As you well know, from Mother’s Day to graduations to Memorial Day Weekend, May is rituals central (and as I mentioned last week, earlier this month, my twins Julia and Caroline just graduated from college)!
In honor of that, I wanted to share some notable graduation rituals that we can all learn from:
One of my favorite rituals that I wrote about in my book, Rituals Roadmap, is called March Through the Arch—a Northwestern tradition that bookends every student’s time at the university. At the beginning of their freshman year at Northwestern, the marching band leads new students through Weber Arch, all decked out in their Wildcat purple. And at their graduation, they March Back Through the Arch—reversing their original path to symbolize the close of their college journey.
As I often say—and Northwestern demonstrates so well—beginnings and endings are prime rituals real estate.
And at Penn, one of the most iconic and fun rituals is that students throw toast during the third quarter of the Homecoming football game. Originally, fans would make a toast to Penn while singing “Drink a Highball,” but after Prohibition began, students decided to literally “toast” Penn. And while we ended graduation with the ritual song, “Here’s a toast to dear old Penn,” I didn’t see any flying bagels!
But what does this mean for your organization?
Whether someone is joining your team, getting promoted, or even moving on to a new opportunity—rituals help mark the moment. Rituals give people what I call the Three P’s: A sense of psychological safety and a connection to purpose which leads to increased performance. And great human leaders use rituals as a tool to help connect people to purpose and to each other.
So how do you know if something is a ritual?
Ask yourself, if this thing we do went away, would people go crazy? Would something feel off? Would people think we’re selling the company?
And if you can’t think of anything, ask yourself and your colleagues, “What makes you feel most [company]-ish?” The answer to that is a great place to hunt for rituals you may already have.
As one student reflected on their proudest moment at Northwestern, “My best moment that brought me to tears was March through the Arch because to be part of such a grand old tradition really touched my soul.”
What the student didn’t realize was that this was only a recently introduced ritual. As president (at the time) Morty Schapiro told me with a twinkle in his eye, “I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was only the third year.”
THAT is the power of a ritual.
I would love to hear about the rituals that make you feel most connected to your organization or your team or to yourself.
5/27/25
