#472 three dribbles then shoot

A recent Wall Street Journal article discussed what many may see as the soft side of business: office rituals.  The repetitive motions by an athlete may be common, but the Journal article shared numerous examples of how rituals are being built into office cultures as well.   A human resources firm in Minneapolis rings a big brass gong upon signing of a contract.  A tech firm in Pittsburgh holds a late afternoon video game contest.  Employees at a Kansas City firm grew beards and let their hair grow until a big project was completed.  Intel rolls out the red carpet (literally) for new hires.

Closer to home, our admissions area has its own culture in what is lovingly called "Cubeland."  A whiteboard tracks the up-to-the-minute status of the admissions flow by counselor, allowing friendly rivalry and lots of trash talking to occur.  A giant inflatable banana graces the cubicle of the counselor with the most incomplete applications.  A cut-out of the student's home state is posted for each new deposit.

It may seem like play, but current research at the Harvard Business School and University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management has concluded otherwise.  Research at these schools has shown that rituals actually make people perform better than those who attempt difficult projects without them.

Think about your office setting.  What do you do routinely to engage in symbolic behaviors on a regular basis?  What could you do to bring others into the mix?  Is there a task that could benefit from a regular warm-up exercise -- whether as a group or even by yourself?  Think about an appropriate ritual so you can come up with something equivalent to a few extra dribbles of the ball to help improve your game.

-- beth triplett
leadershipdots.blogspot.com

@leadershipdots
leadershipdots@gmail.com

Source:  The Power of a 'Project Beard' and Other Office Rituals by Sue Shellenbarger, Wall Street Journal, June 25, 2013

Thanks to Colleen for sharing!