Task Mixture Balance, Flow, and Sustainable Performance with Dr. Kevin Gazzara

Welcome to the Behavioral Profit, the show where

behavior drives performance and performance drives

profit. I'm your host, Debbie Longo, executive

behavioral coach. On this podcast, we go beyond

surface level strategies and look at the behaviors,

decisions, and internal patterns that quietly

shape leadership, work performance, and long

-term success. Because when behavior shifts,

results follow. Today I'm joined by Dr. Kevin

Gazzara. is a senior partner at Magna Leadership

Solutions, a certified ICF coach and a positive

intelligence mental fitness coach and a recognized

authority on work -life balance and flow. He

is the creator of the Task Quotient Assessment,

developed through his doctoral research and has

spent decades helping leaders and teams optimize

performance, motivation and engagement. first

inside global corporations like Intel, and now

as a successful entrepreneur and leadership advisor.

This conversation is about how work gets done,

why imbalance quietly trains performance, and

how leaders can design their workday to function

at a higher level. Good afternoon, Kevin Guzar.

Welcome to the show. Thanks, Debbie. And thanks

for letting me join your podcast today. So I

have a few questions here. Kevin, you talk about

task mixture balance rather than traditional

work life balance. Explain what that really means

and why the old way of thinking about balance

often fails leaders and professionals. Well,

first of all, I did lots of my all my essentially

all my doctoral work around kind of trying to

figure out how to keep individuals and teams

motivated and engaged. And what I found was that

that there is this kind of unique balance of

tasks that we all do. If you look at any of the

work that we do on a general basis, if the work

falls into one of three categories, we have routine

work. For example, if you're doing email or whatever

and we're deleting or working in a factory or

you're essentially just replicating things over

and over and over again, feeding a machine, doing

coding, whatever it is, it's typically you have

You have an immediacy to get the work done, and

it's pretty predictable. So that's what's known

as routine work. And we all do that. In fact,

a lot of us do a whole lot of it. And the second

task type is what we call troubleshooting or

problem solving. And this is similar to routine

work that you have to get it done kind of in

the moment. The difference is it's usually surprise.

It's unexpected. A machine breaks down. A car

is not working. You're doing some coding and

all of a sudden the computer freezes up or gives

you error messages and you're not really sure

what has to happen. You really have to kind of

use your brain power to go and solve that. And

that's what's known as troubleshooting type of

work or problem solving. And then the third type

of task that we do is project work. And project

work, a good example would be is kind of getting

your taxes done. It's a longer term process.

It's anticipated, doesn't have to be done in

the moment. It's usually a little bit more of

a project. And what you want to do is it takes

a much longer time. So you have a routine, you

have troubleshooting, and you have project work.

Pretty much most of the stuff that we do both

in work and outside of work at home actually

will fit into those categories. And what I found

through my quantitative research over 20, God,

it's 25 years now that I finished the first analysis,

was that each one of us has a different mixture,

and there's 496 discrete mixtures of this, and

we each have one of them. And what I found out

and statistically proved that if you can identify

your ideal mixture, of every day or every week,

however you want to measure it, that if you can

get those type of tasks in that balance, we know

that we can now raise your level of motivation,

engagement, productivity, and even empowerment.

