Rituals for Work

50 Ways to Create Engagement, Shared Purpose, and a Culture that Can Adapt to Change

Kursat Ozenc, Margaret Hagan

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119530756
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Management
• Index: Business

Experience the transformative power of creative rituals in the workplace

Rituals for Work shows us how creative rituals can make our personal and business lives more meaningful and rewarding. Rituals are powerful tools: they reinforce good habits, motivate personal and professional achievement, create a common bond between co-workers and build shared values; they can transform an organization's culture and provide a foundation to achieve common goals. Focusing on real-world examples, this book takes a practical approach to the power and benefits of workplace rituals. This insightful guide presents 50 creative rituals, from business and management to design and personal development. Specific case studies highlight the use of rituals and their positive impact to real-world organizations, while vivid visuals allow us to feel their energy and emotion.

A ritual is only effective when its purpose is clearly defined. This book goes beyond simple analysis to provide actual recipes for individual rituals designed to promote specific habits, change negative behaviors, and instill values. Each ritual can be adapted to achieve a multitude of goals and tailored to fit your organization or team's specific needs.

? Change behaviors, form positive habits, and assign meaning to shared goals

? Build shared values, foster innovation, and encourage strong teamwork

? Deal with conflicts effectively and engage others to work on resolutions

? Learn the fundamental concepts of ritual-building and share your knowledge with your team

An informative and inspirational resource for executives, managers, team leaders, and employees of every level, Rituals for Work provides a blueprint for building a culture of engagement, innovation, and shared purpose for organizations of all sizes, across industries.

PART ONE
The Power of Rituals

1
Rituals for Better Work

The Power of Rituals

Our interest in rituals grew out of our work as designers, as we noticed that some of our most successful projects came when we thought about framing a new product or initiative as a “ritual.” Whether it was in promoting adherence to diabetes regimens, helping people prepare for fighting their traffic tickets, or helping new managers oversee their teams more effectively.⁵ The frame of ritual worked to make new products more attractive and engaging.⁶

We observed that when we created things using the patterns of a ritual—even if we didn't call our new thing a “ritual”—it became more likely that people would want to use it, and continue to use it. A ritual sets up a clear path for people to follow, and it calls up a sense of meaning and connection—which drew people in.

Rituals have special power to bond people together and to make sense of their world. As we began experimenting with rituals as a means for individual growth and organizational change at work, we learned that in a very short time and with minimal budget, rituals can bring liveliness, lightness, and a sense of community to a group.

Many scholars in anthropology, psychology, neuroscience, and organizational behavior have developed a strong body of research into how rituals work, and what powers they have. This scholarship can help us understand what the origins of rituals are, in evolution and in history. It also describes how rituals operate, and why they matter so much to humans. This research provides empirical support to the many practical, anecdotal examples in this book.

Rituals give order and meaning.

Foundational studies of rituals emerged out of the work of sociologist Emile Durkheim. When he studied religion, he discovered rituals as a central backbone to how belief systems operate. Rituals make beliefs concrete and graspable for people.⁷ People gravitate toward the function and structured behavior that rituals offer. This structure brings people a sense of things being in their control and with a sense of meaning.

Rituals give people a safe space to experiment.

Anthropologist Clifford Geertz found that when people act out rituals, they can jump from what the “real” world is to another one, that is more ideal.⁸ Rituals let people imagine other ways of behaving and living, taking a break from their everyday rules and routines. They give people safe, structured zones to build better ways of living.

With more empirical study of rituals, psychologists have discovered that their power derives from their ability to link the physical with the psychological and the emotional—all with the benefit of “regulation.”

A recent review of scholarship on rituals found that the actions of physically going through rituals help people feel satisfied and in control.⁹ The ritual actions regulate people's emotions, keeping them calm. Rituals also regulate people's performance, helping them to act in a steadier and more focused way. Finally, rituals regulate people's sense of belonging, giving them a stable feeling of social connection.

The Power of Rituals: How and Why They Work

How can we understand if a ritual works, and how it works?

Researchers in social science, business, neuroscience, behavioral science, psychology, and other fields have begun to study rituals' power more empirically. In one track of studies, researchers are measuring the experience and outcomes of rituals through straightforward, objective measurements. On another track, researchers consider more subjective outcomes and experiences, with investigation into people's perceived effectiveness of the rituals, and on physiological changes that result from them.

Increasingly, research teams use controlled trials to measure the power of rituals on various aspects of people's experiences and performance.¹⁰ They gave a treatment group a ritual to perform, and a control group no ritual. Then they measured whether and how the ritual treatment affected the group's performance on a given task, and their psychological and physiological measures.

Rituals increase performance by decreasing anxiety.

Examining pre-performance rituals, Alison Wood Brooks and her colleagues found that rituals increase performance by decreasing the anxiety before a public presentation—a singing contest.¹¹ The ritual that they created is as follows: Draw a picture of how you are feeling right now. Sprinkle salt on your drawing. Count up to five out loud. Crumple up your paper. Throw your paper in the trash.

They measured the performed ritual's efficacy by asking participants about their emotional state and by measuring their heart rate. They found that rituals decreased anxiety better than both random behaviors and non-rituals. This study suggests that rituals performed before a stressful task can calm their arousal and help them perform better.

Rituals help people deal with negative transitions.

In a study with people who had lost loved ones, researchers Francesca Gino and Michael Norton studied the effects of mourning rituals. They found that rituals reduce people's grief and increase feelings of control in time of uncertainty and loss.¹²

Rituals enhance performance by motivating and bonding people.

To probe the effectiveness of group rituals, Norton and his colleagues created a scavenger hunt that involved taking selfie pictures at specific locations on campus.¹³ They asked the ritual group to perform a clapping and foot stomping ritual before the scavenger hunt. The non-ritual group didn't get any such instruction.

A...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Ritual Index
• Profiles
• Introduction
• PART ONE The Power of Rituals
• PART TWO 50 Rituals for Work
• PART THREE Designing Rituals with and for Your Teams
• Endnotes
• Acknowledgments
• Authors
• Index
• End User License Agreement