Essay 1.3 | Traditions & Rituals
The first time I watched thousands of enterprise salespeople stand up and sing “Sweet Caroline,” I remember thinking: this makes little sense. These were serious people responsible for serious revenue. They were not at a neighborhood bar or a ballgame. They were at a corporate event. And yet the pianist hit the opening chords, arms went over shoulders, phones went into the air, and the room roared the familiar response: “So good! So good! So good!”
On paper, it was ridiculous. In the room, it was perfect.
Somewhere along the way, that song had stopped being a playlist choice and had become a tradition. The repeated communal act—the singing, the timing, the shared anticipation—had become a ritual. If it did not happen, the room would have felt as if something important was missing.
That is how traditions and rituals work. They are not merely decorative. They give groups a way to say, “This is how we mark this kind of moment together.” A wedding ring, a graduation tassel, a candle, a chant, a song, a toast, a moment of silence, a team huddle, a bell rung after a sale, a scarf raised before a match—each is a small structure that helps people cross a threshold.
In purposeful events, traditions matter because they make meaning physical. They move people out of passive observation and into shared behavior. They give the group something to do with its feelings. They create memory through repetition. They help participants experience themselves not simply as individuals in a room, but as part of a community that has its own language, gestures, rhythms, and stories.
The risk, of course, is that traditions can harden into obligations. A ritual that once created belonging can become stale, coercive, or exclusionary. That means leaders and event makers must tend rituals carefully. Why does this exist? Who does it include? What does it make people feel? Does it still serve the purpose, or has it become a barnacle on the experience?
A good ritual is not forced fun. It is an invitation to participate in meaning. It is one of the ways a gathering becomes human enough to remember.
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