So let me give you an example, Debbie. So for

me, at kind of a very high level, I like about

50 % of my work to be project work. I think about

30 % routine, I'm sorry, 30 % troubleshooting

and about 20 % routine work. And what I try to

do each day is I structure my days so that I

try to get most of that balance. And I think

the biggest shift for me was, I don't know about

anybody listening, I just remember when I was

back in college. Then I would say, okay, I'm

locking myself in the dorm room on Friday and

I'm writing this paper I'm gonna do this project

or whatever and I'm not coming out to what's

done and Pretty much two hours into it. I was

up I was looking to go get something to drink

to hang out to to make a phone call to do something

different And the problem is is that each one

of us has a different not only a different mixture

but a different cadence so what I realized was

rather than kind of blocking Friday out for eight

hours to do that project work. Now what I do

is I realize, oh, I have a project that has to

get done by the end of the week. And my cadence

is about two hours at a clip. And since I like

to get 50%, I'll do two hours in the morning

on the project. I'll do some routine and troubleshooting

in between. And if nothing comes in as troubleshooting

or problem -solving, I usually have a backlog

of stuff that has to get fixed that I haven't

addressed. And then I'll finish the day off with

two more hours of the project. And then what

happens is I spread the project that meets my

task mixture. It also meets my cadence, because

I'm doing them in two hours, because that's about

my tolerance. And you can really tell whether

you need to switch the types of tasks that you

do. when your brain starts focusing on different

things and kind of getting out of this flow zone,

which I think we're going to talk about a little

bit later in the podcast. Does that make sense?

Yeah, thanks. That was good. One of the things

that I got out of that was that sometimes there's

different ways of thinking and there are different

strategies and different tactics that we can

do. I don't want to get stuck in one way. If

I know one way, I don't want to do that one way

for the rest of my life. And when that happens,

what happens is I just get stuck in doing that

one way. And now my mind gets stuck in tunnel

vision. And it's not just with that. It'll be

with everything else. And then my ability to

think and grow and expand anything is pretty

much gone because my thinking One follows the

other and i'm training my brain to do a certain

thing which is a lot of what you had explained

and this is what we're trying to do. in this

podcast in behavioral profit. This is one of

the things that we're trying to do is get people

to do things differently and to help them understand

that when they do the same thing or they act

the same way, whatever it is, they'll eventually

get stuck. And then are they gonna wind up meeting

their goals and dreams? Probably not. That depends

on what their definition of goals and dreams

is. But I'm looking for people who are not happy.

who want help, who want to change, who want to

say maybe this is me that we're explaining. Maybe

Dr. Kevin is really saying something that I can

really relate to. I don't understand this, but

there's this one thing that he's saying, and

that really makes sense to me. Yeah, I think

there's reasons for that, Debbie, is that when

we look at the different task types that we do,

and as you pointed out, if you do one type of

task all the time, you're going to end up in

kind of this boredom category. It's not going

to be motivating. It's not going to be engaging.

And also, it really does negative things to your

brain where you're really thinking about, kind

of, woe is me. a type of thing where you're the

victim. But one of the things that we found out

is that each of the tasks has a different frequency

and intensity of feedback, and each one of us

needs a different level of intensity and feedback.

So people that have a high need for routine work,

so that's my lowest, it's only about 20%, in

routine work, you get a very high frequency of

feedback. Oh, look, I deleted 50 emails, or I

got 50 widgets into the machine, or I got 20

lines of code done. The interesting thing about

that is you've gotten the check off of all of

those, but that's the frequency is high, but

the intensity is low. It's not a real strong

intensity of accomplishment. When you move to

a troubleshooting or problem solving, which is

a little bit more challenging, the frequency

comparatively is going to be less. But the intensity

is going to be more. So when you solve that problem

where you finally get that code to work after

an hour and the machine runs perfectly, then

you get a different, a higher level of intensity,

but it's less feedback. And then project work

is kind of the top level where the frequency

doesn't happen very often. I gave you an example

before finishing my taxes. Did that yesterday.

I actually had to send a preliminary into my

accountant. And that took me probably two weeks

to pull everything together and look through

things and do the comparisons. And when I finally

pushed that button and said, here it is, so you

can send this into the IRS, that was a very high

intensity. It really made me feel good. But it

was only one thing compared to the other 50 emails

and the four troubleshooting projects. So once

again, recognizing, and everybody has different.

a different needs for these. And once you've

kind of recognized that through the identifying

what I call your task quotient assessment, and

we'll talk about that at the end. And for those

that hang on, we'll even give them a link so

that they can take the assessment for free. I

won't charge them for what we normally charge

for. I'll give them just for listening. They'll

be able to tell kind of what their balance is.

