with what goes on and in flow most of the time.” Therefore, with these ideas in mind, we as coaches could engage on a significant and sincere level and teach our young athletes or leaders to do likewise. Interests thrive when there is encouraging support, supporting a feeling of competency and relatedness. Coaches and athletes alike having unified persistence towards sport specific goals should be positive for all dimensions for leader-follower relations, continued development of grit in sporting atmosphere and result in understanding of importance of pursuit of mastery yet not over whelming in each other’s identity. Combining the ideas and comparisons against Erikson’s deliberate practice model, Vygotsky’s ZPD and Csikszentmihalyi’s theory towards flow, as we offer supportive guidance, we as coaches should ensure we offer clearly but collaboratively defined stretch goals, outline and expect full concentration and effort from each other, offer immediate and informative feedback and offer an environment where progress can be developed through repetition with reflection and refinement.

The challenge of successful coaching is acknowledging social interactive dilemmas within individual and team goal setting and development, offering suitable scenarios and choices with all members’ involvement and collaboratively dealing with matters as opposed to eradicating them. Past research by Mageau and Vallerand regards the “actions of coaches as (possibly) the most critical motivational influences within sport setting”. How can we offer many if not all these perimeters, while attempting to offer learning environments to create intrinsic or unified flow-like scenarios, within a evolving amosphere such as team sports settings? I’ve tried previously to draw upon on ideas and comments from Mark O’Sullivan’s blog post from www.footblogball.wordpress.com/, recognising the impact of Form of Life or how cultural influences can effect players getting into “the zone” or staying in the zone of proximal development:

“Long-term athlete development involves highly complex processes in which there are an almost incalculable number of interactions that can influence the rate and magnitude of development of young athletes (Kirkland, O ‘Sullivan, 2018)
Social systems like youth sports clubs are open systems, so a change in one area is likely to create changes elsewhere in the system. As with all social phenomena, sports coaching and the development of young people are influenced by broad political, social and cultural contexts, where abilities are acquired thanks to a history of interactions (Rietveld 2008).
For good or for bad, local interactions,if allowed to occur on a regular basis through proximal processes and their interactions,affect neighbouring agents and can eventually influence other systems and distal processes (Heylighen, 2009), making learning in the system inheritably social.”

Coaching should be recognised as a dynamic educational relationship, where the coach can satisfy player’s goals and development but both sides have an investment of will capital, where human initiative and intentionality are both dedicated to show commitment towards goals and relationships. I believe that introducing ideas such as Vygotsky’s ZPD and Wood, Bruner and Ross’ scaffolding techniques can promote flow to modern day athletes by offering autonomy supportive practices and offering engagement and drive through understanding and supporting individual’s intrinsic motivations. I believe coaches should assist players to identify problems as opposed to solving them, offering ideas for how to think and act as opposed to offering solutions and allowing players or athletes to try (and fail) in their relative environments.

As Getzels and Csikszentmihalyi’s research addressed, creative people are driven by discovery and creation of problems as opposed to superior skills or ability, one of the markers of being in flow. I feel the Zone of Proximal Development with collaborative learning environments is an area that would be successfully applicable to developing individual and collective FLOW for athletes in team sports as this theory encourages players to ask questions and adopt sub routines as part of their practice in development of mastery; therefore, the players are taking over the structure of tasks and practice while acquiring transfer for performance, offering themselves immediate feedback on their efforts and development while absorbing themselves in the task. This may work against markers of FLOW where you are completely absorbed in the activity and unselfconscious of your environment or surroundings yet like addressed by O’Sullivan and others such as James Vaughan, within dynamic sports and team cultures, all other interactions and systems shall come into effect and communication, thinking and complex, reactive movements and moments shall have to be accounted for if attempting to get into and remaining in a FLOW like state. These ideas were excellently discussed in recent podcast between Dan Abrahams and Mark Bennett MBE tagged below:

(https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/65-mark-bennett-mbe-getting-very-best-out-yourself/id1434313037?i=1000457782930)

I believe we as coaches can support flow like states by encouraging players to think through varied yet relevant situational challenges in relevant, playful or game formats that all participants enjoy or are collectively engaged in. I believe breaking the drill based, linear forms of coaching methodologies while allowing for and embracing collaborative exploration of talents and interests within sports or practice designs shall step towards athletes getting into a state of “group flow”and away from standardised measurements of practices or involved sports methodologies. I believe the development of compassionate and democratic environments through autonomy supportive behaviours, athlete centred practices and more organic view towards development and methods of skill acquisition shall allow athletes to maintain engagement with creative and collective developed diverse talents, according to their interests and current skill levels. The challenge is balance; maintaining strong relationships to allow challenge, questioning and communication to flow while allowing athletes to test and explore the boundaries of their skills and sports involved in……would love you hear your thoughts regarding.