The Pizza That Made It Real

Photo by Klara Kulikova

Pizza

The product had launched. The metrics looked good. The engineering sprint was done. But something was missing. At Typeform’s Barcelona office, the team had just delivered a major rebuild of their survey dashboard — faster, cleaner, more user-friendly. It was the culmination of months of late nights and tight deadlines. The JIRA board was quiet. The Slack channels had gone still. And yet, no one seemed to care. There was no energy. No exhale. No sense of arrival.
It wasn’t until Alejandro — a mid-level engineer with a reputation for quiet precision — walked into the office with twelve pizzas and a bottle of cheap cava that something shifted. He didn’t make a speech. He just gestured to the roof. People followed.
That impromptu rooftop moment — greasy fingers, plastic cups, sun setting over the Eixample — became the real launch. Not because anything new happened technically. But because people felt the moment. They marked it. Together.
That’s when the work became real.

The Science of Ritual & Rhythm

Rituals aren’t fluff. They’re emotional infrastructure. And rhythm isn’t routine — it’s the nervous system of group life.

Rituals Regulate and Bond

Anthropologist Dimitris Xygalatas found that rituals reduce anxiety, increase group cohesion, and encode memory — even when the rituals themselves are arbitrary. The repetition and shared attention triggers oxytocin and emotional attunement.

In business? That’s belonging, trust, and clarity. A weekly check-in becomes a heartbeat. A product launch toast becomes a psychological marker: you were here, and it mattered.

Organisational theorist Edgar Schein calls rituals a layer of culture — just beneath artefacts but above unconscious assumptions. They are how we perform our values.

Rhythm Creates Trust and Focus

Humans evolved in cycles: light and dark, hunt and rest. In organisations, we’ve broken rhythm in favour of always-on. That kills focus and connection.

Psychologist Daniel Pink, in his book 'When', shows how timing affects decision-making, energy, and performance. Teams with shared rhythms — like consistent start-up rituals or quarterly reflection points — perform better.

Transitions Need Transformation

In 'The Rites of Passage', ethnographer Arnold van Gennep described a universal pattern found in human cultures:

• Separation – leaving one state

• Liminality – crossing the threshold

• Reintegration – entering the new

When organisations ignore these stages — rushing from hire to desk, from project to project, from exit to silence — they break the emotional logic of belonging.

Ritual & Rhythm Are Already Part of Your Life

We know rituals work because we already use them — everywhere else.

In Family

Dinner at the same time each night, bedtime routines, birthday candles — these are rituals. They build security, meaning, and identity.

In Community

Church bells, Friday prayers, football matches — these aren’t just events, they’re patterned markers of belonging.

In Business

Without ritual: new hires drift, projects end in silence, teams burn out. With it: meaning, connection, and flow emerge.

What It Looks Like at Work

• A team that starts each week with a question — and ends it with reflection.

• A new hire welcomed with a story, not just a system login.

• A farewell marked by storytelling, not silence.

• Friday lunches that feel like punctuation, not just fuel.

• A phrase or gesture that opens strategy meetings — a heartbeat of purpose.

Actions You Can Take Today

1. Map Your Transitions – where are people entering, exiting, changing roles? Ritualise these moments.

2. Create Weekly Rhythms – Monday = intention. Friday = reflection.

3. Design Just One Ritual – a question to start every meeting, or a gesture to mark success.

4. Ask the Team – what rituals already exist, and which do we need?

5. Mark Endings With Care – give closure, not just an email farewell.

Final Thought

Strategy doesn’t fail because it’s wrong. It fails because no one feels it.

If you want your culture to stick, your goals to land, your people to stay — don’t just act. Mark the moment. Find your rhythm. Hold the fire.