Yes, that was good. Thank you very much. I appreciate

that. Next question is your task quoting assessment

grew out of your doctoral research What did you

discover that most organizations and individuals

are still getting wrong about productivity? motivation

and engagement I think the big thing that they're

getting wrong is that I think there's there's

too much They're really not looking at the whole

person that they see people as kind of replaceable

widgets a lot of HR departments will have their

banner up on the wall that just says, people

are our most important resource. That's usually

a nice slogan, but it's usually not followed.

And they believe everybody is replaceable. And

different people need different levels of kind

of engagement, different task types of different

work, different... levels of feedback. And generally

what we found, particularly as organizations

have downsized, managers now have more people

to manage. And a lot of times, the work that's

being done is being done by 10 people less than

they had a year ago or whatever the number is.

So managers have started to move towards, at

least what I've seen, kind of a one size fits

all. They're generally a little bit overloaded

and they're not looking at the whole person really

not getting to know the individual so they can

really give them the type of work. That would

be the most engaging and motivating for them

i think the other thing that happens is the good

news is with a lot of. technology, there's great

productivity tools. And I think there's become

a higher dependency where they believe that the

productivity tools, if I can get people more

productive, I can fix all the problems. The problem

is they may get more productive. You're going

to reach a plateau, and you're not going to be

able to go past that. And a lot of times, the

things that they're doing, which is really good

for productivity, Sometimes it has a really negative

effect on the level of engagement. So you have

to pay a little bit of attention. And I think

we're going to talk about kind of what that looks

like with flow. And I think the listeners will

be able to kind of understand that a little bit

better when we talk about that. How about asking

the employees what they think their productivity?

and their motivation and engagement should be.

What is their vision on that? What is their perspective

about that? So if I get the employees involved

or even coworkers and I don't act like a boss

that I am on a pedestal and everybody else is

a robot and everybody should do what I say because

I think for everybody and none of my Employees

or nobody in my organization thinks like me and

I want everybody to think like me and this is

I can't tell you how many people that I've worked

with that executives and stuff that they get

bigger and bigger their company grows and they

make a lot of profits and also the ego grows

with that and then everything that they think

of is that they become is the way that I. Just

described so if i get my employees involved right

and i asked them what do you think this is what

is your perspective what is your interpretation

of these i have my own button let's try to make

it work together. As a team and then we could

probably be more successful that way because

it's an agreement. Two people agree on something

so if i want something then is the other person

going to agree do i care or not care. And then

people don't feel like they're human and then

they're gonna feel like what's the point in working

here because now. Nobody cares about me. My boss

is dictating everything. So I'm just going to

find another job where I'm treated differently.

And then you're going to have a high turnover

rate. And what's going to happen then, that's

going to cost the company a lot of money because

they're constantly training and all of these

things are happening. And then that cycle starts.

And the result of that is not going to be good.

A lot of times it's bankruptcy. Yeah. Well, I

think there's, there's two elements talking about

engaging with the employee. And when we've worked

with different organizations, I would say there's

a scale, but there's what I would call a high

trust organization and a low trust organization.

If you're working in a high trust organization

where you can have that kind of conversation,

absolutely, you should be talking, sharing ideas.

talking about what's going well, what's not going

well, sharing ideas of what you'd like to do

differently, how you can contribute. And in a

high trust organization, that works incredibly

well, because you usually have managers that

are truly interested in doing that. If you do

the same type of communication in a low trust

organization, then what happens is the managers

really see that as an attack. And quite often

you end up getting blackballed or even fired,

right, for trying to go against the system or

the machine. So I think that's the first thing

you have to do. Do you trust your organization?

