Community managers: The next hot trend in work
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This is a new series of the podcast about the growth of community managers in firms – scroll down for all 4 episodes.
Episode 1 looks at why community managers are a topic to watch. That’s a key question, what’s next with work – specifically how can we make work feel like a community again, especially when you’re hunkered down under the duvet trying to survive the November chill. Over these episides I’m going to be chatting to some incredible guests.
Episode 1 is with Sarah Drinkwater who is a supreme community builder and now works for the Atomico fund.
Some links to what we discuss!
I mention that Gary runs Wonder – this is their website
She mentions Jason Fried’s book Rework (my own book was inspired by Rework but I found it was frustrating how little research and evidence Fried used to justify his opinions)
Q Anon – outstanding Reply All when they pretty much work out which crackpot is behind it. Created by a crackpot, weaponised by the GRU.
The Sunrise Movement – love these kids
Image by Shane Rounce on Unsplash
Episode 2 is with Abadesi Osunsade, it’s a further exploration of how firms will try to evolve their culture by hiring Community Managers. If you’ve not listened to the first episode featuring Sarah Drinkwater pull up, back up and tuck in to that one first. Sarah said the person I should talk to is Abadesi Osunsade from Brandwatch – and so that’s who we are talking in episode 2. Abadesi’s title is VP Global Community & Belonging at the 500 strong organisation.
We talk about seeking to get better at Diversity & Inclusion, giving voice to teams (and applicants) and how to build community in organisations who are no longer together.
Abadesi mentions Square’s Rise program. This is the scheme that ensures there’s always one minority candidate at the last stage of each hiring process. You’ll find more details on it here. (note I couldn’t find it on the UK website so maybe stay on the US site when it asks if you want to move).
Here’s Abadesi’s book and the other organisation she’s part of The Hustle Crew
Episode 3 is with one of the most respected community thinkers in the world, Casper ter Kuile, Fellow at the Harvard Divinity School and author of The Power of Ritual. His book is a practical guide to the way that communities come to life, not only is it practical it’s also brilliantly written. I found myself annotating a lot of it and it’s impossible not to learn from his wisdom on the topic.
“Disconnection sours the sweet things in life and makes them nearly unbearable”
Casper previously wrote a free book with Angie Thurston is at Harvard Divinity School called How We Gather which was a wonderful exploration of how post religious (secular) groups were creating get togethers that seemed to be inspired by the religious communities that went before them. Casper’s perspective is wonderful, so respectful of religion even though he sits outside of it.
This series of episodes has been about understanding how our organisations can shape a sense of belonging in us, especially when we’re no longer physically together.
I feel like the episodes are a journey. No one has professed to know the answers and there’s plenty of cautionary notes. I’m certain anyone trying to shape community in their work will come away with plenty of thoughts after this. Not least that Casper says that it goes strongly against the spirit of community that someone in a community can fire someone else. Community is built on safety.
In the podcast I also talk about a previous episode on rituals and you can find that here.
The final episode is with Jillian Richardson.
Jillian Richardson found that one of the most relatable things that any of us can do is confess to others that we’re lonely. Freshly arrived in Manhattan she found the paradox of big cities is that we can be alone while surrounded with others. Her response was to create the Joy List – a list that once set about connecting people across New York with other like minded individuals and now sets about connecting anyone virtually.
The Joy List has become a phenomenon recommended by Esther Perel, Priya Parker and many more. She’s also the author of Unlonely Planet.
Jillian gives us her 5 rules of community – and cautions that while communities can exist in the workplace we should be cautious about trying to get everyone into the same community at work. She also talks about her ‘Ask’ and ‘Offer’ walls as a device to bring teams together.
Peter Block: “Community requires a concept of the leader as one who creates experiences for others. Experiences that in themselves are examples of our desired future”.
If you’re thinking I’d love Jillian’s help she offers her services professionally both as a course and as personal coaching. If you want to hire her she’s willing and able to take that on and I’ve given a link on the show notes.
Jillian mentions the Ritual Design Lab.
TRANSCRIPT of Casper ter Kuile
What we can learn from Casper’s perspective is is wonderful. He’s very respectful of religion, even though he, as he’ll talk about, he sits outside religion himself. Look, this series of episodes has been about understanding how our organizations can shape a sense of belonging in us, especially when we’re no longer physically together. I’ve really felt like the episodes have been a journey for me. And and fabulously, no one’s professed to know all of the answers.
