The Power of Rituals — Michael Norton’s The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions

How do routines differ from rituals? Why are rituals so powerful? Can conscious engagement in rituals enrich our lives? These are a few of the questions addressed in Michael Norton’s The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions.

Norton, a Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, delves into research, articles, and his own experience to offer his take on the importance of rituals. The book is divided into four sections: exploring what rituals do, rituals we do for ourselves, rituals and relationships, and rituals at work and in the world. The Ritual Effect is engagingly written, and provides relatable examples and analogies, like building IKEA furniture and baking a cake using store-bought cake mix. Subtitles break the chapters into digestible chunks.

Norton notes that while habits are somewhat automated, rituals contain emotional elements. With habits, it’s all about getting something done. In the case of rituals, the “how” is as important as the “what.” While each reader might take their own key learnings from the book, some of the most interesting segments for me were about “kin-keepers” (family members who provide the “glue” that holds the group together), and how rituals can help us through periods of mourning.

Norton looks at the rituals of high performers and explores how rituals help bind cultures together by emphasizing what we share. Rituals can enhance our days, providing a sense of comfort. They can also be useful for marking transitions. While rituals can help us heal, they can also be divisive when they create an “us versus them” mentality.

Norton asserts that doing things with intention and embracing the power of rituals can enhance our enjoyment of everyday existence. After reading The Ritual Effect, I started thinking more deeply about the rituals and routines in my own life. Entertaining and thought-provoking, The Ritual Effect might answer questions you never knew you had about the role and value of rituals in our lives.

Michael Norton is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. He has studied human behavior as it relates to love and inequality, time and money, and happiness and grief. He is the author of The Ritual Effect and the coauthor—with Elizabeth Dunn—of Happy Money: The Science of Happier Spending. In 2012, he was selected by Wired magazine as one of “50 People Who Will Change the World.” His TEDx talk, How to Buy Happiness, has been viewed nearly 4.5 million times. He is a frequent contributor to such publications as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Scientific American, and has made numerous television, radio, and podcast appearances.

Publisher: Scribner (April 9, 2024)
Hardcover 9″ x 6″ | 288 pages
ISBN: 9781982153021

Lisa Timpf

Website

Lisa Timpf is a retired HR and communications professional who lives in Simcoe, Ontario. Her writing has appeared in New Myths, Star*Line, The Future Fire, Triangulation: Habitats, and other venues. Lisa’s speculative haibun collection, In Days to Come, is available from Hiraeth Publishing. You can find out more about Lisa’s writing at http://lisatimpf.blogspot.com/.