The Human Way to Transform Everyday Routines Into Workplace Magic
Learn how workplace rituals can increase your firm’s productivity.
What could increase your company's productivity? A new set of workflows? Better computer and software? Or a new approach to arranging workplace furniture? While all of these tips could be beneficial, there is one thing that many people overlook: the importance of routines.
Rituals help us find meaning in uncertain times, ground us, and provide security - but they're also enjoyable and beneficial for business. Rituals help your team members feel like members of a family rather than cogs in a machine.
These summaries will provide you with the tools you need to develop your own rituals that will guide your staff to better health and happiness, as well as higher performance.
In this brief, you will learn
How to Use Rituals to Kickstart Your Day
ways for increasing engagement during meetings
The significance of giving your team recognition.
1. Workplace rituals make commercial sense.
Being a journalist for the New York Times may sound glamorous. Still, newsroom personnel, like the rest of us, must deal with repetitious activities such as answering emails and attending meetings. For years, a beloved custom at the newspaper served to break up the routine. At 4 p.m., a snack cart used to roll through the newsroom. Journalists up and stretched before heading over for some afternoon espresso and discussion.
4 p.m. The food cart was an ideal workplace habit, but why exactly? And what exactly do the words "workplace ritual" mean? Well, the author believes that all rituals meet a few very particular criteria.
The main point here is that workplace traditions make business sense. What makes rituals effective?
First, they must climb above the practical. Let's be honest: the New York Times staff doesn't really need a coffee cart; they can get a coffee whenever they want. But meeting around that cart gave their coffee breaks more meaning.
The author also refers to something like the Three Ps. One represents purpose: as previously stated, rituals make us feel a part of something. The other P stands for psychological safety. Finally, the combination of purpose and psychological safety improves performance.
Last but not least, a good ritual is one that people miss when it is no longer present. The Times eliminated the snack cart a few years ago, and many journalists still resent the decision.
Creating rituals undoubtedly demands psychological and emotional investment. However, they do not have to be too expensive. For example, the charitable organization DoSomething distributes a stuffed penguin toy at meetings. In addition, Microsoft uses M&Ms to commemorate work anniversaries.
These small ceremonies are incredibly inexpensive, but they are also invaluable. They promote social cohesion and involvement while relieving stress and anxiety. These are not simply lofty words; rituals make excellent commercial sense. The American Psychological Association discovered that workplace stress costs American businesses $500 billion and 550 million workdays annually.
Simply presenting a ritual to your staff can meet their need for belonging and purpose. This results in a more human and engaging workplace.
2. To have a successful day, make your morning routine a tradition.
The Olympic torch relay is one of the world's most recognized ceremonies. It begins in Greece, with dozens of athletes taking turns carrying the torch to the city hosting the games. This ceremony unites people in a celebration of fair sportsmanship. It elevates the event and gives it a deeper philosophical meaning.
You can do something similar during your workday.
No, do not enter the office with a torch in hand! However, incorporating a morning ritual into your schedule can improve even the most boring of activities. Rituals help us adjust our thinking, which is an ideal approach to begin the day.
Here's the essential takeaway: To have a successful day, make your morning routine a tradition.
How do you include a ritual into your working day? Instead of simply strolling into the workplace and plopping down at your desk with a coffee, you could devise a new pre-work routine. You could, for example, impersonate Sara Blakely, CEO of the Spanx underwear company. Sara lives near the office, but every morning, she drives a long, winding route to work. The time spent in the automobile helps her organize her thoughts and prepares her for the day ahead.
For those of us who work from home (who doesn't these days?). - The distinction between work and home is much more vital. Consider creating your own commute ritual, even if it's only a quick walk around the block.
Cal Newport, a Georgetown University professor, suggests another fantastic morning habit. He starts every day with what he calls Monk Mode Morning. Newport answers emails or picks up the phone at 11 a.m., and he is definitely unavailable for meetings. Rich Pierson, CEO of Headspace, follows a similar practice: he begins each day with one hour of meditation.
Both Newport and Pierson have created something. They've developed rituals to honor their relationship with themselves, which helps them focus on their work.
When building your own morning ritual, look for something you already enjoy doing before going to work. Then, examine how you may give that activity a distinct purpose. One method to this challenge is to ask yourself, "What mindset do you want to start your day in?" If you get the answer correct, it will make a huge difference as you face a busy day packed with meetings.
3. Instill presence and purpose in meetings to make them feel more like gatherings.
Check your calendar for the day. How many meetings are listed on it? Nancy Koehn, a professor at Harvard Business School, estimates that approximately 11 million work meetings occur in the United States each day. Unfortunately, these encounters are typically unproductive - and, at worst, result in income loss.