There’s there’s plenty of cautionary notes. I often find sort of that conviction that sometimes people try to project can be superficially appealing, but on consideration, nothing’s ever that certain. And that’s why the the guests over the last three weeks have been so satisfying. Two things stand out that Casper says. First one is that we all know that if there’s a strong relationship between people, you can always navigate the technical things that come up on a team.
And secondly, he says really, it goes against the spirit of community that someone in a community could fire someone else. So I think, you know, his feeling is worker can use communities to foster alliances, but the whole workplace can’t be a single community. That’s interesting. Community for him is built on safety. As you’ll hear, Casper is not only brilliant company, but incredibly quotable. If you are the sort of person who likes taking notes.
You’re going find that there’s plenty of opportunities to write down some of his incredible but gently told wisdom. Yeah, it’ll be pretty clear I loved this discussion. So let me properly introduce Caspar. Caspar to Kyle. He’s a fellow at the Harvard Divinity School. He’s the co-host of a podcast called Harry Potter and the Sacred Text. And he’s also the co-founder of a startup called Sacred Design Lab.
And there’s link to all of those things in the notes, along with his his book he co-authored, How We Gather. Here’s my conversation with Casper Tekyel. Casper, thank you so much for joining me. Firstly, I adored How We Gather, which was your your free PDF that you I guess you sort of distributed, was it a couple of years ago?
Casper ter Kuile (05:48)
Twenty fifteen now. Yeah, a long time.
Bruce Daisley (05:51)
Outta here. my goodness. And you and you’ve got this new book, Rituals, which in in my state reading it the other night, I wrote down that I thought you were a genius. So I’ll take that.
Casper ter Kuile (06:03)
Thanks so much for having me, Bruce. see you next time.
Bruce Daisley (06:07)
Let’s start at the the outset. Firstly, I’m just interested in into your journey into this. How did you find that you were so fascinated with the idea of communities and and thi the idea of adapting religious elements of community for secular uses? I’m just really interested in your start point.
Casper ter Kuile (06:26)
Yeah, it’s rather an unusual situation because I I grew up in the UK. My parents are both Dutch, which I think Holland next to Denmark is the most secular country in the world. And and you know, there was no religion in my upbringing at home. And, you know, I came out as a teenager, so as as a a gay young person, you know, religion was either irrelevant or cruel. So it was really absent from my life. But I went to a Waldorf school, a Steiner school, which which some of our listeners may be familiar with, but it’s essentially a very
kind of creative, holistic focus in in an education system. And it has a lot of first of all, very strong community often around the school. And a lot of kind of festivals that you celebrate. So Micklemus and May Day, where you’re dancing around the Maypole, and you know, we’d go and sing to the cattle at the local farm on Christmas Eve. And so there were these these were amazing rituals that really gave the year some structure. And I think the more I look back on on those early years, the more I see their influence on me. The reason how it you know came to be that I ended up really thinking about this in a professional context.
Is that as a my first career was kind of working in London in the in the NGO world, so working for Oxfam and WWF, thinking about climate change especially, I was really passionate in understanding how we might transform not just the policies around climate and the kind of the necessary politics of it, but really the paradigm through which we understand who we are and and how we’re in relationship with the natural world. Because I kept thinking about how as an organization you’re you’re kind of talking to individuals, right? People on your email list.
People watching the news or or reading something. And from history, I was always seeing that it really changed culture was when a community shifted. And I realized that neither I nor most of the people that I was working with and for really were in structures of community. And so I became really passionate about understanding how communities work, how can you strengthen them? How and then how do you mobilize them to kind of change the world around us? Honestly, I didn’t know where to look, and I ended up
At Harvard, here in America, doing a public policy programme, and then heard about this school across campus called the Divinity School, which I assumed was just for Catholic priests. I really didn’t know a thing. And so there I turned up as a you know, a gay atheist saying, Can I come to Divinity School? And they said, Sure, we’ll have you and and it really felt like opening a treasure chest of understanding all of the strategies and technologies that have helped, especially religious communities, cohere and develop and deepen over millennia.
