How to turn your habits into something more meaningful (w/ Master Fixer Mike Norton) (Transcript)
Fixable
How to turn your habits into something more meaningful (w/ Master Fixer Mike Norton)
September 9, 2024
[00:00:00] Anne Morriss:
Hey everyone. Welcome back to Fixable, the show where we believe meaningful change happens fast. I'm your host, Anne Morriss.
[00:00:10] Frances Frei:
And I'm your co-host Frances Frei.
[00:00:12] Anne Morriss:
And before we dive in today, we wanna remind all of you out there that we are always taking submissions for problems to solve on the show. So if you're feeling stuck on anything in the workplace, please reach out to us at fixable@ted.com.
[00:00:25] Frances Frei:
We love to tackle big problems and little problems, so just go ahead and get in touch.
[00:00:30] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. And the problem you think you have may not be the problem you actually have, so do not use that as a filter. Come on the show. All right, so let's get into it. Frances, why don't you kick us off today, since you actually know our guests pretty well.
[00:00:42] Frances Frei:
Oh, I sure do. Today we're speaking to another master fixer, my dear friend and colleague, Mike Norton. Mike Norton has written so many things. I'll highlight just one of his past books. It's written with Elizabeth Dunn, Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending, and he has a accompanying TED talk, how to buy happiness, which has been viewed over 4 million times.
But mostly I just wanna say that Mike is a really good man. He's a good friend, he's a good colleague, he's a great mentor, a great co-author, great teacher, and he has humility and confidence, which together is maybe the most potent combination.
[00:01:24] Anne Morriss:
It's the magical one. We're gonna be speaking to Mike about his new book, The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions, and I really think the title captures it.
I'm a huge believer as Frances, as you can attest, in ritual, I couldn't be productive in a day without my structured sequence of morning events. And Frances, my suspicion is you might be a little more ritualized than I am.
[00:01:54] Frances Frei:
Well, I don't want to mislead the listener. You don't just have structured rituals in the morning.
You have them in the evening. Indeed, you don't sleep without a very specific set of events that includes yoga and a whole bunch of other things. Tea, yoga, um, ritual package.
[00:02:19] Anne Morriss:
And I think I'm ritual light, but we'll get Mike to weigh in on this one.
[00:02:17] Frances Frei:
Yours we lovingly refer to as rituals, but when I eat the same thing every day, somehow it's a little judgy how we talk about it, and it's a little our sharp elbowed ritual.
[00:02:27] Anne Morriss:
For you it's a lifestyle choice. Yeah, I think it's bigger. Alright, so let's bring in the expert here.
[00:02:34] Frances Frei:
Let's bring in the professionals.
[00:02:34] Anne Morriss:
And settle some of this.
[00:02:35] Frances Frei:
Yes.
[00:02:36] Anne Morriss:
Let's get into it.
Mike Norton, welcome to Fixable.
[00:02:48] Mike Norton:
Thank you for having me.
[00:02:50] Anne Morriss:
We are really thrilled to host you on the show today, and we'll start with a bit of context for our listeners. So you are a leading behavioral scientist and economics researcher who is in your words, “Obsessed with unlocking the secrets of human behavior.”
Is that still true?
[00:03:09] Mike Norton:
Yeah. Obsessed is a little hurtful, but yeah, I think that, I think that's fair. Yeah.
[00:03:14] Anne Morriss:
We are really fascinated by your work and the mission at the heart of it, which seems to be finding rigorous data backed ways to increase happiness and wellbeing. Is that how you think about your work these days?
[00:03:28] Mike Norton:
I do. Yeah. I think that, um, I'm particularly interested in little things that people can do you, so, you know, if, if somebody says you should exercise for four hours a day and then meditate for four hours a day, I'm sure that's true, but it's difficult. And so I like to think of these small little behaviors that might have an impact on your overall wellbeing, and that actually led into rituals, which, which again, are often these little small behaviors that have a lot of meaning and emotion in them.
