Rituals For Work

Experience the transformative power of creative rituals in the workplace Rituals for Work shows us how creative rituals can make our personal and business lives more meaningful and rewarding. Rituals are powerful tools: they reinforce good habits, motivate personal and professional achievement, create a common bond between co-workers and build shared values; they can transform an organization’s culture and provide a foundation to achieve common goals. Focusing on real-world examples, this book takes a practical approach to the power and benefits of workplace rituals. This insightful guide presents 50 creative rituals, from business and management to design and personal development. Specific case studies highlight the use of rituals and their positive impact to real-world organizations, while vivid visuals allow us to feel their energy and emotion. A ritual is only effective when its purpose is clearly defined. This book goes beyond simple analysis to provide actual recipes for individual rituals designed to promote specific habits, change negative behaviors, and instill values. Each ritual can be adapted to achieve a multitude of goals and tailored to fit your organization or team’s specific needs. ● Change behaviors, form positive habits, and assign meaning to shared goals ● Build shared values, foster innovation, and encourage strong teamwork ● Deal with conflicts effectively and engage others to work on resolutions ● Learn the fundamental concepts of ritual-building and share your knowledge with your team An informative and inspirational resource for executives, managers, team leaders, and employees of every level, Rituals for Work provides a blueprint for building a culture of engagement, innovation, and shared purpose for organizations of all sizes, across industries.

More of Mason Currey's irresistible Daily Rituals, this time exploring the daily obstacles and rituals of women who are artists--painters, composers, sculptors, scientists, filmmakers, and performers. We see how these brilliant minds get to work, the choices they have to make: rebuffing convention, stealing (or secreting away) time from the pull of husbands, wives, children, obligations, in order to create their creations. From those who are the masters of their craft (Eudora Welty, Lynn Fontanne, Penelope Fitzgerald, Marie Curie) to those who were recognized in a burst of acclaim (Lorraine Hansberry, Zadie Smith) . . . from Clara Schumann and Shirley Jackson, carving out small amounts of time from family life, to Isadora Duncan and Agnes Martin, rejecting the demands of domesticity, Currey shows us the large and small (and abiding) choices these women made--and continue to make--for their art: Isak Dinesen, "I promised the Devil my soul, and in return he promised me that everything I was going to experience would be turned into tales," Dinesen subsisting on oysters and Champagne but also amphetamines, which gave her the overdrive she required . . . And the rituals (daily and otherwise) that guide these artists: Isabel Allende starting a new book only on January 8th . . . Hilary Mantel taking a shower to combat writers' block ("I am the cleanest person I know") . . . Tallulah Bankhead coping with her three phobias (hating to go to bed, hating to get up, and hating to be alone), which, could she "mute them," would make her life "as slick as a sonnet, but as dull as ditch water" . . . Lillian Hellman chain-smoking three packs of cigarettes and drinking twenty cups of coffee a day--and, after milking the cow and cleaning the barn, writing out of "elation, depression, hope" ("That is the exact order. Hope sets in toward nightfall. That's when you tell yourself that you're going to be better the next time, so help you God.") . . . Diane Arbus, doing what "gnaws at" her . . . Colette, locked in her writing room by her first husband, Henry Gauthier-Villars (nom de plume: Willy) and not being "let out" until completing her daily quota (she wrote five pages a day and threw away the fifth). Colette later said, "A prison is one of the best workshops" . . . Jessye Norman disdaining routines or rituals of any kind, seeing them as "a crutch" . . . and Octavia Butler writing every day no matter what ("screw inspiration"). Germaine de Staël . . . Elizabeth Barrett Browning . . . George Eliot . . . Edith Wharton . . . Virginia Woolf . . . Edna Ferber . . . Doris Lessing . . . Pina Bausch . . . Frida Kahlo . . . Marguerite Duras . . . Helen Frankenthaler . . . Patti Smith, and 131 more--on their daily routines, superstitions, fears, eating (and drinking) habits, and other finely (and not so finely) calibrated rituals that help summon up willpower and self-discipline, keeping themselves afloat with optimism and fight, as they create (and avoid creating) their creations.

More than 150 inspired—and inspiring—novelists, poets, playwrights, painters, philosophers, scientists, and mathematicians on how they subtly maneuver the many (self-inflicted) obstacles and (self-imposed) daily rituals to get done the work they love to do. Franz Kafka, frustrated with his living quarters and day job, wrote in a letter to Felice Bauer in 1912, “time is short, my strength is limited, the office is a horror, the apartment is noisy, and if a pleasant, straightforward life is not possible then one must try to wriggle through by subtle maneuvers.” Kafka is one of 161 minds who describe their daily rituals to get their work done, whether by waking early or staying up late; whether by self-medicating with doughnuts or bathing, drinking vast quantities of coffee, or taking long daily walks. Thomas Wolfe wrote standing up in the kitchen, the top of the refrigerator as his desk, dreamily fondling his “male configurations”.... Jean-Paul Sartre chewed on Corydrane tablets (a mix of amphetamine and aspirin), ingesting ten times the recommended dose each day ... Descartes liked to linger in bed, his mind wandering in sleep through woods, gardens, and enchanted palaces where he experienced “every pleasure imaginable.” Here are: Anthony Trollope, who demanded of himself that each morning he write three thousand words (250 words every fifteen minutes for three hours) before going off to his job at the postal service, which he kept for thirty-three years during the writing of more than two dozen books ... Karl Marx ... Woody Allen ... Agatha Christie ... George Balanchine, who did most of his work while ironing ... Leo Tolstoy ... Charles Dickens ... Pablo Picasso ... George Gershwin, who, said his brother Ira, worked for twelve hours a day from late morning to midnight, composing at the piano in pajamas, bathrobe, and slippers.... Here also are the daily rituals of Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol, John Updike, Twyla Tharp, Benjamin Franklin, William Faulkner, Jane Austen, Anne Rice, and Igor Stravinsky (he was never able to compose unless he was sure no one could hear him and, when blocked, stood on his head to “clear the brain”).

