To focus on business rituals could help your organization to strengthen its style; if people know "how" to do things, than many of the organizational problems are half solved. Rituals are ceremonial activities that repeatedly take place in an organization. Many organization will exhibit similar rituals. For instance most companies will celebrate officially the New Year, company successes and introductions of new employees. Yet there are also rituals that are familiar for one organization but non existent for others. The "casual Friday," for example will be specific for those companies that are more formal and want to promote an informal atmosphere before the weekend.
But there are also some pitfalls with organizational rituals.
The focus on rituals could become an end on its own. Sometimes we try to influence behavior and instead of achieving the expected effect, the opposite will occur. Rituals are not easy to design nor easy to influence. In order to address a cultural issue by focusing on company rituals, there should really be an issue.
Ritual behavior could make a company inflexible. A company needs to invest in a ceremony and the resources dedicated with it couldn't be reserved otherwise. This planned behavior and the formality in which it is organized could be felt as an obligation of which the goal is not clear. What seems to be important at one stage could loose importance in another stage. But the ritual continues. The disciplinary drive of the ritual could become the enemy once the custom is found to be outdated. People begin to question (the function of) the activity and rather than providing cohesion for the group it will produce an opposite effect.
Rituals are just one facet of the extended cultural area of an organization. Although it is visible and easy to be discussed as "the weather," it is only a part that expresses your corporate culture. But there are many other elements, which should be taken into account.
Nor is a simple check on the organizational rituals a simple panacea for solving rooted problems. Therefore only focus on rituals if there is commitment to do so. And … if it ain't broke, ...
© 2006 Hans Bool
Hans Bool is the founder of Astor White a traditional management consulting company that offers online management tools. Have a look at some of our free management tools |
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