[00:03:55] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. Well, we're, we're excited to, to get into rituals, which is the topic of this conversation. And in your new book, The Ritual Effect, you argue that bringing more intention and structure to our activities can give us access to more of our emotions. It's a really bold and intriguing claim, and we're excited to dig in today.
So what is a ritual and how is it different from a routine or a habit, or the things we typically do during the day?
[00:04:25] Mike Norton:
Can I ask you a mildly personal question?
[00:04:29] Anne Morriss:
Oh, you can go anywhere you want. We we can set the boundaries. Yeah. Yeah. You, you push on them. Yeah.
[00:04:34] Mike Norton:
So, um, when you're getting ready in the morning or when you're getting ready for bed at night.
Do you brush your teeth first and then shower, or do you shower and then brush your teeth?
[00:04:44] Anne Morriss:
I like to do both at the same time.
[00:04:47] Mike Norton:
That is horrifying.
[00:04:49] Anne Morriss:
I don't know if that's on the menu, but yeah.
[00:04:51] Mike Norton:
Frances?
[00:04:52] Anne Morriss:
Yeah, we, so our toothbrushes are in the shower.
[00:04:54] Mike Norton:
Fascinating. People are judging you right now, by the way.
Just, just to be clear.
[00:04:59] Anne Morriss:
You’re for sure. You're just to be clear person, person is judging. It was not a neutral reaction. Um, so what's the right answer? What should we be doing?
[00:05:07] Mike Norton:
The fascinating thing for me is that, um, humans haven't decided what the optimal order is, which is kind of funny to me.
[00:05:14] Frances Frei:
This human has, yes, this human has.
[00:05:16] Mike Norton:
Some human has, but across the humans.
[00:05:18] Frances Frei:
Uh, okay.
[00:05:18] Mike Norton:
Some people do one, some people do the other. But the real question is, if I asked you to do it differently, how would you feel?
[00:05:25] Frances Frei:
It's a mess. Terrible, wet drippy.
[00:05:29] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. It doesn't feel free. It doesn't feel great.
[00:05:33] Mike Norton:
Mm-Hmm. That I think is the key. So, uh, about half of people, if I say, can you change it up? They say, “Sure. Brushing my teeth, showering. I don't care about what order I do them in.”
And about half of people say “No.” And I say, “Well, why not?” And they say, “I don't know, but I don't, I don't like it.” I mean, it's a very tiny distinction, but for people who say, “I really like to do it my way.” There's more emotion in it, more meaning in it.
When you do it your way, it feels good. When you have to do it another way, it feels bad. You feel off. The very same boring actions can either just be boring actions or we can imbue them with more meaning and more emotion. That's when things start to become more like rituals to me and less like habits.
[00:06:18] Anne Morriss:
And so let me ask, maybe a simple question, but why bother? Like why are rituals worthy of a book, what is this gonna unlock?
[00:06:30] Mike Norton:
Oh, it definitely wasn't worth a book. So a lot of people like me who are behavioral scientists, we do try to help people who say, “I'd like to have better habits.” We do try to help them have better habits.
You know, I'd like to save more. I'd like to exercise more. I'd like to eat healthier. And we try to design around that to help people with those goals, and that's very important. I'm not anti habits. But imagine starting tomorrow, you had perfect habits for the next 40 years. You'd have wonderful teeth or whatever, but I don't think you'd say that was an interesting life.
We have this phrase going through the motions. Which is, is literally embodies this, which is just, you get outta bed and you go through the motions every day and then you're done. And I think one of the things that rituals do is they can take those same motions literally and imbue them with, with more.
And we've seen in our research, we, we, we named it emo diversity, which I'm embarrassed by. It was not a good choice. But the idea of this was that if you look at the range of emotions that people experience, that's a predictor of their wellbeing.
[00:07:36] Anne Morriss:
Hmm.
[00:07:33] Mike Norton:
It isn't just that you should feel a perfect hand happy every day.
