Remember when your CEO walked into the office on Pirate Day dressed like Long John Silver, bellowed “Avast, ye scurvies,” and everyone had a good laugh?
Now imagine the same CEO, same costume, same line, walking into a critical M&A negotiation with the other company’s leadership team.
You can’t remember that one because it never happened.
Same person. Same behavior. Completely different result. That’s one of the most underrated forces in organizational life: context.
The Romans had a ritual called Saturnalia where once a year, masters served their slaves, and slaves gave orders. Everyone laughed. We’re not suggesting anyone bring that back. But it worked precisely because it was bounded. Any other day, the same behavior would have been catastrophic. The ritual acted as a pressure valve that actually reinforced the structure it temporarily suspended.
We were thinking about this earlier this month with Super Bowl parties.
Ask half the room to name a non-famous player on either team. Blank stares. Ask about the ads, the halftime show, who brought the good guacamole, and now you have a conversation.
People didn’t suddenly become football fans. They became present, sharing the same moment, with the same reference points, with people they might otherwise have nothing to say to.
The Super Bowl isn’t really a sporting event. It’s a socially sanctioned reason to be together.
Most leaders spend their energy on the message. Refining it, amplifying it, pushing it harder. But even the best message needs a room that’s ready to receive it.
The point is giving people a legitimate excuse to do what they already want to do: connect.
Everything else follows from there.
The most effective culture work doesn’t announce itself. It creates conditions, a ritual, a shared moment, where connection becomes the natural outcome.Your job isn’t just to be louder than all of the other distractions. It’s to be the reason people show up.
