Rituals Roadmap: The Human Way to Transform Everyday Routines into Workplace Magic

INTRODUCTION

DON’T STOP BELIEVIN’

A Business Case for Rituals

When I was doing the research for my first book, Bring Your Human to Work, I came across a research study that changed my life.

Professor Kevin Kniffin, an organizational psychologist at Cornell University, wanted to understand what made some teams more productive than others. His father was a firefighter, so that’s who he studied—those were his people. His research found that the firefighters most devoted to the long-standing tradition of making and sharing the firehouse meal, usually something cozy like spaghetti and meatballs, outperformed those who didn’t. And it was the relationships ...