That's not an interesting and rich life. So how do we get all of these cool emotions like peace and control and awe and pride, all of these, one of the ways that we unlock them is through ritual.
[00:07:48] Anne Morriss:
Super compelling. Can you give us a couple more examples? Of the smaller rituals that have had a, a big impact on people's emotional range.
[00:07:58] Mike Norton:
In an audience, if I say this one out loud, the response is, “Aw.” Ximena Garcia-Rada and I did research on couples and their little rituals, and of course we're gonna get into that, which the two of you. But one of the things that this couple said, they said, “Every time before we eat, we clink our silverware together.”
[00:08:16] Frances Frei:
Hmm.
[00:08:16] Anne Morriss:
All right.
Okay.
[00:08:18] Mike Norton:
Another couple said, “Every time before we go to bed, we kiss three times and only three times, and exactly three times.”
[00:08:24] Frances Frei:
Whoa.
[00:08:25] Anne Morriss:
All right. Lemme fall up on the first one. But what's the payoff? So like the silverware example, what's the payoff in that moment?
[00:08:32] Mike Norton:
So we can see if we ask couples, “Do you have anything special that the two of you do?” About, you know, 60 to 75% of couples typically say yes.
And when we ask those couples questions about their relationship. People who have these little rituals have higher relationship satisfaction than people who don't, and they actually feel more committed to each other. It's like, how? How do I know that we're committed to each other? And of course we could say, I love you and you could have children, you know, and things like this.
But I think these little things, it's like, this is our little silverware, clinky thing. We've been doing it for years. I know we're gonna do it today. And I know we're gonna do it for the next 40 years also. So the, it's a tiny little action that really comes to mean a lot. And we especially know that because if you ask people, how would you feel if your relationship ended and your partner reused that with their new partner?
[00:09:27] Frances Frei:
Oh, that's an offense.
[00:09:28] Mike Norton:
The rage.
[00:09:28] Anne Morriss:
Shocking.
[00:09:29] Mike Norton:
The rage.
[00:09:30] Frances Frei:
Rage.
[00:09:31] Mike Norton:
Absolutely. You're dead to me. So again, I mean, it's just a fork. But it has all of this meaning imbued into it.
[00:09:37] Frances Frei:
It's such a good example.
[00:09:39] Anne Morriss:
Yeah. Um, this intuitively makes a ton of sense to me. I think I actually have a lot of individual rituals. I don't, I think, I try not to drag you into them, Frances, but now Mike is giving me permission, um, to remove that.
[00:09:53] Frances Frei:
I'm not happy about that Mike.
[00:09:54] Anne Morriss:
Remove, remove that constraint.
[00:09:55] Frances Frei:
I'm trying to take things off my to-do list.
[00:09:57] Anne Morriss:
But talk to me about causality versus correlation. I mean, isn't it just that the happy couples do this kind of stuff versus this stuff is gonna make me a happy couple?
[00:10:09] Mike Norton:
Such an important question and so, um, for example, in research on teams that we've done, we can see the teams at work that say they have these little rituals that they do, they find that meaningful and they find their work more meaningful. Now exactly as you said, maybe people who find their work meaningful are more likely to develop rituals.
But we can do experiments in the lab where we bring in complete strangers, put them in teams, randomly assign some teams to do this kind of ritual and some teams to do this other kind of ritual and really see actually, does meaning come out of it when we structure it in this way, or is it purely correlational?
And there we can see actually that the meaning emerges when the thing is more literally when we're all looking at each other, doing it together versus facing away. The looking together brings it more ritualistic than the facing away that becomes meaningful. And then some of that meaning translates on the work that we then ask those teams to do.
[00:11:08] Anne Morriss:
Will you give us an example of a workplace ritual? Or a team ritual that had an impact?
[00:11:14] Mike Norton:
I think, uh, the first thing that people think of, just to be clear, is like a, a, a manager forcing you to do something in the morning. The employee's worst nightmare is the manager who over the weekend sees some TED talk and then comes in on Monday morning with all these, you know, “We're gonna do this from now on or whatever.”
