Over time, group rituals create a sense of meaningfulness that team members transfer to their work, according to various research studies. Rituals, even seemingly silly ones, help employees bond and add meaning to their work, shares the author.
It’s not that we do rituals and then, magically, we like doing our work later that day. It’s that over time, rituals themselves become meaningful to us . . . that meaning is then linked to find more meaning in the work that we do.” – Michael I. Norton, PhD
Source: Working Knowledge, HBS, March 24, 2022. Link. Norton and his study coauthors determined that group rituals have three core elements:
- Physical
- Communal
- Psychological
INSIGHTS: Many core teams share rituals. Consider starting a new activity when new staff members join the team.
Also see: Learning your coworkers’ language of appreciation, WorldClassPerformer.com, January 2022. Link. Paul White, PhD, co-authored The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace, which is all about improving workplace relationships simply by learning your coworkers’ language of appreciation.