Rituals in the Workplace

Shaping your organisational culture together with your team.

Preface by Marzia Aricò

I have long been fascinated by the soft structures that allow changes in the way we work in organisations. Rituals and Routines have often popped up in my investigations and conversations; they represent one of the material service designers who have to change the status quo. So when I met Joumana, I was so happy to hear how well articulated her thoughts were on the topic. I immediately asked her to write a piece for Design Mavericks, and she accepted, putting together a practical and actionable piece that is relevant to both practitioners and leaders.

Before we dive into the world of rituals, please take the time to subscribe to this blog. It’s a very good way to support my work.

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Rituals in the Workplace by Joumana Mattar

Rituals have been embedded in all cultures since the beginning of time, however, their inclusion in the work environment has been quite recent and not without apprehension. Surrounded by myths and preconceptions, teams may resist embracing rituals when called as such, but will engage with them under the guise of ceremonies and processes throughout their employee lifecycle.

So let's unbox this complex word: what are rituals?

Rituals are actions that a person or group performs repeatedly, following a script, to which they have given symbolism and meaning. 

Rituals activate the body and mind together, and they incorporate different artefacts such as objects, sounds, smells, or gestures. Rituals can be personal or collective, and can be leveraged in many organisational contexts as vehicles of culture.

If this all sounds too clinical, just think of a specific event that happens for a special intention, like your birthday or graduation ceremony… Can you break down the components of that experience?

In the case of your birthday for example, there is a specific trigger (day you were born) after which there is a process of celebration that unfolds (it may vary depending on your culture, traditions, age or country). For example: as a young kid, I would get a cake on that day, blow out the candles, listen to an out-of-tune rendition of the song Happy Birthday, then open presents…) and when the day was over, I would already be looking forward to next year's celebration!

Each of these factors individually are not special; eating cake or singing a song are common activities, but combining them in that precise order, on that date, and for the specific intention of celebrating a person transforms them into elements of a ritual. 

Rituals = Intention + Flow

For a ritual to be impactful and meaningful, people must consciously decide to participate, and for that they need to trust the process, the people hosting and the context in which it takes place. Rituals are comforting because the steps in the process are predictable, and ideally, they take place in a safe space where judgment is suspended.

Rituals are surrounded by many myths… Let’s debunk some of them.

Rituals ≠ Routines

The most important part of a ritual is the intention, the why that drives all the actions behind. If you do something automatically (ex. brush your teeth), then it is not a transformatory experience, and is not considered a ritual. Actually, when you start doing the actions on auto-pilot, it is usually a sign that a ritual has lost its relevance and will need to be re-evaluated, re-invented or simply retired.

Rituals ≠ Manipulation

Rituals are designed to lead participants through a process that is guided by a clear intention. However, the most important part of the ritual is the invitation to participate (not by obligation or coercion). During a ritual, we can play different roles ranging from host and facilitator, to participant, observer or abstainer. Depending on the context, timing, and our responsibilities we can be in any of those roles. A ritual is only as effective as our desire to actively engage in it, so forcing someone to participate in a ritual will be counterproductive and end up alienating them.

Rituals ≠ 1 size fits all

Another question that arises often: when are rituals relevant? Rituals can and should be tailored to the different purposes and intentions they are designed to serve. They are powerful tools along the employee and user experience, especially in moments of change and transition, creativity and innovation, conflict and resilience, performance and flow, and building community.

Let's have a closer look at some rituals in corporate practice.

1. Sliders Check In - SYPartners (Performance + Flow) - During the Covid pandemic, SYPartners launched a quick check-in game for teams to understand their working habits. Consisting of a slider with 2 opposing preferences (ex. prefer to work in the morning or the evening), team members would allocate their post-it on their preference, allowing for a quick assessment of team needs. They chose this ritual because it drove transparency and accountability, which in turn enables better team performance.

2. City Treasure Hunt -  Adecco  (Community building) - At Adecco, the global success management team was distributed across 5 countries. Every quarter, the whole team met up at 1 of those locations, and the local team hosted a treasure hunt, to allow the rest of the team members to discover their city, while also bonding with people they primarily worked with online. They chose this ritual to purposefully create fun challenges that were memorable and to generate trust between teammates.

3. Global Mixtape - 4AM EY (Creativity + Innovation) - Before internal team brainstorming workshops, each member was invited to add their favourite songs to a shared playlist which was then used during focus time. They chose this ritual to reflect the different musical tastes of the team and to use the eclectic selection to inspire colleagues to think outside the box while coming up with new ideas. The mixtapes also were themed (Christmas, Summer…) which generated some interesting discussions during break times.

