Good Work

Have you ever wondered whether the work you, your colleagues or your subordinates do can be considered as “good work”? I think I am not the only one who actually doesn’t know what the term “good work” means. Back in the late 1990’s and the early 2000’s Prof. Csikszentmihalyi alongside with Howard Gardner and William Damon has investigated…

The second curve

I happened to be fortunate enough to attend at a public speech held by Charles Handy and listen to a short summary of his book: The second curve. I think the blogpost this week couldn’t be more actual than this. He used short stories and metaphores in helping us to get a deeper understanding of…

What does it take to be a charismatic leader?

Some people says, that you are either born being charismatic or you live as an insignificant piece of the society. Some others say that being charismatic can be learned. But first of all: what does charisma mean? As per the Cambridge Dictionary, charisma is a special power that some people have naturally that makes them…

Using serious games at university courses vs. corporate training projects

Last week I held a very interesting interview with Dr. Zoltan Buzady, who – beside being an experienced and acknowledged professor of Management & Leadership Development at CEU Business School, Hungary – is Managing Director of the global ‘Leadership & Flow Research Program and Network’, organized in cooperation with ALEAS Simulations Inc.  He has vast…

Behind the scenes of FLIGBY – from idea to invention

What do you think, how many people and how long did it take to create the #1 world (2012 Seattle) award winning serious game, FLIGBY? Believe it or not, it all began 10 years ago…or even a bit more. Maybe the below unfolding story sounds a bit mystical, being the creation of  lucky coincidences. Back in…

It’s difficult to be a leader alone

Being a leader is a very complex role. Especially in our time, when leaders would be required to know enough to support the team they are leading – says Prof. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in the video below: They should know the needs of different minorities, like women, children, people with special needs etc. They should be able to…

Parts of Prof. Csikszentmihalyi’s commencement address

This blogpost contains parts of Prof. Csikszentmihalyi’s commencement speech addressed at the Colorado College  in 2002. Even though this commencement address is 14 years old now, still contains ultimate truths that could serve as guiding principles of life: “Now that you are poised for this great transition, about to leave the safe for the unknown, it…

The Theory of “Flow” And Its Relevance for Organizations – 4th part from the working paper

Part 3 – The changing context of managing 2. Demographic changes Of the demographic changes that are impacting management/leadership practices we will briefly discuss two phenomena: implications of the allegedly large “social gaps” between generations and the ageing of the population. Generation gaps: Social generations are cohorts of people born in the same date range and…

The Theory of “Flow” And Its Relevance for Organizations – 2nd part from the working paper

Part 1 – “Are you satisfied with your workplace?” Leaders versus managers Before delving into our main topics, let us detour briefly by addressing a controversy in the organizational literature: the presumed similarities and differences between “managers” and “leaders”. The subtitle of our book (which we are partly summarizing and partly extending here) is “Integrating…

How to earn your employees engagement?

Multiple research shows that only about one-third of the employees are engaged at a given workplace. A larger amount of people is not engaged while the rest (around one-fourth) is actively disengaged. But what exactly employee engagement means? A business management concept that describes the level of enthusiasm and dedication a worker feels toward his/her…