#2 Wall Street Journal Bestseller, USA Today Bestseller, and Publishers Weekly Bestseller From the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Bring Your Human to Work comes an indispensable guide to taking your employee engagement to the next level. In Bring Your Human to Work, Erica Keswin laid down the rules and protocols of a human workplace. Now, in Rituals Roadmap, she shows us how to further employee engagement, explaining that workplace rituals foster a sense of belonging and help workers connect with one another and their work. From our morning cup of coffee to the standing Wednesday morning meeting with our team, our lives are steeped in rituals. Rituals Roadmap combines cutting-edge scientific research with examples from the most human companies, like Starbucks, Microsoft, Chipotle and LinkedIn, showing how they establish rituals during meetings, employee onboarding procedures, and daily interactions among coworkers. Whether you choose to pass around a stuffed penguin at your weekly meeting to express gratitude like Aria Finger of DoSomething, or decide to make lunchtime a daily ritual with your team in the same way one top performing team at Douglas Elliman does, rituals create community and change us in a way that conjures lifelong commitments. If you’re serious about employee engagement, Rituals Roadmap is your blueprint for creating a workplace full of engaged, connected employees who drive revenue and stay at their jobs long term.

Do your virtual meetings feel like a drag? Learn how to use rituals to build trust, increase engagement, and spark creativity. We rely on virtual meetings now more than ever. However, they can often feel awkward, monotonous, and frustrating. If you’re not thrilled with your virtual meetings, rituals can help your group break through to better results by providing structures that unlock freedom. With rituals, virtual meetings can be moments that are elevated and nurtured, opportunities for people to build connection and trust while accomplishing a common goal. In Rituals for Virtual Meetings: Creative Ways to Engage People and Strengthen Relationships authors Kursat Ozenc and Glenn Fajardo show leaders, managers, and meeting organizers how to build rapport and rhythm amongst team members when everyone is not in the same physical space. Rituals for Virtual Meetings provides readers with practical, concrete steps to improve group cohesion and performance, including: How to make virtual meetings more fluid and less awkward How to reduce Zoom fatigue and sustain people’s energy during meetings How to facilitate better interactions with project partners, customers, and clients How community leaders can engage members in a virtual setting How teachers can engage students in virtual classrooms Perfect for anyone who needs to engage people in virtual settings, the book also belongs on the shelves of anyone interested in how to increase team engagement in a variety of contexts.

From Marx to Murakami and Beethoven to Bacon, 'Daily Rituals' examines the working routines of more than a 160 of the greatest philosophers, writers, composers and artists ever to have lived. Filled with fascinating insights on the mechanics of genius and entertaining stories of the personalities behind it, it is irresistibly addictive and utterly inspiring

This stirring collection presents spiritual rituals from around the world and offers guidance on bringing the powerful practices into modern life. Filled with fascinating details on the history and meaning behind a wide range of sacred rituals for love, awareness, joy, and so much more, this timeless handbook guides readers through more than 40 empowering practices—including a candlelight ritual for renewal, a soothing ritual for unwinding, and a tea ceremony for fostering connection and gratitude. With evocative watercolors throughout, this book is a lovely invitation to nourish the mind, body, and soul through enduring rituals for well-being.

"Project and team leaders, do yourself a favor and make this book required reading by each member of your team!" —HR Professionals Magazine Collaborative strategies work when they're designed by teams—where each person is heard, valued, and held accountable. This book is a practical guide for project team leaders and individual contributors who want their teams to play by a better set of rules. Today's teams want more alignment among their members, better decision-making processes, and a greater sense of ownership over their work. This can be easy, even fun, if you have the right rituals. Rituals are group activities during which people go through a series of behaviors in a specific order. They give teams the ability to create a collective point of view and reshape the processes that affect their day-to-day work. In Turning People into Teams, you'll find dozens of practical rituals for finding a common purpose at the beginning of a project, getting unstuck when you hit bottlenecks or brick walls, and wrapping things up at the end and moving on to new teams. Customizable for any industry, work situation, or organizational philosophy, these rituals have been used internationally by many for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. By implementing just a few of these rituals, a team can capture the strengths of each individual for incredible results, making choices together that matter.