[00:11:31] Anne Morriss:
I think Frances and I are both responsible for, for some of those moments.
[00:11:35] Mike Norton:
Exactly.
[00:11:35] Frances Frei:
As are you, Mike, as are you.
[00:11:36] Mike Norton:
Exactly. But that's not really the kind that we studied, but the kind that we uncover, the little ones that people come up with themselves. Again, this person told us they had a team every day of the week.
One person was responsible for lunch. So I would do Monday. Frances would do Tuesday, and they did it every week forever. What they were doing is, one day of the week you take care of the team, and every other day of the week, the team takes care of you. And when we ask those teams, “Hey, do you like your job? Is your job meaningful?”
The ones who have these kinds of things in place say, “Yeah, my, my job's a little bit more meaningful.” Than people who say, “I don't even know their last names, to be honest with you. It's, it's just not as,”
[00:12:15] Frances Frei:
Yeah.
[00:12:16] Mike Norton:
“Not as meaningful to us.”
[00:12:18] Anne Morriss:
What's a surprising example of a ritual that had an unexpected outcome?
[00:12:25] Mike Norton:
I do think that one of the most surprising things was actually with couples. I could ask each of you independently, do you have a little thing that you do that's special that you repeat?
[00:12:36] Frances Frei:
All day. All day, Mike.
[00:12:25] Mike Norton:
We should talk about that also actually as day as well, because that I think is very relevant. But, um, yeah, some couple, many couples, they both say yes.
They say, “Oh, you know, we clink our forks.” Other couples, they both say, “No, we don't have anything like that.” But there are couples where one person says, “Oh my God, we do, we clink our forks.” And the other person says, “We don't have anything like that.” Luckily, those couples aren't less happy than couples who agree they have no rituals, but there's no benefit at all.
In other words, you have to agree it has to be consensual in order for the benefits of the ritual to emerge. For some rituals, we can just do them for ourselves, like our little brushing teeth or whatever it might be.
[00:13:12] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.
[00:13:12] Mike Norton:
And then other ones actually require a spouse or a family or a larger group in order to unlock some of their potential.
[00:13:21] Anne Morriss:
All right. So I'm just trying to figure out how to start bringing this incredible power of rituals into my experience of work, do I just have to wait till an organic ritual emerges and then I lock it in? Or how, how can I be proactive about this?
[00:13:38] Mike Norton:
I think, uh w what comes to mind for people are things like, uh, let's do a corporate retreat and we'll do the, like, trust falls and stuff like that.
[00:13:49] Frances Frei:
You are not gonna like this, Mike. I can already tell you you're dripping with the judgment that you have of others.
[00:13:53] Anne Morriss:
That is a little judgy.
[00:13:54] Mike Norton:
I will say this, and it's true that trust falls are pretty cheesy at the same time compared to never seeing your coworkers outside of work at all for anything.
These things actually do, I think, serve a purpose that that really is actually quite important. However, the dread, I think can sometimes take some of that joy away. And so we do look at the ones, I think that employees come up with themselves, uh, on their own teams. And one thing that's very fun to do actually, is to actually ask teams to come up with a little ritual for themselves, and it's very fun.
[00:14:26] Anne Morriss:
I love that about your work, Mike, that the three day offsite is a ritual, but that, that's a fairly grand.
[00:14:32] Mike Norton:
Mm-hmm.
[00:14:32] Anne Morriss:
Gesture. But what your work seems to teach us is that these much smaller gestures can also have a, a meaningful impact.
[00:14:41] Mike Norton:
And we can enact them more. Right? We can clink our forks every day. Our anniversary is only one day a year.
You know, these smaller rituals allow us this repeated emotion that I think is quite important.
