Notes and Takeaways from Rituals for Work
When I read it: August 2022
Why I read it: I’m working on a presentation about the importance of rituals at work. The book Rituals for Work, written by Kursat Ozenc and Margaret Hagan, is a simple introduction to the concept of rituals and how you can leverage them within organizations big and small.
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My notes
About Rituals for Work
Rituals for Work provides an introduction to rituals and the leverage they provide organizations and leaders. The authors Kursat Ozenc and Margaret Hagan provide a framework for creating and nurturing rituals along with examples of rituals that anyone can adapt to their situation.
About Kursat Ozenc
Kursat Ozenc is a designer and an innovation consultant. He is the co-author of Rituals for Work and leads the Ritual Design Lab initiative at Stanford d.school.
About Margaret Hagan
Margaret Hagan is a lawyer and a designer. She is the co-author of Rituals for Work and teaches at Stanford Law School and d.school.
What is a ritual?
A ritual is a symbolic action that follows a prescribed pattern in a specific situation. Any activity that has the power to create a meaningful moment could be a ritual.
Most rituals are intentional. They can be performed by individuals or groups of people.
Rituals help create lasting success.
Rituals have the power to increase worker satisfaction, productivity, and connection.
They can help workers reach personal aspirations and bond with each other. They can guide teammates through conflict and aid in change management.
Rituals are found in all domains of life.
From religion and athletics to business and family gatherings, rituals are part of daily living.
Rituals create meaning.
Rituals can make our lives, teams, and organizations meaningful.
Rituals are different than routines.
Unlike routines which become mindless, rituals are mindful. When performing a ritual, people recognize something special is happening.
Rituals increase clarity.
Rituals are ways to bring abstract ideas into daily practice. For example, rituals give order and meaning to people’s beliefs. It’s no surprise that the sociologist Emile Durkheim identified rituals as a central backbone of belief systems.
Rituals decrease anxiety and create feelings of safety.
Rituals give people structure that help them feel more in control. A ritual’s actions can help regulate emotion by calming people down and increasing focus. They can make people fearless. For these reasons, rituals can be an effective way to help people deal with change.
Rituals increase team performance.
In a study conducted by researcher Michael Norton and his colleagues, they created a scavenger hunt that involved taking selfie pictures at specific locations. They asked one group to perform a clapping and foot stomping ritual before the hunt. The ritual group outperformed the non-ritual group.
You can apply rituals at different levels of an organization
Rituals are a way for organizational leaders to steer culture. Leaders can leverage rituals to reinforce an organization’s mission, guiding principles, and core values. Rituals provide paths for people to follow that connect them to the organization and each other around a shared purpose.
Rituals are a way for team managers to build a sense of community and lead through change.
Rituals are away for individuals to increase performance and maximize creativity.
Most rituals fall within five core types and some span multiple types.
Pre-performance rituals (i.e. those performed before a stressful task) can be used to increase performance by creating focus and confidence prior to taking on a challenge. These types of rituals often use repetition and physical action to develop a sense of control and flow. Athletes often use these types of rituals (e.g. warmups) to decrease anxiety and get into the right mental space before an event. For example, Rafael Nadal takes a cold shower forty-five minutes before every tennis match to regulate his emotions and get into a state of flow.
Post-change rituals can help people deal with negative events by reducing grief and increasing feelings of control in the face of uncertainty or loss. Communities use these types of rituals to mark major life transitions such as graduation, marriage, death, and birth. Organizations maintain a constant state of change. New employees join, new projects kick off, and new teams form. Some employees leave, projects get completed, and teams dissolve. Layoffs, reorganizations, and leadership changes happen too. Teams and organizations can use these types of rituals to give people back a sense of control and maintain stability during times of change. For example, when Zipcar decided to become a mobile-first company, they brought the company together for a ritual smashing of desktop computers to mark the end of the old way of working. When a new employee joins an organization, a thoughtful ritual can help kickstart their first 30 days and help them understand and connect with the organization’s mission and values.