According to Doodle, an online meeting solution, the value of lost productivity from meetings was around $400 billion in 2019.
So here's the question: How can you make meetings more valuable and engaging? One option is to realize that every meeting is a gathering. Nothing brings people together like a common goal.
The primary idea is to turn meetings into gatherings by instilling presence and purpose.
You can start this transition by opening each meeting with a single essential question. Ask your team, "Why are we gathering here in the first place?" In other words, how is this meeting different from the others?
Priya Parker, author of The Art of Gathering, refers to this as the "Passover Principle." Parker believes that gatherings with a restricted focus result in increased engagement.
By answering this question, you establish purpose. That gets you off to a beautiful start. The following stage should be to ensure that everyone in your meeting is fully present in body, mind, and spirit. Even a healthy meeting can fail if everyone spends the entire time scrolling through their phones under the desk.
So, before you begin your day's activities, try a "chiming in" practice. It indicates that it's time to focus.
Eileen Fisher, a fashion designer, does this by ringing a bell to begin a minute of silent meditation before her meetings. Daisy Auger-Dominguez, a workplace consultant, believes that speaking up helps to foster a trusting environment. Her sessions are led by a rotating cast of members from her leadership team, which ensures that everyone participates.
So, if you want to incorporate rituals into your meetings, begin by trying to instill a sense of purpose and presence. Then, find out how to remind everyone why you've convened and what you hope to accomplish.
4. Teams that dine together tend to keep together.
We're all aware that water coolers are lovely. They initiate conversations that provide employees with new vigor and a feeling of purpose. As MIT professor Alex Pentland noted in his well-known essay "The Water Cooler Effect," casual office socializing strengthens organizations and, as a result, enhances productivity.
How can your firm benefit from this magic? A 2015 research study by the Cornell School of Management revealed a straightforward solution: a communal workplace lunch. Eating together is uniquely human; after all, most modern rituals revolve around food. So far, the business world has been reluctant to catch up. Lunch is frequently viewed as something - an hour off with nothing to do with business.
However, Cornell's research suggests that shared meals are beneficial to the bottom line. Scientists spent 15 months tracking community meals in firehouses. The findings indicated that firemen who ate together on a regular basis performed much better as a team.
The essential takeaway here is that teams that eat together stick together.
There are plenty of other examples of excellent meal-based rituals. Consider Horizon Media, for example. Every Friday, Bill Koenigsberg, the CEO, buys bagels for all 3,000 employees. Lunches do not have to come from senior management. Every Wednesday, Neil, an employee at KIND Snacks, makes Belgian waffles to express his gratitude to his team.
At Chipotle, 10:15 a.m. is the shared lunch hour for all those who have been preparing the line since six a.m. They call this the "grace period" before the first customers walk through the door.
Companies that allow their employees to share meals boost team relationships and encourage individuals to bring more energy to work.
Before you rush off to order your team's first shared lunch, consider these two caveats. First, you cannot impose a ritual. The firehouse supper is not a requirement or practice established by the fire department.
Second, eating together as a ritual works best when workplace principles align with the Three P's. You may remember them from a previous summary; they represent psychological safety, a shared sense of purpose, and increased performance.
5. Create rituals to recognize your employees' efforts.
In 2013, TIME Magazine ran a cover story about millennials. The title was scathing: "The Me Me Me Generation." Older folks frequently believe that millennials need a lot of handholding and recognition. In reality, millennials simply want to be seen.
And the generation that came following the Millennials, known as Generation Z, is not dissimilar. According to recent studies, 40% of Gen Zers desire everyday interactions with their bosses. Sixty percent want several weekly check-ins with their team leader. 97 percent expect comments after completing a large project. Taken together, this demonstrates that workers do not want to be viewed solely as cogs in the machine. Instead, millennials and Generation Zers want to be recognized for their hard work.
Once again, rituals can come to the rescue. They are an excellent method to recognize outstanding performance, celebrate milestones, and make team members feel recognized and valued.
Here's the essential message: Use rituals to recognize your employees' contributions.
The author refers to these types of rituals as "the soft stuff" - as opposed to the hard stuff that directly affects the bottom line. However, in today's workplace, the soft stuff is critical to making it genuinely human. This entails fostering an environment in which team members are genuinely willing to put everything on the line for the organization.
Ketchum PR provides an excellent example of a recognition ritual, with management awarding the Shittiest Moment Award in addition to the Person of the Month Award. It takes the form of a golden toilet and recognizes team members who had to struggle through a particularly harrowing situation. This unusual award helps turn a workplace issue into an inspiring story.
Work anniversaries present another excellent chance for ceremonies. At Black Sheep, a marketing and design firm, all 18 employees celebrate a colleague's first anniversary with an outing that is entirely about them. The entire crew goes out to do whatever that individual enjoys most, whether it's excellent meals or baseball.