[00:14:52] Anne Morriss:
Yeah, super powerful. Alright, we'd love to do a power round. We're gonna throw some very specific applications. Okay. I wanna start my day right, so I am in the posture that I wanna be in to go to work. What's a good start of day ritual?
[00:15:10] Mike Norton:
I would think about the things that you do in the morning already and think about, kind of imbuing that with a little bit more regularity. Those are the kinds that people say, “This really got me to where I needed to be.” But what happens to most of us, and especially if you have kids, is everything's chaos.
So you don't have time to meditate for four hours.
[00:15:31] Anne Morriss:
Got it.
[00:15:31] Mike Norton:
But you do need to leave yourself the time to do the ritual that's important to you then it could become much more meaningful. I, I talked to a journalist a few weeks ago who said, “Yeah, I have coffee every morning, but there's no ritual attached to it.”
And she said, “How would you help me make it more of a ritual?” And I said things like, “Well, you could think about, you know, the, the specific coffee that you have and how you make it, you know, and some people, the mug that they use is very meaningful to them. It was their grandmother's mug, whatever it might be.”
And she, she literally, this was the sound. She went, “Oh.” That was the sound. And she said, “You know, every morning I use the same mug. It's a mug that I got with my daughter. When we were watching elephant seals give birth.” That's the mug she uses every single morning. And she said, “And you know what? Last week my husband brought me coffee in a different mug. And I was like, get that outta here.”
It's just a mug. It doesn't matter and yet for her, it's this connection to her daughter.
[00:16:28] Anne Morriss:
And so in this example, is it becoming aware of the rituals that you are already performing in your life? Is that the work for her?
[00:16:36] Mike Norton:
It’s both, I think. Yeah, I think.
[00:16:38] Anne Morriss:
It's both. Okay.
[00:16:38] Mike Norton:
I think for some people it's a recognition of what you're already doing.
You know, we clink, we kiss three times, that's our thing. And owning it a little more, “Oh my gosh, I'm doing my thing, or we're doing our thing.” And then for other people, I think it's more of a, “Let me think about how I might insert more meaning or more regularity into these otherwise pretty dry habits.”
[00:17:00] Anne Morriss:
Got it.
[00:17:00] Frances Frei:
It's just so fascinating to watch a skeptic because I'm usually the skeptic, but this is speaking to me at like such the center and core of my being, Mike. So I have a few clarifying questions. Those of us that have the superpower of neurodiversity, the habits aren't hard. In fact, most of life. I'm, I'm seeking habits.
If I do it once, I'm trying to do it many times. Uh, in fact, if I was gonna go towards self-help, it's trying to unhabit.
[00:17:29] Mike Norton:
Mm-Hmm.
[00:17:30] Frances Frei:
Myself. Do you have something to say around that?
[00:17:32] Mike Norton:
Most often people are doing rituals and the service of something. “I'm washing the car in order to help with my grief, or I'm doing my morning routine in order to then feel good about leaving for work and getting to work.”
And one thing that can happen with something like at one extreme like excessive compulsive disorder is the link is lost. You're no longer doing the ritual in order to do something else. You're doing the ritual in order to do the ritual. So if you think about, you know, if you leave your house and you double check that it's locked, you're doing that so all day you feel good and confident that your house is locked.
But if you lose the link between, “I'm checking in order to.” Then you get into a cycle of your checking itself becomes the reward. When things start to interfere with your other goals, that's when we can start to say, that might be too far and maybe that's where we want to think about pulling back because you were doing it for one reason and now you've actually interrupted your goal.
[00:18:32] Frances Frei:
This is super helpful to me and I am habit seeking and ritual seeking. I can see the subset of the habits that have emotion and the subsets that are just like self cycling.
One of the habits that I have made contagious, so it started organically, but now I'm trying to get the whole world to do it, is that I try to end every meeting by sharing sincere and specific praise for what went well.
[00:18:57] Frances Frei:
Hmm.
[00:18:58] Anne Morriss:
We call it Scooby snacks. I do it so that we can know what to do more of tomorrow, but also to defer constructive advice.
