Introducing the Corporate Soul Series
Welcome to the Corporate Soul series featuring people and companies who bring soul to work. It is also a forum for sharing ideas that advance this practice. After all “Life is just a chance to grow a soul.” A. Powell Davies (Thanks to SCJoson who writes about economic sense in a world of invisible money at homeecexec.blogspot.com)
The notion of encouraging companies to find their souls and inviting people to bring their souls to work has been germinating for years but the sprout finally broke ground as I was writing an article for a business journal. (Work Life Flow: How Individuals, Zappos and Other Innovative Companies Achieve High Engagement appears in the June edition of Global Business and Organizational Excellence – a Wiley publication.) That same day the Wall Street Journal published The Hole in the Corporate Soul by Gary Hamel1, respected business strategist and thought leader. After reading it I temporarily abandoned the business article and opted for a more informal blog post. Words flew onto the page and Fixing the Hole in the Corporate Soul appeared. Your responses sparked the Corporate Soul Movement and this series. I look forward to your comments and invite you to contact me about writing a guest post. (To join the Corporate Soul Movement, click the link. Take the pledge and leave a comment with your website address and a short phrase that describes what people will find there.)
Tony Hsieh – Sole of the Corporate Soul
The Corporate Soul series Chapter 1 focuses on Tony Hsieh, CEO and his company Zappos. Each post in this chapter highlights one or more steps in the flow model, illustrated below. Flow is a way of engaging such that your soul is front and center. We’ve all experienced flow – a state of being so engaged in meaningful and enjoyable tasks that time goes by unnoticed and we lose ourselves to the activity. No distraction commands our attention, and we are working from our best selves. Knowing and working from one’s essence is the first step in achieving flow.
Flow State Model*
- Essence
- Passion
- Purpose
- Identifiable Goals
- Operating Rule
- Challenge
- Timely Feedback
- Attention, Concentration and Internal Control
*Adapted from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper Perennial, 1990).