Haka on the Desk

The haka, the Maori dance that the New Zealand rugby players always perform before a match, affects participants at the neural level, triggering positive emotions and reducing the anxiety everyone feels before a performance. And firms, too, according to a post by Paolo Guenzi (Department of Maketing and SDA Bocconi) in the Harvard Business Review Blog Network, can develop similar rituals and, as widely exemplified by the scholar, sometimes they already do.

Guenzi draws a robust parallelism building on his two research fields: sports economy and sales teams management. Initiation rituals such as the ones used by Gianluca Vialli's Chelsea, aimed at creating shared identity, are similar to the company Olympics organized by Grundfros in order to bring together employees from different countries. The dinners with players and wives which, according to Gigi Delneri, an Italian trainer, keep tension low in a football team, are mirrored by the widespread Open Days. And the yellow and red cards used by referees to warn or expel can be used, in the case Guenzi writes about, to obtain more active participation at meetings, thus reinforcing a desired behaviour.

"Managers", Guenzi said to ViaSarfatti25, "should study and if it's the case introduce rituals, but should also be careful to mess with rituals not initiated by the firm – from the simple group coffee at the machine– if they don't want to break an important balance".