Ritual, Routine, and Workplace Wellbeing
This week on the newsletter I brought up spirituality as a crucial tool in my burnout recovery process. I don’t use spirituality as a code word for any particular dogma. This may sound reductive, but spirituality is just a deeper relationship with the energetics of life on earth.
For some people that’s hard science and a relationship with concrete data.
For others it’s a relationship facilitated by the structure and tradition of institutionalized religion
For others it’s connecting with the folk traditions or philosophies that explore the world through physical and intuitive senses.
For many, it’s some combination of these things.
Personally, I believe in forces greater than our human comprehension. I do not define things much further than that in my own practice, but I apply age-old wisdom aligned with seasons and cycles as a way to ground myself and keep things in perspective. When I refer to ancient wisdom traditions, this is typically what I mean. The foundational elements our ancestors have used for millennia, and the foundations for most modern societies, root themselves in the relationships between pattern observation (cycles) and contextual awareness of our environment (seasons).
In my personal life, this translates to tracking patterns and cycles related to my mental and physical health and the contextual elements that influence that. I have little rituals that I do (aka routines) to help me ground throughout the week, the month, and the year to maintain perspective and connect the daily tedium of my life with the bigger picture. Sometimes this involves going for a hike or a swim, sometimes it involves sitting still and meditating, and sometimes it is more ceremonial.
In my consulting business, this translates a bit differently. Every business or organization has their own cycles and seasons. In an ideal setting, executive management and team leaders have a clear understanding of both. They use that understanding to plan and guide their staff through them. In reality, this does not often happen. Maybe the company hasn’t experienced a particular season yet. Maybe the cycles happen too quickly or too slowly for leaders to pick up on the pattern. Or maybe those with decision-making authority try too hard to control the ‘weather’, intentionally or unintentionally.
Whatever the case may be, these seasons and cycles significantly impact workplace culture and wellbeing. Whether that’s about maximizing a return on investment, the cost of high turnover, or general productivity and morale. When applying the lens of ancient wisdom traditions, it’s not just about tracking metrics - like economists or market analysts may do. It’s also not just about establishing traditions to reinforce your company’s values - like events, benefits, or other practices.
It’s about building a relationship between them. Routines and traditions lose their meaning if they are no longer connected to an intention. Evaluations are nothing more than busy work if you have no intention of applying what you learn from it. Company gatherings are just expensive performances if your teams aren’t receiving the support they need from leadership.
If you and your staff can no longer articulate why you operate the way you do or how it connects to the bigger picture, it’s time to reevaluate.
What are the cycles of your organization and the seasons it must weather?
What are the values of your organization?
How are you tracking these seasons and cycles? How are you informing new leaders and/or staff about them?
What routines, practices, or ceremonies keep your organization tuned into these seasons and cycles?
How frequently do they need to occur (weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually)?
Odds are you have most, if not all, of the pieces to this puzzle. It’s just a matter of systematically organizing them to fit together. When you do, operations, culture, and growth will occur more smoothly.