So, now that we know what rituals are and when to use them, how do we go about creating and implementing them?

Creating a ritual is a process that starts by identifying the trigger (clear event that signals the start of the ritual), setting our intention (what we want to achieve with the ritual) and choosing the context of application (online, face to face, hybrid).

Taking into account the different contexts, needs and constraints of your team is critical to design a ritual you can implement consistently whenever the trigger arises.

Examples of triggers: onboarding, employee exit, end of year results, winning/losing clients etc.

After clarifying the trigger and intention, we start by designing the ritual experience. Here are some key questions that can help shape the ritual:

• How do we initiate the ritual (is there any sound associated, or a specific space where it occurs (auditorium, kitchen etc?). 

• How long does it last (mins, hours, days?) 

• What artefacts are involved (smells, objects, sounds etc) and how can we prepare them beforehand? 

• How does it engage the mind and body of our participants? 

• How do we want them to feel afterwards (belonging, relief, excitement etc)?

• How will we clearly signal the closing of the ritual? 

And finally, it is critical that facilitators model the behaviour, leading their team through the ritual by actively participating in it. They should also take the time afterwards to ask for feedback and to adjust the ritual accordingly. 

It's best to keep a ritual simple and avoid too many steps or artefacts that can dilute the essence, confuse participants, or complicate the flow. Host the ritual in a safe space where judgement is suspended and allow all participants to show up, be vulnerable, and purposefully engage in the process. 

Remember that rituals reveal more about the culture of your organisation than the words on a wall, and a well-designed and hosted ritual can generate a sense of belonging and a common goal that can support a team in difficult times like market uncertainty and layoffs.

But it's not all sunshine and roses…What happens when rituals break down?

Rituals ≠ Forever

It is important to note that rituals are invitations to engage, align, challenge, or say goodbye to a number of important things, but in order to stand the test of time, we must be constantly checking if the intention is still valid, if the trigger is adequate, and if the ritual logistics take into account the changing number of participants (from small team to large organisation) as well as the context (from face to face to online).

Sometimes we come across rituals that have become routines. That was the case of the weekly tortilla breakfast at Fjord Madrid. Initially designed as a safe space where every team member (not just team leaders) could share their contribution to ongoing projects, accompanied by a delicious spanish tortilla; this ritual slowly lost impact and relevance when the team grew to over 50 people and in order to save time, people were selected to talk, and the initial intention (giving all team members a voice at the table) was diluted. Even though it still happened every Tuesday and included the tortilla, it no longer achieved its purpose and became just another opportunity for free food.

All of this begs the question: when the intention fades away, what is left behind? When the ritual is discontinued, but the trigger is still present, how do we manage the backlash? What message are we sending as an organisation about the values we supposedly hold dear? 

How big is the gap between the words on the wall, and the actions we uphold for our organisational culture? 

Any designer, and especially those of us interested in rituals, have been faced with these questions, leading us to wonder what we need to let go of, and what we need to invite in. Similar to a grief process, the end of a ritual needs a goodbye ceremony, to acknowledge the transition and the new status quo. Rituals that never adapt or change based on their context are doomed to die as they become irrelevant; whereas changing rituals too often and without clear criteria makes the learning curve too steep and takes away the comfort of knowing the steps that one must engage in. It is a fine line between adapting and upholding, one that each ritual facilitator must consciously engage in whenever they observe a change in intention, trigger or context.

Last but not least, implementing a ritual at work is an invitation to shape the organisational culture, and to create a shared language based on intentionality, belonging and growth. Rituals initiate clear beginnings and endings, and invite different levels of participation. Anyone can design and implement a ritual, but it is only as powerful as the active engagement by the rest of the team or organisation. 

For me, rituals are the tangible evidence of what organisations really care about, and consequently, help me reflect on my alignment to corporate values and goals. So next time you find yourself participating in a ritual at work, ask yourself, is this taking me in the direction of my dreams or fears?

If you would like to know more about Rituals, here are some great books that I constantly refer to:

• Rituals for Virtual Meetings: Creative Ways to Engage People and Strengthen Relationships, by Glenn Fajardo and Kursat Ozenc.

• Rituals for Work: 50 Ways to Create Engagement, Shared Purpose, and a Culture that Can Adapt to Change, by Kursat Ozenc and Margaret Hagan.

• Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business,

  by Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner.

• The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, By Priya Parker.