Research-backedChange & Transformation
Kill Criteria Kickoff
At the start of every significant project, agree in writing what would make you stop it — and who makes that call.
Milestone20 minutesSmall team (2–10)
Theme
Change & Transformation
Everything on Rituals of Work about change & transformation, in one place.
Rituals
See all →Seen at PixarPsychological Safety
Notes Day
Pause normal work for a day so employees can raise problems and propose fixes, without managers in the room.
Annually1 dayOrganisation-wide
Seen at GoogleLeadership
Open Q&A All-Hands
A regular all-hands where leaders take unscreened questions from anyone — including the uncomfortable ones.
Monthly45 minutesOrganisation-wide
Research-backedLeadership
Priority Echo
Ask a team member to explain the top priority in their own words. If it doesn’t match yours, your communication needs work.
Monthly5 minutesAny
Change & Transformation
Project Funeral
When a project is stopped, hold a short, good-humoured “funeral” to honour the effort, capture lessons and let the team move on.
Milestone45 minutesSmall team (2–10)
Change & Transformation
Red Tape Demolition Derby
A quarterly event where employees nominate pointless rules and approvals — and leaders visibly scrap the worst ones on the spot.
Quarterly60 minutesOrganisation-wide
Articles
See all →Change & Transformation
Culture doesn’t die of apathy. It dies of friction.
When people stop recognising colleagues or sharing ideas, leaders blame motivation. Usually the real culprit is how hard we’ve made the right behaviour.
1 Oct 2026
Nudges
See all →Leadership
The Curse of Knowledge
Once you understand something, it becomes very hard to imagine not understanding it — which is why leaders consistently overestimate how clearly their priorities have landed.
2-minute read13 Oct 2026
Learning & Performance
The Goal-Gradient Effect
People speed up as a finish line gets closer and slow down when a new goal starts. Long programmes with one distant finish line stall in the middle.
2-minute read6 Oct 2026
Change & Transformation
You Cannot Kill Your Own Project
The person who launched a failing project is the person least able to stop it — not from stubbornness, but because stopping means admitting the original call was wrong.
2-minute read29 Aug 2026
Onboarding & Belonging
The Endowed Progress Effect
People are far more likely to finish something when they feel they’ve already started — even if the remaining work is identical.
2-minute read25 Aug 2026
Living the Values
The One-Miss Rule
Habits take much longer to form than the “21 days” myth suggests — and missing one day barely matters. What kills a habit is the dramatic restart afterwards.
2-minute read20 Aug 2026
Leadership
Most Decisions Are Reversible
Organisations slow themselves down by treating easily reversible choices with the same heavy process as irreversible ones.
2-minute read11 Jul 2026
Videos
See all →Change & Transformation
Culture dies because of friction
A one-minute take on why good behaviours disappear when we make them hard — and why leaders should become Chief Friction Hunters.
1 min1 Oct 2026
Storys
See all →
Change & Transformation
The Day a Nurse Stopped a Doctor: How One Ritual Helped Transform a Hospital's Culture
What happens when a nurse dares to stop a senior doctor? Discover how Virginia Mason Medical Center transformed its culture through a simple yet powerful ritual that empowered employees to speak up, challenge authority and put patient safety first. This remarkable story reveals how small, repeatable practices can break down hierarchies, build trust and drive lasting behavioural change, proving that culture transformation happens not through what we say, but through what we repeatedly do.
Virginia Mason Medical CenterHealthcare
Playbooks
See all →Change & Transformation
The 90-Day Culture Reset
A step-by-step plan for leaders to diagnose their current culture, choose three priority behaviours and embed them through rituals in one quarter.
24 pagesFree download