Do you trust your manager? And if so, what are

you willing to share? And I think the more you're

willing to share, the better. But I think there's

a second piece that's equally as important. And

we found this out when I worked at Intel. is

that if you're going to ask the employees or

the employees are going to share things, ideas

with you, you have to be able to do one of two

things. And this is one of the reasons that a

lot of the organizational health surveys fail

year after year after year, is the first thing

you have to be able to do is you have to be able

to act on it. So employee is going to make a

recommendation. You need to engage with that.

and either take, implement the recommendation,

or second, secondarily, you need to talk about

why you're not going to implement it. But too

often, what happens is the police health surveys

come in, HR takes a look at those, they disregard

things that they don't like, and they address

some things that are usually minimized, or a

lot of things they don't even address. On the

next year, the Organizational Health Survey comes

out, and people are a little bit kind of perturbed

because they didn't really see any of the changes

that they had requested, implemented, or even

addressed. Because there's a lot of things that

employees are going to give you as ideas. They're

just really impractical to do. By not addressing

them, you're not really releasing the reason,

and people are interpreting that as the organization

just doesn't care. Yeah, that makes a lot of

sense. Next question is you emphasize flow as

a daily operating state, not a rare experience.

What conditions need to be present for someone

to consistently reach flow at work and what behaviors

typically block it? People that aren't familiar

with the concept of flow, I think they probably

are, they just don't recognize it. The concept

of flow was developed by a gentleman by the name

of Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, I'm not going

to spell that for you, back in the late 80s and

early 90s. And Dr. Mihaly was the department

chair of the University of Chicago's Department

of Psychology, so a very prestigious position.

And then ultimately, he went to be a fellow at

the Drucker School of Management out in Claremont

in California. And I was fortunate enough to

have him as one of my advisors when I had done

my doctoral work. And I had read the book Flow

in probably 1995, 96, and it was life changing

for me. So the concept of flow in the 90s was

re -termed as being in the zone. A lot of people

will know that, like if you're getting in the

zone, that's really what flow is all about. What

Dr. Jixing Mihai had found was that there are

really eight elements that contribute to creating

flow. So I'll list the elements real quickly

for everyone. First thing is you have to have

clear expectations, clear goals, and immediate

feedback so you know how you're doing. You need

to have a balance between challenge and skill.

So when you have the right level of skill and

the right level of challenge, you get into this,

what he calls the flow zone. And if your skill

is way too high, and your challenge is way too

low, he says you'll get into an environment where

you're bored, or it's called boredom. If your

skill level is way too low, but your challenge

is significantly too high, then you get into

high anxiety. And if it's really, really, really,

really high, Not only do you get into anxiety,

but you move from kind of overloaded to overwhelmed.

When you're overwhelmed, when you're focusing

on how to get out of it or something else or

worried about it as opposed to actually doing

the work. And we don't want employees overwhelmed.

It's a little bit, it's okay to make them a little

bit overloaded to give them some stretch goals,

but pushing them into the overwhelmed mode where

they're not thinking of... they're spending all

their time worrying is a really bad place mentally

and physically. So you have clear goals, you

have a balance between challenge and skills.

The third area is you need to have action and

awareness are merged where you can actually see

the work that you're doing. and you're aware

of that feedback. The fourth element is you can

take that concentration on a very limited field,

right where you can really focus and you can

kind of be really present with the work that

you're doing. The fifth one is you have a feeling

of control, that you have a belief that you can

change the outcome of this. The sixth one, which

is probably the most dominant, or the thing that

really tells you whether you're in flow, is there's

an altered perception of time. So it's when you're

working on something, and you look up at the

clock, and it's midnight, and you swear it's

nine o 'clock, like the clock is broken. It can't

be. I couldn't have lost those three hours. And

that's just, to me, is always kind of a wonderful,

wonderful feeling where I'm so engaged in the

work. That's usually the biggest indicator of

whether you're in flow or not. The seventh element

is that the self -consciousness disappears. You

really stop thinking about worrying or concerned

about anything outside of you, how this is affecting

you, and you really focus on the activity. And

then the last thing that Dr. Chik Singh Mihai

says is, the experience is self -rewarding, that

you're doing it because you want that outcome,

you want that feedback. You want that intensity

of the different test types that you're doing,

where it's really feeling self -rewarding. And

the more of those eight elements that you can

have in an activity, the greater the chance that

you're going to get and stay in flow. And if

you're not having any of those, there's a really

good chance that you're never going to get into

flow, and everything is just going to feel more

drudgery than anything else. Yeah, that was good.