And also it ends with optimism, but with a little bit of rigor.
[00:19:09] Mike Norton:
Mm-Hmm.
[00:19:09] Frances Frei:
With it. And so this has been very helpful to me, so thank you.
[00:19:13] Anne Morriss:
So that's a ritual where the value of it is very intuitive to me. The layer you're adding is that the act itself of coming together also has power and meaning and is likely strengthening this team on some level.
[00:19:29] Mike Norton:
That's right. And very often again, the rituals often reinforce the culture. So if you think about, you know, why are we doing this particular thing? Well, you're doing that Frances for a very specific reason and I bet it changes the tone, not just of the ritual at the end, but other the meeting because you're saying, “Hey, what we're here to do is do great. Do great things. You know, at the end we're gonna talk about the great things we did. We're also gonna talk later about, you know, things we can improve.”
But you're saying that's the culture that we're gonna have right here in, in my lab group, we have a thing called random ideas where you come to the lab group with a research idea that you are not allowed to study.
It has to be only an idea or we'll do things like put Beatles songs in a hat and pull one out. You have to come up with a research project on the spot. And the reason we do that is because the number one value I want to have in this lab is, is actually creativity. Is scientific rigor important? Yes, of course just like constructive feedback.
But we can do that another time, you know? We'll, we'll get to that. But here the value is creativity and we want to make sure with our little rituals that we do that that's the culture that we're reinforcing.
[00:20:35] Frances Frei:
I love it.
[00:20:36] Anne Morriss:
And so if I wanna be, again, proactive, I'm hearing this conversation and I'm looking for a place to start. Designing a ritual that also reinforces an important cultural value, it is a magical combination.
[00:20:51] Mike Norton:
There was a company where, um, it was very important that the workplace practices were safe, basically, is how to think about it. And the ritual that they did was, uh, once a week people had to get up and present, um, how something that related to safety worked. So people could be like, uh, “How do you walk across ice?”
Or, you know, “What is the best way to wear a seatbelt?”
[00:21:15] Anne Morriss:
Cool.
[00:21:15] Mike Norton:
You know, whatever it might be.
[00:21:21] Anne Morriss:
Yeah.
[00:21:16] Mike Norton:
Something in the world about safety. Now, they weren't studying ice walking, but what are they doing? They're reinforcing through this silly, fun, meaningful activity, something that they really, really care about as an organization.
[00:21:30] Anne Morriss:
No, even the fact that it is silly is a cultural signal. Let's go back to the power round. So one of the things we experienced and saw a lot of in this pivot to hybrid work and, and, and working from home is that we used to have these ri, these commuting rituals. Like my brother lives north of New York City.
His commuting ritual was very important to his day. So he would buy the cup of coffee and then the newspaper, and then he would sit in the same place in the train like, and that wa was a very powerful norm. So what, what advice do you have for those of us who live and work in the same space? Like what are some rituals that you've seen that can be quite helpful to making that pivot?
[00:22:11] Mike Norton:
First, I just have to say that I think. I don't know if there's been a word in human history where the attractiveness had changed more quickly than the word commuting, because commuting was the worst thing in the world. You know what I mean?
[00:22:23] Anne Morriss:
I was desperate for it.
[00:22:25] Mike Norton:
I was gone on my commute. How long is your commute when you have to commute every day?
And then as soon as it was gone, people go, “Oh God, I wish I could have my commute back.” It gave me that space in between work and home in order to transition from professional work self to, you know, dad or mom or partner or whatever. It's that you're trying to be at home.
[00:22:42] Frances Frei:
Anne now walks off the day, that's her commute.
[00:22:44] Anne Morriss:
Yeah, I've, I had to, I have to simulate the commute at the end of the day. I just go and walk around for a while.
[00:22:50] Mike Norton:
So, and it's incredibly common, Anne. So, um, a guy who used to bicycle to work, like big cyclist, love cycling. He had to work from home and so he was trying to do it. It wasn't going well. He always felt weird, kind of betwixt in between.
