Pause & Honour.

[an excerpt from The Value of Ritual in your Workday by Peter Bregman;
he begins by describing a particular scene in The Last Samurai movie]

Sitting at a low table,
he moved deliberately, singularly focused on his tea. He contemplated it. Then poured it. Then sipped it, tasted it, and, finally, swallowed it.

This, I realized, was the source of the samurai's strength.
His acrobatics were impressive, but they were merely a demonstration of his strength. The source was this tea ritual and many other rituals like it. His power as a warrior came from his patience, precision, attention to subtlety, concentration, and his reverence for the moment.

The

power of ritual

is

profound

and

under-appreciated.

Mostly, I think, it is because

we live in a

time-starved culture,

and

ritual is

time-indulgent.

Who can afford

the luxury of

doing

one thing

at

a time?

Who has

the patience

to

pause and honour

an activity

before and after

we do it?

We all

should.

Religions understand and leverage the power of ritual.

In Judaism,

blessings are as plentiful as iPhone apps.

Wake up?

There's a blessing for that.

Wash your hands?

There's a blessing for that.

Experience something new?

Eat a meal?

Go to the bathroom?

There's a blessing for each one.

Every religion I know has similar practices to

 make our

experience

of the world

sacred.

Which might be why we avoid ritual in the business world.

Religion is so loaded, so personal.

But

ritual doesn't have to be religious;

it's just a tool religions use.

Rituals are about

paying attention.

They're about

stopping for a moment

and

noticing

what you're about to do,

what you've just done,

or both.

They're about

making the most of

a particular moment.

And that's something

we could use a lot more of in

the business world.

Imagine

if we started each meeting with

a recognition

of the power of bringing a group of people together

to collaborate and an intention to dedicate ourselves,

without distraction, to achieving the goals of the meeting.

Perhaps even

an acknowledgement

that

each person's

views, goals, and priorities

are

important

and

need to be heard.

 Of course, that would require that every meeting have a clear goal, an agenda, and a purpose. But those are just nice side benefits.

What if

every performance review

began with a short thought about the importance of clear and open communication?

If

every time

we worked on

a

spreadsheet

someone else created for us,

we paused

to

acknowledge the complexity

of the work

she did

and

the attention to detail

she brought to it?

If

at the beginning of the day

 we paused to honor

the work

we are about to do

and

the people

with whom we are about to do it?

Here's what makes it easy to get started with this: no one needs to know.

Start with just

yourself

Sit at your desk in the morning,

pause before booting up your computer,

and

mark the moment.

Do this by

taking a deep breath.

Or by arranging your pens.

Whatever it is,

do it with

the intention of

creating respect

for what you're about to begin.

Do the same before you make a phone call. Or receive one.

Or before you meet with a colleague or customer.

Each time we

pause, notice, and offer respect

for an activity,

 it reminds us to

appreciate and focus on

what we're about to do.

And by

elevating each activity,

we'll take it

more seriously.

We'll get

more pleasure

from it.

The people with whom we work will

feel more respected.

And we'll feel more self-respect.

Which means

we'll

work better

with each other.

And produce

better results.

That focus will help us

accomplish our tasks

more carefully,

more proficiently, and

more productively,

with fewer distracting under-the-table BlackBerry texts.

And all the research shows that

 that kind of

singular focus

will make us

far more efficient.

In other words,

 that

time-indulgent ritual thing?

It might just be the

perfect antidote

to a

time-starved world.

*

.