{"id":3883,"date":"2025-04-14T20:31:19","date_gmt":"2025-04-14T20:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=3883"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:24:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:24:38","slug":"how-teams-achieve-the-coveted-state-of-group-flow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/how-teams-achieve-the-coveted-state-of-group-flow\/","title":{"rendered":"How Teams Achieve the Coveted State of \u201cGroup Flow\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\n

Too often, teams in sports, music, and business fail to gel for many reasons. Sometimes, though, teams achieve \u201cgroup flow,\u201d when interactions seem effortless, and team members contribute ideas and complete tasks in synchrony to reach peak levels of collaborative performance.<\/p>\n

Academy of Management Scholar Bess Rouse<\/a> of Boston College said that team members contributing swiftly and additively\u2014extending a prior contribution, is crucial for creating a sense of momentum. Increasing momentum, in turn, influences changes in emotions, thought processes, and behavior that result in group flow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe delicacy of group flow makes it very hard to maintain,\u201d Rouse said. \u201cWhen we\u2019re theorizing about it, we\u2019re really careful about this idea of coming in and out of group flow, and that it is very hard to sustain over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re thinking about it in the context of a group at work, in particular, it\u2019s helpful to think about things like, \u2018How do we focus our attention on each other and keep that momentum going?\u2019\u2014so you could imagine that a lot of interruptions are problematic in that sense,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf somebody is interrupting you, or you don\u2019t have dedicated space, it\u2019s going to be very hard to get into that sense of group flow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rouse and her research colleagues theorize that a lot of the factors that contribute to good group functioning, such as feeling comfortable in the workplace and feeling trust from senior management and colleagues, help get individuals and, by extension, teams in that flow.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we think about this state of flow at the group level versus the individual level, the idea that this is something like improv is instructive\u2014responding to a team member by saying \u2018yes, and\u2026\u2019 contributes to the idea that you\u2019re building on each other,\u201d Rouse said. \u201cYou actually want to be there for that purpose, and you want to build on other team members\u2019 ideas.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd this can be difficult in the context of organizations, because we have political motivations; we have our own agendas,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have different things we\u2019re doing at work that hopefully are related to the work assignments or objectives but may be actually getting in the way of you feeling that necessary trust and willingness to build on other people\u2019s ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher Too often, teams in sports, music, and business fail to gel for many reasons. Sometimes, though, teams achieve \u201cgroup flow,\u201d when interactions seem effortless, and team members contribute ideas and complete tasks in synchrony to reach peak levels of collaborative performance. Academy of Management Scholar Bess Rouse of Boston College said that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1395,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,21,76,79],"tags":[],"sp_smart_badges":[],"ppma_author":[70],"class_list":["post-3883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-emotions","category-innovation","category-performance","category-teams"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow Teams Achieve the Coveted State of \u201cGroup Flow\u201d - Academy of Management Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/how-teams-achieve-the-coveted-state-of-group-flow\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Daniel Butcher\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-teams-achieve-the-coveted-state-of-group-flow\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-teams-achieve-the-coveted-state-of-group-flow\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Daniel Butcher\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d1297a59039d9ca7bac9d9f0952e508c\"},\"headline\":\"How Teams Achieve the Coveted State of \u201cGroup Flow\u201d\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-14T20:31:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-07-09T15:24:38+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-teams-achieve-the-coveted-state-of-group-flow\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":398,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-teams-achieve-the-coveted-state-of-group-flow\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/05\\\/Innovation-posts-img.webp\",\"articleSection\":[\"EMOTIONS\",\"INNOVATION\",\"PERFORMANCE\",\"TEAMS\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-teams-achieve-the-coveted-state-of-group-flow\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-teams-achieve-the-coveted-state-of-group-flow\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.aom.org\\\/today\\\/how-teams-achieve-the-coveted-state-of-group-flow\\\/\",\"name\":\"How Teams Achieve the Coveted State of \u201cGroup Flow\u201d - 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Previously, he was a writer and the Finance Editor for Strategic Finance magazine and Management Accounting Quarterly, a scholarly journal, at the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). Prior to that, he worked as a writer\/editor at The Financial Times, including daily FT sister publications Ignites and FundFire, as well as Crain Communications\u2019s InvestmentNews and Crain\u2019s Wealth, eFinancialCareers, and Arizent\u2019s Financial Planning, Re:Invent|Wealth, On Wall Street, Bank Investment Consultant, and Money Management Executive. He earned his bachelor\u2019s degree, Cum Laude, from the University of Colorado Boulder and his master\u2019s degree from New York University. You can reach him at dbutcher@aom.org or via LinkedIn.","sameAs":["https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/danielbutcher\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":70,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"daniel-butcher","display_name":"Daniel Butcher","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp","url2x":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/DanButcher_Academy-of-Management.webp"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Innovation-posts-img.webp",1080,720,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Innovation-posts-img.webp",1080,720,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Innovation-posts-img.webp",1080,720,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Innovation-posts-img-150x150.webp",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Innovation-posts-img-300x200.webp",300,200,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Innovation-posts-img-1024x683.webp",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Innovation-posts-img.webp",1080,720,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Innovation-posts-img.webp",1080,720,false],"owl_elementor_thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Innovation-posts-img.webp",600,400,false],"owl_elementor_team":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Innovation-posts-img.webp",350,233,false],"owl_elementor_testimonial":["https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Innovation-posts-img.webp",100,67,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Daniel Butcher","author_link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/author\/daniel-butcher\/"},"rttpg_comment":1,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/emotions\/\" rel=\"category tag\">EMOTIONS<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/innovation\/\" rel=\"category tag\">INNOVATION<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/performance\/\" rel=\"category tag\">PERFORMANCE<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/category\/teams\/\" rel=\"category tag\">TEAMS<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"By Daniel Butcher Too often, teams in sports, music, and business fail to gel for many reasons. Sometimes, though, teams achieve \u201cgroup flow,\u201d when interactions seem effortless, and team members contribute ideas and complete tasks in synchrony to reach peak levels of collaborative performance. 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