And so what he started to do was he'd wake up in the morning. Put on his biking gear, hop on his bike, bike down the hallway, hop off his bike, put on his work clothes, work all day, end of the day, work clothes off, biking clothes on, bike down the hallway, back into the, you know, and so on the one hand you say.
[00:23:20] Anne Morriss:
I get it.
[00:23:20] Mike Norton:
“That guy needs.”
[00:23:25] Anne Morriss:
Wow.
[00:23:21] Mike Norton:
“That guy needs help.” And on the other hand, compared to what? I mean, how else are we supposed to separate work from home? And many, many people came up with their own way of something in between to try to help with that transition. We kind of had a natural way to do it before and when it was taken from us, we didn't abandon it.
We just came up with a new ritual to try to solve the problem.
[00:23:42] Anne Morriss:
I wanna go back to your example of getting psyched up before a big presentation. What works, what rituals work?
[00:23:49] Mike Norton:
So, a, a very fun thing to do if you wanna waste at least an afternoon, is, um, type the name of any celebrity or athlete and then type the word ritual and click search. The range and variety of rituals that these very elite performers have it's just stunning how complex and how common they are for these really high stress positions.
And by the way, we allow them to do that. You know, Rafael Nadal adjusts his headband, he picks his wedgie. I mean, imagine before I taught, I tried to do that. Students would say, “Yeah, you're not allowed to do that though, because like, this is hard, but this isn't Wimbledon.”
So we actually, we amp up the level of ritual according to the stress level. When we ask people, you know, “At work, what, what do you do?” The, the most common one that people do, I mentioned it earlier, is they go into the bathroom. They check under the stalls to make sure nobody else is there, and then they talk to themselves in the mirror and they either say, “I can do this.” Or they say, “You can do this.” And I love, you can do this because it means you're pointing at yourself in the mirror, shouting at your mirror self that you know they've got this and they can do this.
Now why do we do that. First off, why do we do it in private? It's because we're not Serena Williams, so we're not allowed to do it in public, but also we need that couple of minutes in order to get going. I mean, Frances, the HBS classroom is a pretty stressful environment to teach in for most people. Many of our faculty colleagues have very specific, including me, very specific rituals that we do.
[00:25:20] Frances Frei:
Me too. Me too.
[00:25:20] Anne Morriss:
What are your, what are your rituals?
[00:25:22] Frances Frei:
Oh. Uh, so I pace, like I'm going into a heavyweight fight. I have a Gatorade, I have a coffee, and then I do quiet laps in front of the room and I go and some would call it obsessively. I'll just say lovingly adjust the chalk.
[00:25:42] Mike Norton:
Mm-Hmm. I love this.
[00:25:45] Frances Frei:
And what do you do, Mike?
[00:25:45] Mike Norton:
Uh, I'm also a pacer, but in the privacy of my office. Uh, but the other thing that I do is I always write my teaching plan, always on yellow lined paper, always yellow. And if I can't do it, I'm sure it's the same for you, Frances. I'm not happy. I mean, I can still teach.
[00:26:00] Frances Frei:
Oh no, I'm off.
[00:26:01] Mike Norton:
I can still teach. I'm, but I'm not, I'm not feeling that great.
[00:26:03] Frances Frei:
Yeah.
[00:26:04] Anne Morriss:
So, um, final question, Mike. Do we have to maintain rituals for them to hold their power? Like, am I signing up for
[00:26:11] Frances Frei:
A lifetime of eating at that restaurant a lifetime.
[00:26:14] Anne Morriss:
Eating at the same fucking restaurant and ordering the same meal.
[00:26:19] Mike Norton:
I'm not gonna try to get involved
[00:26:20] Anne Morriss:
Too late. You're, it's too late.
You're involved.
[00:26:22] Frances Frei:
You're involved.
