Guy Fawkes night is a 400 year old ritual, which rituals does your organization have?

Hello and welcome to this episode of Speak PR. Now normally on the 5th of November we would be out burning effigies and we'd be celebrating what in the UK is known as Guy Fawkes Night. Now Guy Fawkes Night, also known as Bonfire Night, is an annual commemoration observed mainly in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. Now the day involves parades, fireworks, bonfires, and food. At least it would do if we were not under lockdown. And children frequently carry straw effigies, and when we were kids, we would make these and carry them around on wheelbarrows and throw them onto the fire at night. Now, the fireworks are a reminder of the gunpowder that Guy Fawkes hid in the cellar of Parliament. The traditional cake eaten on Bonfire Night is parkin cake. It's a sticky cake containing a mix of oatmeal, ginger, treacle, and syrup. We have other foods including sausages cooked over the flames and marshmallows and drinks, of course, like mulled wine or apple cider with cinnamon. Now, it's a, it's a wonderful day that I've experienced for many, many years, although this year, of course, we can't do that. But one of the things that I was reflecting on was the importance of traditions. Now, this is a tradition that has been taking place for over 400 years. In fact, it's commemorating the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. So there's a story about how Guy Fawkes was caught below in the cellars at the Houses of Parliament and was eventually about to be hung, drawn, and quartered for his attempt to kill King James. But in fact, the, the truth of the matter is that he jumped and broke his neck before he actually was hung, drawn, and quartered. He was going to have 36 barrels of gunpowder explode, and he was, uh, not alone. He was one of 13 conspirators, although he's the one that was caught about to light the 36 barrels of gunpowder, and he's the one that everybody celebrates today, or rather celebrates the capture of today. But actually, there were 13 conspirators in the plot. One was masterminded, um, by Robert Catesby, And Catesby was a Catholic figure who had a reputation for speaking out against the English crown, which at the time was Protestant. Now, as an interesting fact, someone has dug up the fact that Kit Harington, the Game of Thrones and Gunpowder star, uh, was a distant relative. In fact, the, the film Gunpowder is about his distant relative. Guy Fawkes also has an island named after him. In the Galápagos Islands, and Guy Fawkes apparently when he was caught gave a false name. But what he really liked to be called was Guido Fawkes because he'd spent some time in Europe and wanted to be seen as more cosmopolitan. Now what's happened today is that the Houses of Parliament are still searched on the same night to make sure that there are no explosives below. With the state opening of Parliament, the Yeomen of the Guard search the Houses below. To make sure there are no more would-be conspirators hiding in the cellars. So 400 over years ago, this took place, and we still have a ritual in our society about it. Now, the reason I find that fascinating is because from a communications point of view, companies also could have rituals that become part of the established culture within the organization. And in fact, this is very much what teams do, what sports coaches do, and they create rituals. And there was some research done by Paolo Guenzi published in the Harvard Business Review in 2013, and they are looking at the impact of rituals on well-being in an organization. And the finding is that rituals from the mundane coffee breaks, tea time, to major less frequent events like annual meetings and retirement parties or celebrations when people, for example, have made a sale by ringing the gong. These make a difference to how an organization operates because they create a culture and they create some signals for everybody to know that their behavior is recognized and that their behavior is part of a common behavior pattern that's supported By the organization. So this research by Paolo Guenzi looked particularly at sports and the rituals of sports, and in their view, the importance of rituals can't be underestimated. And they say that successful sports coaches use rituals to build social bonds between team members. Gianluca Viali. Who was the Premier League Chelsea's former player and head coach said at Chelsea we had an initiation ritual for newcomers during the training camp at the beginning of the season. The new players would have to sit or stand on top of a table in front of all their teammates and sing a song that represents their country. So sports teams, as we know, if we look at the New Zealand haka, for example. Played on the pitch when they play rugby against other teams. The haka is a ritual that establishes their credentials and their team entity. But it's not just sports organizations. The reason I share this is because within the SPEAK PR program— storify, personalize, engage, amplify— no, storification creates the opportunity for rituals. What has happened in an organization that could become celebrated. Now, in the same way we have Bonfire Night, which is a ritual where something took place or nearly took place that was obviously destructive, the converse of that is of course where things have taken place that have been constructive. How could they be made into rituals and celebrated? There's some examples. For example, a company called Grundfos, which is a pump manufacturer headquartered in Denmark. And to encourage the team building, they have the Grundfos Olympics, where they have some 1,000 employees attend from over 55 countries. And they have an opening ceremony, they have a parade of nations, and they even have a grand finale. So they have their colleagues all be housed in with their Danish counterparts and create this amazing atmosphere and ritual. Now, of course, these are making pumps. There's really no relationship between pump manufacture and the Olympics, but there is between creating a sense of team and a sense of