Rituals give teams a rhythm. They provide moments to slow down, reflect, connect, and celebrate.
June 25, 2025
By Tracey Rockett, Professor of Management Practice and
Stacy Landreth Grau, Associate Dean for the John V. Roach Honors College
Whether you lead a fully remote team, a hybrid workforce, or an in-person group, one thing is clear: modern teams need new ways to stay connected, creative, and cohesive. One of the most effective—yet often overlooked—tools is rituals. They can help teams build trust, create culture, and increase team performance. Rituals—small, repeated, intentional practices—are emerging as some of the most powerful, flexible tools for strengthening team culture and performance. They can provide essential structure, connection, and meaning, especially in virtual and hybrid settings, where face-to-face interaction is limited. When executed well, rituals help teams build connections, foster creativity, and navigate the complexities of modern work.
Why Rituals Work
Rituals have been a part of human culture for thousands of years—for good reason. Think about graduation ceremonies, religious services, and even sports team rituals. They offer comfort, connection, and shared meaning. In organizational settings, research shows that rituals can:
- Foster psychological safety—a key driver of creativity and innovation.
- Strengthen team cohesion and social bonds.
- Build trust and commitment.
- Support effective team processes and communication.
- Mark transitions and milestones.
- Help teams manage stress, uncertainty, and change.
In virtual environments, rituals also help overcome common challenges:
- Reduced social connection
- Loss of informal “watercooler” moments
- Communication fatigue and ambiguity
- Barriers to creativity and risk-taking
Rituals give teams a rhythm. They provide moments to slow down, reflect, connect, and celebrate.
What Makes a Good Team Ritual?
Not every habit or routine is a ritual. Rituals are intentional (designed with a purpose), meaningful (evoke emotion, identity, or belonging), repeated (becomes part of the team rhythm) and visible and shared (experienced together) For example, a shared playlist that opens each team meeting, a weekly “highs and lows” check-in, a creative warm-up exercise before brainstorming or a “failure wake” to debrief and honor failed experiments can be useful. Rituals don’t need to be elaborate. The best ones are simple, flexible, and authentic to the team’s culture.
Considerations When Creating Team Rituals
If you’re looking to introduce or refine rituals with your team, here are the best practices:
- Start with purpose. What challenge are you trying to address? Connection? Creativity? Trust? Energy? Align the ritual to the need.
- Involve the team. Co-create rituals. Don’t impose them top-down. This builds ownership and buy-in.
- Keep it light. Don’t over-engineer. Start simple and iterate. Rituals should feel energizing, not burdensome.
- Design for the virtual context. In virtual teams, think about sensory experience (visuals, music), participation norms, and ways to foster presence.
- Let rituals evolve. Rituals aren’t permanent. Assess whether they’re still serving the team and be willing to adapt or retire them.
- Avoid “fake fun.” Rituals must feel authentic. Forced activities will backfire. Tap into what matters to the team.
The Strategic Value of Rituals
In today’s fast-moving, digitally connected world, leaders are hungry for ways to foster human-centered teams—teams that are not only productive but also connected, creative, and resilient.
Rituals are among the simplest and most adaptable tools for achieving this goal. Savvy executives are integrating rituals into the fabric of their teams to enhance creativity and innovation, increase engagement and belonging, strengthen team performance in complex, distributed environments, and foster culture and cohesion across distance and diversity. If you want your team to thrive, not just survive, in the modern workplace, start thinking ritual-first.
