On the Nature of Flow
Chapter 1: Introduction
The Flow
The Flow is a vector.
It has both magnitude and direction. It always moves from the present state to a future goal: a finished job, a better process, a learned skill, a tighter crew, a thing done right, on time, and without waste.
The role of a good leader isn’t to manage the Flow. It’s to tap into it, to read it, and ultimately, to become one with it.
When you’re truly locked into your people, the task, and the environment, you don’t need to struggle, push, or crack the whip. Progress builds under its own weight and you start achieving more with less. Momentum catches, camaraderie takes root, morale becomes real.
This isn’t management theory. It’s management reality.
Let us be clear: you, the leader, whether you know it or not, are already the Flow.
If you’re tired and sluggish, the crew slows down. If you’re erratic or reactive, they grow cautious and unsettled. If you’re bitter, sarcastic, or checked out, don’t be surprised when the air turns sour before breaktime. If you overreact or treat someone unfairly, the team splinters even if no one says a word.
I learned this early.
Everything ran through the one who understood the work.
The speed. The quality. The mood. The shared purpose, or the lack of it.
On broken jobsites, there’s no time for theory. No time for managing what won’t be managed.
So the wise leaders stop trying to control the Flow.
They learn to act as its conduit.
Over time, they don’t just follow the current.
They become the current.
Every step, every word, every choice serves the Flow.
A Leader's Compass
Visualize the Flow in two dimensions. Picture it laid out like a blueprint grid with four quadrants and the origin at the center.
Without leadership, each dot-shaped worker moves independently around that origin, guided by instinct, personal preference, or a partial understanding of the goal. When you map their movement and connect the dots, you don’t get a path. You get a shapeless mess.
A blob.
Blobs have no magnitude and no direction. They flail. They stall. They get in their own way. They burn themselves out going nowhere while accomplishing nothing.
But with a tuned-in leader, a good crew begins to align like iron filings around a magnet. Movements start to line up. The individual dots form a path. Every one of them pushes in the same direction.
The job becomes not only possible, but inevitable.
That’s the power of alignment. That’s the force of the Flow.
Everyone understands where they’re going and because of that, what they should be doing to serve the goal.
As a leader, every decision you make must pass through a single filter: Does this get us closer to the goal, or further away?
If the answer doesn’t align with the final goal and the Vector of Flow, abandon it. No matter how convenient, easy, or pleasing to the people above you. No matter how safe.
Because sometimes, the decision that serves the Flow is uncomfortable. Sometimes it means being the one who gets disciplined. Sometimes it means parting ways with a long-time crewmember who no longer pulls weight. And sometimes it means standing toe-to-toe with a higher-up who doesn’t understand the Flow.
The Danger of the Unflowing Boss
You’ll run into them: the unflowing bosses, the lords of surface inspection, the ones who think with their eyes, not their brains.
They walk onto a site, spot a few unfinished receptacles, and raise hell. What they don’t see is that the crew is in rhythm pounding through lighting installs with a speed that only comes from focus and repetition.
These unflowing bosses don’t ask questions. They don’t see the big picture. They don’t know where they’re going. They just react to whatever they see or hear.
So they blow the whistle. They pull guys off the lights. They send them scrambling for tools, wire, and materials to start the receptacles early.
The result? They’ve killed the rhythm, split the crew’s attention, and added significant time to both tasks. Neglecting the Flow, even for a moment, can ripple damage across weeks or even months.
All for show and for no gain.
We’ve watched it happen more times than we care to count.
And every time, the same thing happens: you project fear and expose your incompetence—and you do it to the very people you’re supposed to be leading.
Morale dips, productivity falls, camaraderie cracks. Trust is lost.
This is not a team.
The Flow was sacrificed on purpose by a limp manager desperate to preserve their illusion of control. The results are always catastrophic.
The Kayak of Progress
The Flow is not some mystical feeling. It’s not a gut instinct or a buzzword. It’s a literal river and you are sitting inside the Kayak of Progress stuck in the headwaters.
In Frustration Creek at the head of the River of Flow, the water is shallow and filled with rocks. Every few feet the kayak becomes stuck. The current is barely there. If you want to move, you must scoot the kayak across the rocks on your ass. It’s awkward. It’s painful. It’s slow. You have to scoot and paddle hard just to inch forward. It feels like it’s not worth it. But that’s the price of starting.
As you continue, the water gets deeper and you might suddenly realize you’re not getting hung up as often. You have passed from the Creek of Frustration to the Stream of Momentum. You can start paddling slightly, and now you glide a little farther with each stroke. The rocks are still there, but you can start to avoid them by looking for opportunities and positioning your kayak in favorable channels. The current still isn’t strong enough to pull you along with it, so all the forward momentum is directly proportional to the effort you put in. If you stop paddling, the whole Kayak of Progress slows to a stop.
Eventually, the Stream of Momentum gives way to the River of Flow. Now, the current is doing the hard work of propelling you forward. Your only job is to steer and look into the future. Watch the banks. Avoid the fallen tree. Call out turns. You’re no longer expending effort just to move forward. The current does all the work. By this point, it would take an even larger effort to turn the kayak around and go backwards back to where you were before.
