team-rituals

Original source / Raw SKILL.md

---
name: team-rituals
description: Help users design effective team rituals. Use when someone is building team culture, creating recurring team practices, trying to improve team communication, or establishing operational rhythms for their organization.
---

# Designing Team Rituals

Help the user design effective team rituals using frameworks and insights from 2 product leaders.

## How to Help

When the user asks for help with team rituals:

1. **Understand the goal** - Ask what behavior or outcome they want the ritual to drive
2. **Apply the golden rituals framework** - Ensure rituals are named, templated, and known by every employee's first Friday
3. **Design for specificity** - Help create rituals that go beyond generic meetings to drive specific outcomes
4. **Plan for adoption** - Discuss how the ritual will be introduced and maintained over time

## Core Principles

### Great companies have a small list of golden rituals
Shishir Mehrotra: "Great companies have a very small list of golden rituals. And there are three rules: they're named, every employee knows them by their first Friday, and they're templated." Rituals are the primary vehicle for culture and operational efficiency.

### Rituals are the engine of a great team
Lane Shackleton: "The rituals that I've been writing down are very personal. They're my take on how to do this." Go beyond simple meeting management to create rituals like Catalyst sessions, Dory Q&A, Tag-ups, and Flash Tags that serve specific purposes.

### Name your rituals
A named ritual becomes a shared concept that can be referenced and improved. "Let's do a Catalyst" is more powerful than "let's brainstorm" because it carries specific expectations.

### Template your rituals
Provide structure so anyone can run the ritual consistently. Templates reduce friction and ensure quality even when the ritual creator isn't present.

### Teach rituals early
If a new employee doesn't learn your golden rituals in their first week, they'll develop their own habits that may not align with team culture.

## Questions to Help Users

- "What outcome are you trying to drive with this ritual?"
- "What will you call this ritual - what's its name?"
- "Can someone run this ritual with just a template, without you being present?"
- "How will new team members learn this ritual in their first week?"
- "Is this ritual solving a real problem, or is it just another meeting?"
- "What existing rituals could this replace or enhance?"

## Common Mistakes to Flag

- **Too many rituals** - Great companies have a small list of golden rituals, not dozens of meetings
- **Unnamed rituals** - Without a name, a ritual can't become part of the culture's vocabulary
- **No template** - Rituals without structure degrade in quality over time
- **Late introduction** - Rituals learned after someone's first week are much harder to adopt
- **Generic meetings disguised as rituals** - A ritual should have a specific purpose beyond "staying aligned"

## Deep Dive

For all 2 insights from 2 guests, see `references/guest-insights.md`

## Related Skills

- Running Effective Meetings
- Building Team Culture
- Written Communication
- Onboarding New Hires


---

## Referenced Files

> The following files are referenced in this skill and included for context.

### references/guest-insights.md

```markdown
# Designing Team Rituals - All Guest Insights

*2 guests, 2 mentions*

---

## Lane Shackleton
*Lane Shackleton*

> "I think the rituals that I've been writing down are very personal. They're my take on how to do this."

**Insight:** The guest argues that rituals are the 'engine' of a great team and discusses several specific ones (Catalyst, Dory, Tag-ups, Flash Tags) that go beyond simple meeting management or culture building.


## Shishir Mehrotra
*Shishir Mehrotra*

> "Great companies has a very small list of golden rituals. And there are three rules of golden rituals. Number one, they're named. Number two, every employee knows them by their first Friday and, number three, they're templated."

**Insight:** The guest provides a specific framework for 'Golden Rituals' (Named, Templated, Known by First Friday) and discusses how they are the primary vehicle for culture and operational efficiency.



```