[00:26:23] Mike Norton:
So some, some couples, one person wants to do the same one, but you can think about, you know, if you're foodies. The ritual can be to try a different cuisine every time. So it's always our date night, but we're gonna do something different.
[00:26:34] Frances Frei:
You're on Anne’s side shamelessly. I I value the same thing.
[00:26:37] Mike Norton:
Oh, me too, Frances.
[00:26:38] Anne Morriss:
That's such a reason. that's such a reasonable answer in many games.
[00:26:40] Frances Frei:
And then asking for it to be trying a different thing. Every time you've already, this is what Anne does. She lures you over and you don't even know it. And I'm just here all alone again, all alone.
[00:26:49] Anne Morriss:
I think our expert has just given a very reasonable answer to the question,
[00:26:53] Mike Norton:
A Harvard scientist, and don't forget.
I think though, and I mean, we often use rituals when we need them and then we stop using them when we don't need them anymore.
[00:27:01] Anne Morriss:
Okay. I lied. One more question. Um, what do you hope listeners take away from this conversation?
[00:27:06] Mike Norton:
The first step honestly is just an inventory. How are these already playing a role in your life?
And start to recognize them and own them and honor them a little bit more as we discussed earlier, and give them a little bit more meaning. And then the second thing is, in some domains, experiment. If there's domains in life where you think you could use a little help, those are the places where you can try experimenting a little bit.
It may not land for you, it might land for you, but worth a try to see if these things can, can help out.
[00:27:35] Frances Frei:
Uh, that's beautiful. This was wonderful, Mike. I really appreciate your taking the time and, and joining us.
[00:27:40] Mike Norton:
Thank you both so much. It was very fun.
[00:27:51] Anne Morriss:
Okay. So Frances, what do you hope listeners take away from this conversation?
[00:27:56] Frances Frei:
So I liked very much the safety example where it was, can we develop a habit, a positive habit, that then becomes an emotionally imbued ritual surrounding an important aspect of our culture.
[00:28:11] Anne Morriss:
Mm-Hmm.
[00:28:12] Frances Frei:
And I think we'll have a higher hit ratio if we start with the important aspects of our culture and design from there, then just come up with rituals and hope one of them is close to the culture.
[00:28:22] Anne Morriss:
I have to say, that's where this conversation really connected for me. In that example of the ritual that was also reinforcing an important cultural norm that they were trying to dial up.
[00:28:34] Frances Frei:
Yeah.
[00:28:34] Anne Morriss:
In that workplace.
[00:28:35] Frances Frei:
Well, what I loved about that is, so Mike is a behavioral psychologist, like when he said culture, I mean, who really knows what that is? And so I think that's exactly where, as an organization, that's what I would say is what are the really important organizational aspects? And then let's reverse engineer, or let's creatively create a ritual around that.
And so what I would say is what are the aspects of your culture that you cherish but maybe are not yet cherished as much as you want.
[00:29:10] Anne Morriss:
Mm-Hmm.
[00:29:11] Frances Frei:
And is that a place to try to develop a ritual? Thanks for listening, everybody. We'd love to hear from you. If you wanna figure out your workplace problem together, please send us a message.
You can email, call or text fixable@ted.com. 2-3-4-F-I-X-A-B-L-E. That's 2-3-4-3-4-9-2-2-5-3.
[00:29:33] Anne Morriss:
Fixable is brought to you by the TED Audio Collective. It's hosted by me, Anne Morriss.
[00:29:39] Frances Frei:
And me Frances Frei.
[00:29:45] Anne Morriss:
This episode was produced by Isabel Carter from Pushkin Industries. Our team includes Constanza Gallardo, Banban Cheng, Alejandra Salazar, and Roxanne Hai Lash.
This episode was mixed by Louis at Story Yard.
[00:29:53] Frances Frei:
If you're enjoying the show, make sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and tell a friend to check us out.
[00:30:01] Anne Morriss:
And one more thing. If you can please take a second to leave us a review. It really helps us make a great show.