Thoughts on structured environment (rituals)

The analogy we will start with is between your brain and a piece of equipment running on software, because that is precisely what your brain is, an analog computer. The more we know about how it works, the more we can understand it. Lucky for us, according to The Journal of Neuroscience, more is published on the brain in any one year than a person is capable of reading in a whole lifetime. The difference between a computer and a mind is that the mind shapes (is programmed) through periods of repetition and rest.

The computer between our ears gets programmed by the things we keep repeating. Other than in college, where we forge it toward an intentional direction, this process HAPPENS TO US and we have no say in it. I argue that to implement cult-like rituals and jargon, that make our teammates feel part of something special, and gives all of us purpose and direction, is a step up from "the freedom to be hectic, unproductive, never satisfied, and lacking goals or direction". Exercising your "freedom" of being influenced at random by just about everything around you, is nothing but self-sabotage. You need a system if you are to grow and progress.

As humans (a highly social species, just like wolves), we feel the need to be part of a whole greater than ourselves. Scientists can spend a lifetime in a lab without social interactions and "belief systems", because they have science to draw upon. Most of us don't, so the social part of our life, or "who I am in front of others" is really important.

It is a primal human desire to belong, to be a part of something greater than yourself. A step up would be to be part of something we like and enjoy. Another notch up would be if we become part of something we actually believe in.

How can we, as managers, offer that experience to our teams? Just like Marketing can learn a thing or two from Cinematography, because the latter has over 100 years of experience playing with every human emotion, we as Team Leaders can learn a thing or two from Cults and MLMs. Why? Because they've been honing "how members feel as members of a group" and doing it successfully for over a century (MLM) and for millennia (for belief systems).

The word "cult" may be a dirty four letter word to most of you. Allow me to clarify that misconception, because when you understand the definitions, you will realize four things:

(a) Any method of total transformation is A CULT.

(b) Humans, as the most social animals to have ever existed, NEED a cult to be a part of.

(c) Your mind is always being influenced; every time you watch the news, go online, say or do something, you reinforce circuits in your brain, locking yourself into a direction, a destiny.

(d) It is always better to CONTROL THIS PROCESS than to be hacked by the things you're exposed to, and that is exactly what we are talking about. Controlling this process.

One may argue that "controlling the process borders on manipulation". I argue that "letting it happen haphazardly borders on self-sabotage". You should be in control of "you".

Part of a work ritual can include practicing a skill to mastery, such as making sales calls. Once you master your mind and its' processes, beyond repetitive mechanics, beyond fears, beyond mastery itself, and reach a natural state of easy in a process that seems difficult or daunting for outsiders, freedom all of a sudden becomes useful, because you now have enough specialized circuits to think with, and enough useful things to think about, in order to leverage your native processing capacity and cognitive ability. None of this can happen without structure (rituals).

Other rituals can be weekly group activities, like taking the team out to celebrate the process of setting a quota, designing a way to beat it, and actually beating it, reinforcing the power of working together, and the value of the work collective.

We are of human taxonomy (Homo Sapiens Sapiens), the last surviving bipedal humanoid ape. Together with all the progress, knowledge, and reason that we have achieved, we must remember that we are also, for better or for worse, an animal. Our brain evolved to crave ritual. Ritual is such a primal need in our mind, we share it with reptiles, just like hunger, fear, aggressive instinct and mating. So we will endeavor together to engage in it, and through it we shall find growth, fulfillment, confidence, bliss and satisfaction.

So, fellow team managers... go out there and inject life into the time your people spend at the office. Create an insider jargon, activities that allow them to grow together, circulate legends, stories, engage them in contests, reward them, and make them look forward to their time at work as something satisfying at the most fundamental level.

Related reading:

Primal Branding by Patrick Henlon

The Business of Belief by Tom Asacker