competition and a sense of achievement. And these are all great qualities to have within the culture of the company as well. So rituals stimulate emotions They reduce anxiety, and most importantly, what they do is create a sense of team. So apparently neuroscientific research shows that rituals trigger chemicals that include feelings of connectivity and timelessness and meaning, which get us to focus, to reduce our anxiety, and to increase our energy levels. Now, another company which you might have heard of is Bosch, the automotive company from Germany. They have a ritual which I think might be quite a good one to take up. What they had was a situation where managers would turn up for a meeting, and often the sales junior account managers would not say anything, and they would just take instruction. So what they've done is to create a yellow card, red card, uh, situation where, taking the analogy from sport, if people go to a meeting and say nothing, they can get a yellow card, uh, and they have to leave the room. If they repeat the performance of turning up to a meeting and not saying a thing and having to leave the room, they get a red card and that they're not invited to the next week's sales meeting. I imagine eventually they get the message and they come to the meetings with something to say. So it's just a ritual That's not aggressive, not abusive, but it's recognized because of course the sporting parallels. But it's also something that's fair and something that gives everybody a guide to what kind of behavior they need to be adopting in order to conform to the culture of the company. So this Harvard Business Review report shows that Leaders make extensive use of ritual, and what we see, for example, is with Donald Trump the use of the MAGA hats. For example, that's a ritual that he's created with a symbol. So as companies, we can all create stylized rituals that will help. Other members of the team feel as though that they're in the right place. It could be a ritual for our partners and also for our customers. It could be a ritual, for example, if someone buys something from our company, that we take a photograph with them, or we send them some flowers, or we celebrate by sending them a photograph of the product being made, for example. What could be a ritual that the company that you work for, the organization you work for, creates that's easy to understand, is binding, and is creating a lasting effect? If it is a ritual that has gone on for 400 years, then that's an amazing indication of just how central that whole plot was to the mindset of the British people. But also how they felt and we felt about preserving the safety of Parliament as the seat of democracy. Now, there was one group that had a great idea. It's called Saint-Gobain, which is a French industrial group, and they felt that before they go to sales presentation meetings in front of the board, They're always rather nervous. And so what they did was decide that they would have a ritual amongst the team that was going to present. They decided in a, I guess, a slightly French Gaelic way that they would touch each other's asses and all scream together, shit! I guess they would shout merde as they're in French. And it would make them, of course, all smile and feel more relaxed and get into the spirit of presenting. Choose your own. Choose your own language. If you don't want to touch someone else's bottom, I think that's perfectly acceptable. Probably in this day and age, you might get sued for doing that. But you get the idea that you could do something. Now, in England, we've got Bonfire Night, Guy Fawkes, which we can't celebrate tonight because of the COVID But you do in America have the election taking place, which of course is a ritual. That's been taking place as well for the last couple of hundred years. And I think one of the reasons Trump is causing so much consternation is because his behavior is threatening the very ritual of America, which is that of a democratic and dignified contest every four years to see who leads the country. From a public relations point of view, their tactics are creating masses of coverage. And in the same way as Guy Fawkes or Guido Fawkes, you know, Trump's challenge to the establishment may mean that he creates a new kind of ritual that gets repeated perhaps annually or every 4 years. And depending on which side of the political fence you're on, you'll be deciding what kind of ritual you're going to be holding. The importance, though, is that rituals become part of the culture, part of the fabric of society. But also can become part of the fabric and the culture of an organization. It's an opportunity to create content, to create cohesion, and to give a sense of what's important, of the priorities and the focus of the business or the organization. So just reflect maybe on the rituals that you enjoy and the ones that you don't have but you could create so that other people have a sense of importance of these activities within the time and the culture of your own organization. So thank you for listening to this episode of Speak PR. My name is Jim James, talking today about the importance of rituals and how we can create them to help build a sense of culture. But also, they are a great source of content for outgoing and ongoing communication. In the case of Guy Fawkes, we've had content for over 400 years from the same event. Now that is a great PR story. And if you'd like to hear more stories and take part with more content, please do come to our website at eastwestpr.com. We have a newsletter that goes out weekly. Or if you'd like to take part in a mastermind, the Speak PR program is now online at speakpr.co. Do register, let me know that you're interested, and we'll reach out and set up a time where we have a 6-person peer group and a structured mastermind of 90 minutes each week for 6 weeks to work on how you and your organization can get noticed using the Speak PR methodology. Thanks once again for listening, and until we meet again, I wish you the best of health, a profitable business, and that you enjoy whatever rituals you've got coming up.