Ketchum's gold toilet is only $14.99. Black Sheep's exquisite dinners can be significantly more pricey. But, regardless of the cost, the benefits of these rituals are invaluable. They help employees feel seen and valued, which reminds everyone in the firm that they are essential. Finally, such little gestures and enjoyable routines help everyone feel appreciated.
6. Rituals make endings meaningful.
Marie Kondo created a habit that has really permeated the culture these days. It's helpful in tidying up your home. Kondo recommends holding up a thing and asking yourself if it brings you joy. If not, express gratitude to the object for its efforts before discarding it. The critical point here is that rituals help us say goodbye.
A similar technique can be applied in your professional life. Whether you're wrapping up a massive project, a job, a difficult day, or a stressful quarter, a parting ritual can help you achieve closure and get you ready for your next adventure.
The critical idea is that rituals make endings meaningful.
GoHealth Urgent Care is an excellent example of such a farewell ceremony. At each of their healthcare facilities, a medical assistant or technician sends out an end-of-day email summarizing what occurred that day.
Every night, emails from the company's 145 care facilities are distributed to the whole executive team, including the CEO. Typically, one-third of these emails receive a direct response. However, this rite involves more than just praising. It makes the executive team and their frontline employees feel more connected.
Fridays are also ideal for rituals because they mark the end of a busy week. It's an excellent time to set a more relaxed tone, as demonstrated by Glamsquad, a hair and beauty business whose crew celebrates Fridays with pedicures.
So, whether rituals occur on hectic workday mornings or relaxed Friday afternoons, they provide significant advantages to the entire organization. But how can you initiate a new ritual? How do you harness this power?
The first step is to remember that the best rituals start from the bottom up. So, ask your employees to generate some ideas. And if a ritual becomes repetitive or mundane, discontinue it. You need something humane, something to be met with outrage if it disappears.
Remember that your rituals should always follow the Three P's: psychological safety, greater purpose, and better performance. A fantastic ritual can transform a person's day and lift the spirits of your entire organization.
In normal circumstances, it would be the conclusion of the story. However, the current situation is far from ordinary. In the third section, we'll look at how rituals might help us deal with crisis and transition.
7. Rituals are necessary instruments during tumultuous times.
In the previous overview, you learned a lot about how simple rituals may improve office life. However, the coronavirus epidemic has had a tremendous impact on our lives. It has blurred the distinction between work and home. So, have rituals died out with early commutes? Far from it.
Instead, they've stepped in to assist us cope with the new normal. To honor their healthcare professionals, New York City citizens started banging pots and pans outside their windows every day. Families throughout the world began hosting Zoom trivia nights, and many people started to try mindfulness.
When there is so much uncertainty in our daily lives, rituals help us find balance. They provide us with a sense of control while also adding worth, purpose, and meaning to our actions. With so little divide between work and home, we could all benefit from a bit more meaning in our lives.
The main takeaway here is that rituals are essential tools for navigating tumultuous times.
During the pandemic, the author saw an increase in "mullet meetings" - business in the front, party in the back. In other words, meetings have become more lighthearted and enjoyable. This is unavoidable because meetings are held via Zoom, and the professionalism of the talk is blended with the informality of home.
However, many businesses have embraced this irregularity and turned it into tradition. Friday mornings at Udemy, a worldwide learning platform, start with a casual coffee discussion with the CEO. Quite often, his dog appears to join him at the kitchen table.
And, while we're on the subject of animals, do you recall the penguin toy from Do SomethSomethingday? It is almost universally known. And whoever holds the penguin gets to choose the music for the week's "Power Hour" meeting.
These work-from-home practices are an exercise in empathy. During these stressful times, we are all separated from our teammates, and we are all experiencing comparable difficulties. Rituals ease loneliness by bringing us together in a joint ceremony. They tell us that, while we may be separated, we are not truly alone.
Rituals have become the most effective approach to communicating love and kindness, opening the path for improved communication.
Final Summary
Rituals are essential in a busy, dynamic, and human-centered workplace. That's because they're a multipurpose tool that can promote team spirit, increase employee engagement, and put everyone in a productive mentality. When a ritual incorporates the Three P's, everyone in the organization feels linked to a more significant cause while also feeling psychologically safe and comfortable. And this type of good environment will undoubtedly lead to improved performance.
Actionable advice: Make a folder for all your accomplishments.
The author refers to this as her "Attagirl folder." Fill a manila folder with all of your significant achievements, including plaudits, honors, and accomplishments. Did you get any particularly positive feedback? Have you received any really impressive emails? Put them all in there. On days when you lack confidence, open the folder and read over it. When the going gets tough, it'll be your dependable cheerleader.