RITUAL - MARKING A MOMENT
We have witnessed the transformative effect of being brave enough to pay closer attention to endings and in doing so create brighter beginnings.
On social media recently I saw a post about a ritual that takes place when someone retires from or leaves the trading floor at Lloyds of London and everyone, on every floor, pauses to applaud that person as they leave. The fourth of the four pillars we offer you as leaders to equip yourself to navigate the endings in your organisation is Ritual.
You may have seen over recent weeks some high profile examples of presenters leaving their BBC radio shows where late changes to scheduling meant they weren’t able to prepare their farewells in the way they had intended. Articles, commentary and the response of listeners served as a reminder of how much this mattered to people.
Often closely linked with the acknowledgement of accomplishments, marking a moment with a ritual matters. It matters to the person in transition. And it matters to the people in the system who are witnessing it.
It is the month of Ramadan for our Muslim colleagues, a time of important and meaningful ritual, and a client this week was reflecting on the extent to which their rituals around moments of celebration have been, or not been, inclusive.
Take celebratory drinks for example. If that is the only way a team tends to mark the moments, that raises questions that include but are not limited to:
How comfortable or enjoyable is this for colleagues who don’t drink alcohol, and would they feel able to attend at all?
How inclusive is the timing for people with caring responsibilities, or with religious or cultural rituals at those times?
To what extent does a noisy bar feel comfortable for colleagues with sensory sensitivities and would they at worst not feel included or able to attend, or at best attend and find draining a ritual that was intended to celebrate and energise?
We share more on ritual here, and always enjoy reflecting on ritual with teams as invariably, in considering the personal and work rituals they have participated in before, the creativity starts to flow as they generate insights and ideas about the moments that would benefit from being marked, and the rituals that could inclusively accompany that.