So it's just the basic concept. It might not

be that basic, but there are a lot of concepts

and a lot of ways of doing things, a lot of ways

of running a business. And I have tons of ways.

I have at least 35 ways because every podcast

that I have shows, explains a different industry,

different concepts, different ways of managing

and being managing people and your business.

And I could just go on and on. That's why when

I do these things, I want to try to get people

to identify with what we're doing here, what

we're saying. Not necessarily they're not going

to be familiar with flow and what the concept

is and how to do it. But if they see the podcast

and they listen, then they might be able to identify

with something. And that's going to get the ball

rolling. And then the wheels are going to start

turning in their head. You know, and that's what

To me, that's going to be really the start of

it. But like I said, this would be good for somebody

if they want to try it and it's just a different

way of getting to the same place that probably

a lot of people want to get to. meeting their

goals and dreams and having a successful company,

making money. Maybe their company can be on to

the stock market. I mean, there's so many different

things that a company can do. Companies have

so many options to grow and ways of getting there.

And it's just a matter of how are they going

to do it. And there are all different ways that

they can do it. There's so much out there and

there's so many resources. And we have all the

stuff on the internet, my podcast. I mean, the

resources are just endless. It's unbelievable.

You could Google whatever you want and tons of

stuff will come up. And most of the stuff will

probably be valid. Some isn't, right? But a lot

of it is. And that's why I'm saying look for

the incorporated. That's usually what I do. But

that's what the patent did also. But either way.

That's what the most important thing to me is.

Maybe somebody has an open mind, open enough

mind just to take one or two of these suggestions.

And it will be probably better than what they're

doing now. Yeah. And I think the thing that's

important to me, Debbie, is that most people

don't realize that they really do have more control

of their work than they would think. And getting

yourself in the flow is really is really where

the creativity just explodes. It's where enjoyment

and job satisfaction happens. So it's not like

it's an either or. It's like I'm either in flow

or I'm being productive. If I am in flow, really

I'm incredibly productive. I'm incredibly creative.

I'm having a great time. And a lot of that has

to do with management and Defining clear goals

for the people. And I always talk about the difference

between great managers and leaders. The great

leaders tell you what has to get done. They make

sure that you're trained and they leave you in

your in control of how to do it. Micro managers

not only tell you what has to get done, but they

tell you how to do it. And basically they restrict

you to that one one particular piece. It's very

difficult if you don't have that flexibility.

to get into flow, where you can have a feel like

you have some kind of control over the how you're

going to do it. And if you can have a good manager,

a good leader, where they're just defining the

what has to happen and hold you accountable,

there's a better chance you're going to get there.

Yes, agreed. Thank you very much. Next question

is you spent many years. in technical and corporate

leadership roles before transitioning into people

centered work. What personal or professional

shift forced that change and how did it reshape

your approach to leadership today? So I had two

shifts in my life. The first shift was I had

worked for a company for about 10 years called

Transamerica De La Valle. We did high. We did

steam turbines and compressors, big, heavy rotating

equipment, had a wonderful trajectory there.

Good company, an old line company, been around

for 100 years. And I started up a new division

for them. And then they brought in a new manager

for me. And he was the ultimate micromanager.

Like if you had to pick all the elements of having

a terrible manager. He would have been one of

them. And after working for him for about nine

months, I came home one night and said to my

wife, I just can't do this anymore. Like every

day, I just hate going into work. He was such

a control freak. I mean, just like writing a

response to clients, we would go through two

and three versions of an email type of thing

where he would rewrite everything and I'd have

to send it to him. So we couldn't get anything

done. Everybody in the division was unhappy.

