Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan Creating Workplace Rituals to Drive New Levels of Performance with Erica Keswin
In episode ten of this Better@Work episode, we chat with Erica Keswin about the power workplace rituals have to connect us to purpose and take teams to new levels of performance. I am a huge fan of Erica as I strongly believe in workplace rituals and have seen how positively they can impact culture.
In our chat, we take a look at why it's so important to create rituals in the workplace and how they lead to more engagement, productivity and purpose. Erica has discovered the 3 P's that go into why rituals are so crucial: Psychological Safety, Purpose and Performance. She dives into the science and psychology behind rituals. She defines a ritual as something that we assign a certain meaning or intention, which happens with repetition (whether daily, weekly, quarterly), and which goes beyond its practical purpose. Rituals can help us feel a sense of connection to those participating in a ritual with us. And engaging in a ritual can give us a sense of purpose. While many people think of rituals as things that you do alone, rituals are actually built into workplace practices in all sorts of ways, including onboarding, meetings, and the celebrations of professional milestones.
Erica is a workplace strategist who has worked for the past twenty years with some of the most iconic brands in the world as a consultant, speaker, author, and professional dot-connector. Her bestselling book, Bring Your Human to Work: Ten Sure-Fire Ways to Design a Workplace That’s Good for People, Great for Business, and Just Might Change the World, was published by McGraw-Hill in the fall of 2018. Her second book, Rituals Roadmap: The Human Way to Transform Everyday Routines Into Workplace Magic (McGraw-Hill), was published in January 2021 and made the Wall Street Journal, Publishers Weekly and USA Today best seller lists. She was named one of Marshall Goldsmith’s Top 100 Coaches in 2020, as well as one of Business Insider’s most innovative coaches of 2020.
This episode is so fun as Erica and I share such a passion for employee engagement, you will leave with some great ideas for creating meaningful, yet simple rituals at work.
Quick episode breakdown:
- Erica’s background as a connector and how it led to her examining the impact of technology on the workplace
- The definition of “ritual” and you can apply it practically to your workday
- How a sweet trolley had a positive impact on connection at the New York Times
- The three Ps of rituals that you can begin to incorporate right now into your workplace and the return on investment (ROI) it creates.
- Why rituals need to be defined with a purpose
- The magic question Erica Keswin asks company leaders to help define their company rituals
- How leading companies like LinkedIn are creating simple yet meaningful rituals.
Let’s Take This offline
In our “Let’s take this offline” segment I debrief on Erica’s key insights with my friend Annette and answer a question from our listener Sally, who has a senior role and had her request to work flexibly refused by her HR team.
Get in touch: Cathal@betteratwork.com.au or betteratwork.net
Get in touch on Instagram: @betteratwork_
Get in touch on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathal-quinlan/
Send us a question or leave us a voicemail: betteratwork.net/contact-us/
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About Erica
Learn more about Erica on her website
Books
https://ericakeswin.com/books/rituals-roadmap/
https://ericakeswin.com/books/bring-your-human-to-work/
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