Religious Buffet

Read a great quote the other day:

“Traditions are solutions to problems we have forgotten”.

This got me thinking, suddenly with everyone working remotely our relationship with a physical office has changed. While businesses have survived from a productivity viewpoint, what has been damaged is office culture and relationships. Its clear that without culture and traditions and if we are operating independently from home, and any sort of loyalty to a company becomes very strained. It’s no surprise to me that a record breaking amount of people have started to look for different jobs, some have gone a step further and questioned their very profession. In its simplest form, good work culture and a trusting relationship with your teams is one of the most important assets a company has.

Now I’m not a religious person, but I saw this fascinating ted talk a few years ago by Alain DuButton, called ‘Atheism 2.0’ where he outlines that although calling yourself an Atheist is very popular at the moment, dismissing religion all together means missing some incredible ideas and insights. He describes that the Atheist 2.0 would look at all religions and take the most useful parts creating their own belief system (a sort of religious hack), learning from 1000’s of years of societal solutions and traditions.

He also talks about the importance of calendars for repeated traditions, Easter Sunday, Shrove Tuesday etc. These are Christian dates used to repeat learnings and reinforce lessons on an annual basis,

So how could this apply to the office, well all of a sudden the office is becoming a place of congregation, a place of community, you meet people you haven’t seen for a while, you might talk to your elders, much like a church or a mosque in a way. There are so many companies that have instigated a fully flexible way of working, a hybrid solution that means there are no set days to come into the office. Which is great for the employees but suddenly the culture of the business suffers immeasurable unless traditions and community are put front and center.

If I think back to the times when I’ve felt most connected to the teams I have worked with, it’s been when traditions have followed. It’s been most successful when traditions are used to strengthen relationships of a community. As I’m sure we all have experienced this becomes more and more important as a company grows in size, a small 5 person office will be very close to each other and strong relationships form (Hopefully), a tradition for example might be a monthly trip to the cinema or someone brings in cake each week, or a sort of hackathon for a competition takes place.

As the company grows and direct relationships become more challenging on a day to day basis, suddenly traditions for the whole office become more important. The whole office finishing on a Friday an hour early and having a studio wide catch up happens is always a great way to end a week. Having lunches cooked for all the staff on a few set days is also a great way to bring everyone together.

So taking the religious buffet idea, are there traditions that could be mimicked in a company setting, for example the idea of church each Sunday could be a Friday morning meeting where the ‘ideals; of the company is repeated and reinforced.

Office culture traditions are solutions to problems that are all to apparent now.