Relationship-building rituals can help increase team motivation and cohesion by creating a sense of belonging and social connection through symbols, stories, and history making. When we perform these types of rituals, we build a sense of belonging and identity. For example, the Haka is a ceremonial dance filled with vigorous movements and rhythmic chants that is often performed by a group of people. Other examples include sports tailgating rituals and religious ceremonies. Individuals can use these types of situations to increase connections and empathy. Teams can use these types of rituals to improve meetings and teamwork. Organizations can use these types of rituals to break down silos and cultivate shared purpose.
Inspiration rituals can help increase creativity and innovation by sparking ideas and experimentation. Artists, writers, and filmmakers use these types of rituals to kickstart brainstorming and fight procrastination. For example, Kent Haruf used blind writing, or writing blindfolded, as a way to tackle the first draft of big writing projects. Teams use these types of rituals to create psychological safety and increase collaboration. Organizations use these types of rituals to generate ideas and encourage experimentation.
Resilience rituals can help people deal with difficult times. Conflict and failure is an inevitable part of life. These types of rituals help individuals, teams, and organizations force awareness, reflection, and mindfulness to ensure quick recovery from missteps. For example, Native Americans' use smudging ceremonies to cleanse negative emotions and reset. Individuals can use these types of rituals to avoid losing their tempers and resolve conflict. Teams and organizations use these rituals to nurture transparency and prevent burnout.
What makes a good ritual?
According to Kursat Ozenc and Margaret Hagan in their book Rituals at Work, the most effective rituals follow four core principles. First, the ritual should have an unexplainable magic factor. Second, the ritual should be intentional. Third, the ritual should carry symbolic value that gives it a higher purpose and tells a story. And fourth, the ritual should evolve over time to better serve the situation.
Rituals don't have to be grand.
Rituals vary across intensity and frequency.
Some rituals are short and happen often. For example, daily stand-up team meetings are low intensity and high frequency mini-rituals.
Other rituals are long and infrequent. For example, a high school graduation ceremony is more formal (i.e. intense) and happens once in a lifetime.
Source: Rituals for Work
According to Laura Miner, quarterly offsites, team meals, and happy hours are like oil changes for your car. They aren’t grand, but skip them and you will run the risk of engine failure down the line.
The more rituals, the better.
Nick Hobson is a social psychologist who wrote the research paper, “The Psychology of Rituals: An Integrative Review and Process-Based Framework” (2017). According to history, the strongest cultures and communities employed rituals to quell angst, create discipline, and inspire people around a common cause.
How to design a ritual.
First, clarify the intent of the ritual. What is its purpose?
Second, identify the situation that should trigger the ritual. Is it a recurring time and place or is it a specific event?
Third, prescribe the key elements of the ritual. What makes it unique and what symbols, actions, and props (i.e. templates) are involved?
Fourth, create a narrative to describe the ritual. Where does it begin and how does it end?
Fifth, deploy the ritual. The best rituals are spontaneous and natural. Don’t force it. Move on if it’s not working.
How to deploy a group ritual
To make a group ritual successful, you need alignment and support from the group’s members.
It is best to introduce a group ritual in “the sweet spot” of the Wundt Novelty Curve. If the new ritual is loaded with novelty (i.e. it requires people to behave way different than they normally do), they’ll avoid it out of pain. And if a new ritual is not novel enough, people will avoid it out of boredom.
Source: Rituals for Work
Make the ritual’s intention clear and tell its story.
When first rolling out a ritual, keep it simple and see if it sticks. If it sticks, you can evolve it.
Look for signs of early support and ask those early supporters to help you facilitate buy-in and alignment from others.
Remember that rituals don’t last forever. They expire once they lose their meaning. Keep them as long as they are useful, but no longer.
Random anecdotes
Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is a leadership coach who developed the ritual of answering Six Daily Questions as a way to increase personal accountability. According to Dr. Goldsmith, people need clear and structured rituals to get much of anything done.
Key decisions are made by people who hold the power. In order to maximize your impact in an organization, you need to win over the key decision makers.
Apply inversion to rituals. Rituals can be ways to acknowledge negative feelings and avoid them. For example, instead of using rituals to try to increase optimism, try using them to avoid pessimism.
The most important bonding rituals are rooted in play. Fear and stress kill play.