Small Rituals, Big Impact: Practical Tips for Managers Building Team Culture

You are a manager juggling hiring, retention, burnout, and conflict or team tension—all with limited time and resources. You know something needs to shift with your team’s culture, but it’s hard to know where to start. This is where creating small but meaningful workplace rituals can help.

Rituals are small, repeated practices that shape how we show up at work. Things like opening meetings with a check-in question, building in 5-minute transitions between meetings, or pausing to reflect after a big push. 

While most of us may not be calling them rituals (many of them are just “part of the way we do things”), if you aren’t regularly incorporating these practices, you may start to see increasing 

• Burnout 

• Disconnection 

• Low engagement 

But finding ways to build in rituals (hot tip: that your staff help you create) can help build in space to breathe, reset, create shared moments of meaning and belonging, and build a culture where there is shared motivation and clarity to move forward with the important work that needs to get done. 

The truth is, your teams are likely already doing this! You probably have some informal rituals that you just do. I work with teams to give them the opportunity is to notice them, shape them, and co-create new ones that meet your team where they are. Through opportunities to reflect and share out experiences, we co-design the rituals needed to support them in moving forward with their next step, initiative, or project. Sometimes we need to freshen up “the way things have always been done” to help us do things better. I don’t have a one-size-fits-all answer. I work with teams to uncover the wisdom they already know and help build on the foundations that already exist. 

Wondering where to start? Here are a few rituals you could try on:

• End your next team meeting with a check-out question

• a word or phrase that describes how you’re feeling now

• something you heard today that surprised or inspired you

• one small action you’re going to take after this

• one thing you're looking forward to

-Shift hour-long meetings to 50 minutes and 30-minute meetings to 25 minutes so people have time to transition between meetings.

- Brainstorm with your team ways to celebrate achievements, and be ready to put those into practice as your team hits their goals. 

If you’re curious how intentional rituals could help your team show up with more energy, clarity, and connection, let’s talk. I work with small teams to co-create simple, lasting shifts that support your people and your culture. Book a free call or join my monthly email list, where I offer practices you can implement to build a more inclusive culture rooted in our liberation. 

If you want to read more, check out this article by Harvard Business School that shares more about the power of rituals at work.