No one wants to fight that kind of current, so they fall in line and get swept up in the current with you.
That’s the goal of leadership: to reach a point where you don’t have to drag a project forward. The Flow does it for you. You just keep it clean, clear, and moving towards the goal.
Too many of you are still spinning in a circle, splashing aimlessly in the Creek of Frustration. You think if you just yell louder or flail around more someone will come to your rescue. “These idiot Tradesmen need to do their jobs and pull me out of my present predicament!”
No one is coming to your rescue. No one cares if you are frustrated. It is not their job to save you. In fact, watching you spin and splash provides entertainment for them that can last years. They like watching your dumb ass struggle.
Remember:
It’s not about speed! It doesn’t matter how fast you flop and flounder!
It’s about direction! You’ve got to start by scooting in the right direction!
Field Testimony and Final Truth
I was once told repeatedly by a new manager who knew nothing of the flow, that my crew, a crew we both inherited, was “moving too slow.” I did not agree.
Where he saw in motion, I saw in direction.
When I delivered my 30-day report to him and the other managers, I laid it out simply:
The first thing I do with any new crew I take over is fix the Flow.
Until the Flow is right, all speed is wasted speed.
A crew pulling against itself in different directions just makes a bigger mess faster.
But once the Flow is corrected? Things can start moving. Fast, clean, and powerful.
I gave them a 60-day schedule, target by target. I asked them to trust the process. Not because it sounded good, but because it worked. I’d lived it.
They didn’t like that.
My boss threatened to fire me more than once after that, but I was undeterred. I’ve been the Flow before. I’ve served it. And when you have intimate knowledge of the Flow, fear of weak threats loses its grip. You don’t flinch when you know you’re in the right current.
I stayed the course and never backed down.
By the end of those next 60 days, every goal was met. Every benchmark was hit. The crew was flying. Morale was high. “Team” was beginning to mean something again and my boss couldn’t stand the way I operated.
The crew, divided and angry when I arrived, was suddenly happy, united, and focused. Measurable progress was being made daily: a training program for new hires was created and distributed, preventative measures were put in place to keep emergency distractions to a minimum, equipment was purchased to make jobs easier and faster, each employee contributed a personal goal for the week and every action of mine ensured that every person could achieve their goal. If a goal was not achieved, I took it personally because I had failed a member of my team. Instead of me alone making progress, I had thirty people around me making progress together. We had weekly meetings to discuss how their goals all served the Flow.
As a result, a senior crew member with decades of experience pulled me aside one night and said simply:
“We will work for you.”
I didn’t understand the full weight of those words at the time: the compliment, the surrender, the trust.
And then, just like that, in just shy of ninety days, I was out of a job. I saw it coming. I always do with managers like that.
I’ve learned that a strong, happy crew can make a weak manager uneasy. Especially those managers who can only survive by managing chaos and blame shifting. As soon as there’s no fire to put out, they feel like they have lost their purpose, so they manufacture a problem and send everyone into chaos again. They are actors playing a part. Their bosses are the audience, their subordinates are the pawns.
That’s why I treated my time there like a short visit. I gave it everything I had and tried to do the most good for the poor souls who were destined to remain long after I was gone. Because that’s what the Flow demands.
The silver lining?
More than three years later, that same manager is still in charge, supported by weaker managers above him. The experienced crew I led is gone with a few stragglers hanging around to see how the horror show plays out. Every benchmark we hit during my ninety-day reign has vanished, swallowed by time and neglect. The training program doesn’t exist, emergencies are the norm. There are no weekly meetings, no discussions of how each person can contribute to the Flow and make the work environment better. No camaraderie, no communication.
Without a tuned-in leader, the plan collapsed into full blob state with no direction, no drive, no accountability. Just confusion and finger-pointing.
It’s worse now than when I arrived. He is stumbling through the wreckage, grasping at straws, disciplining competence, promoting yes-men, and asking anyone who’ll listen:
“What’s the plan? Have you seen the plan? Do you have the plan? WHERE IS THE PLAN?”
We had the plan. We still have the plan. But we don’t work for him.
A good leader who understands the Flow will give everything to protect it even if it costs them their job because losing a position under a raging lunatic isn’t a loss.
It’s a release.
There are other rivers.
Once you understand the Flow, you can stop chasing titles.
Interviews become conversations.
You’re not forced to sell yourself anymore. You’re simply describing the current you’ve learned how to follow.
Because it’s never been about you. It never will be.
You are only the conduit. The witness. The keeper of the current.
If your manager doesn’t understand the Flow: explain it.
If they won’t listen: show them.
If they still choose blindness: leave.
Let them struggle in the still water. That’s their choice. Not yours.
The Flow isn’t a tactic. It’s not a motivational poster. It isn’t something you invent.
It’s something you surrender to and serve.
If you want to be a leader worth following, you must become its vessel and its voice.
Consult the Flow in all things. Protect it from chaos. Paddle hard when you must, but steer when you can.
And above all:
Please… don’t become the Blob.