And my wife just said, OK, we'll go find another

job. So I was fortunate enough there were Intel

who was opening a position about 29 miles from

my home. And I went and applied for the position.

And ultimately, I got hired by Intel because

that was one of my passions at that time was

in computers back in the 80s. They were just

emerging. And that was an interest of mine in

computers. And I joined Intel back in 89 and

I had 18 years with them. And it was, I tell

people I had in 18 years, I had 10, I had 10

managers, I had eight incredible leaders, and

I had two managers that I learned so much from,

learned so much from of what not to do. But I

had a personal goal that I wanted to retire at

50 and go back. I was managing Intel's management

leadership development programs for the world.

We used to do 2 ,500 managers and leaders in

10 different countries every year. When I left

Intel in 2007, we had just finished training

our 40 ,000th manager. So I got pretty good at

that. And it was something I really enjoyed.

And in 2007, management changed at Intel, just

like it changed when I was working at DeLaval.

And they brought in a new manager. From finance

and he said all this leadership stuff that we're

doing we're not going to do that anymore and

fortunately was right around my 50th birthday

just after my 50th birthday and I took two of

my colleagues with me and I said hey Let's go

do the kind of work that we've been doing that

we believe in that the new finance Manager that's

taking over HR doesn't believe in let's go do

this for other companies that don't have ten

million dollar budgets And that's what we've

been doing for the last 18 years, helping small

to medium -sized organizations build their leaders.

Every year has been better than the last. And

I really feel blessed that I've been able to,

that I had the choice and I had the facilities

to do that. So yeah, so long -winded question

of the movement, the catalyst is really if you're

in a situation where you do have a bad working

environment or a bad manager, is to take hold

of it, take ownership of it, put some things

in place, whether it's additional schooling or

knowledge or networking or whatever it is, and

actively work to change. Because typically bad

managers don't become good managers. You can

have mediocre managers become good managers,

but when you've got a bad manager that's stuck

in that one method of micromanagement, of being

a crazy authoritarian, getting them to change

is going to be next to impossible. Last question,

if a listener wants to leave this episode with

one practical behavior change they can implement

this week to improve performance and balance,

what should they start doing differently? Well,

actually, I think there's probably two of them

that we've talked about. I think, first of all,

is try to get your work into flow, using the

eight elements, where you have the ability to

influence it, to be able to concentrate, get

better goals, trying to merge your awareness

for the work, and really trying to stay focused.

and getting work that balances your challenge

and skills. That would be the first thing. And

the second thing I would tell the listeners,

which we're going to give away, I think you're

going to put it in the show notes, is to take

the task quotient assessment. I'm going to give

that away to the people that have been bold enough

to listen to the end here. And what it will do

is it'll identify the ideal task. We talked about

the 496 different mixtures. You'll identify your

task mixture. Once you know that, then you can

try to structure your day more around like kind

of what I described, rather than doing the project

at the end of the week, breaking that up throughout

the week. And if they want to take the assessment,

they can go to Magna Leader, magnaleader .co.

forward slash, and in all caps, G -I -F -T. So

it's a gift for you, Debbie, and your listeners.

And they can take, you know, five minutes to

take the assessment. You'll get your report right

away. Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Kevin, thank you for sharing your insight and

for challenging how we think about balance, productivity,

and performance. This was a practical and timely

conversation. For those listening, you can find

links to Kevin's work and access the free tax

quote and assessment in the show notes. If this

episode gave you new perspective on how your

behavior shapes your results, make sure to subscribe,

leave a review, and share it with someone who

could benefit from the shift. This is Debbie

Longo. You've been listening to Behavioral Profit,

where small behavioral changes create meaningful

performance growth. Thank you for being on the

show, Dr. Kevin. Thank you, Debbie.