Bruce Daisley (08:48)
So fascinating. One of the things that really struck me, I know you you talk in your writing that you didn’t especially or you were you were a little bit lonely at your school, but for a lot of people, school is a really interesting time because it seems to be one of the times in our life that we most vividly feel community and we most vividly feel connection with people around us. And yet most of us find the rest of our life
We mourn the loss of that, the absence of that. So it’s so interesting that you’ve tried to study organizations that have had entry points to community or have have assembled rituals to to create community. Because it seems, even though it’s something that we really cherish when we experience it and we witness we we really recognize it when we’re experiencing it. It seems for a lot of people they just feel like they’ve got no access point, no entry point to try and reactivate that feeling. And I I
I find that curious.
Casper ter Kuile (09:45)
Yeah, I would say, you know, after that kind of Waldorf school, I ended up in a in a kind of posh English prep school and then a and then a boarding school where definitely I was massively, massively lonely. And I think one of the one of the experiences that you have is either you fit in and it really is a feeling of like it’s kind of like a second family, right? Like you spend so much time together and especially over the years, right? You really get to know each other’s lives in in all its depth. So either you fit in or you don’t, and you feel like you’re spending all of those years kind of on the outside.
looking in and that that was much more my experience. So wherever you fall, you’re very conscious of the structures of relationship, if if if they’re good or bad, either way. And I think one of the reasons why school and even university can be a really foundational experience of community life is that you do have those social structures that hold you in relationship. Whether it’s something as simple as being in a class together or if you’re going, you know, maybe you’re going on a
trip together or whatever it is, there’s a daily rhythm which holds you in relationship. And then at university there might be, you know, clubs of mutual interest or you play in the orchestra together or you’re on the rugby team or, you know, whatever it is, there are these conditions of relationship. I like to think of them as containers that hold you together. Even if you’re not necessarily that into it, the work is done for you. And once we’re into adulthood and we’re no longer within those superstructures, we have to stitch those together ourselves.
And it’s one of the reasons why I think the workplace is such an intense place of of our kind of relational focus, because it is one of the few structures that we still have where we’re encountering people over and over and again. And so it’s no surprise that people are forming friendships and and relationships of meaning, you’re oriented around a shared purpose at the workplace because so much of the other kind of structures of community have have fallen away.
Bruce Daisley (11:27)
Let’s
take a step because I want to try and see what we can apply of this to work and and sort of work divided and then work reunited in the future. So just wanted at the outset, I find your work on this also thoughtful. So I’ve sort of heard this before from you, but I I’d love you to define what community means to you.
Casper ter Kuile (11:48)
That’s a great question. Because that’s it’s so rich. But I often talk about belonging, and my colleagues at Sacred Design Lab and I talk about the experience of belonging as being one where we are known and know others and are loved and love others. That that that real sense of connection is is really grounded. And I think that’s the the quality of experience that we have when we really feel like we’re in community. Now, of course, there’s kind of
Different gradations of community of that sense of shallow community, as Scott Peck talks about, where people are nice enough to each other and you you might wave to each other now and then say hello and everything’s very polite, but people really avoid conflict or anything that could kind of break that politeness. And then you’ve got experiences of deeper community where people have been through hard things together and have made it through to the other side. And so there’s a trust and a an understanding and a commitment to one another that I think really.
speaks to that that deeper sense of community. So for me, when I when I’m in a new community or I’m or I’m visiting a place where people are together, I’m always looking for the signs of, you know, have people withstood difficulties together and made it through to the other side, right? Do they really know each other? Has that love been tested and and found strong enough to continue? Cause that’s that’s when you really know that it’s the real thing.
Bruce Daisley (13:02)
I guess that’s an established community, but communities must start somewhere. Absolutely. I’m just interested. So let’s get into the meat of what I’m really fascinated by is the this notion that certainly as we now find ourselves working away from each other, and and maybe some of the togetherness, the cohesiveness that just proximity often brings about. You know, if you’re presented with the physical presence of someone every day.
Then sometimes you find humor in their company, sometimes you find companionship in their company. And that sort of ritual of b being around each other every day or certain big company meetings actually helps sort of form this this collectiveness. And obviously, as we’re separated from that now and that’s no longer there, I suspect a lot of organizations are finding what I’ve heard from a few companies.
Where a few companies are saying it just doesn’t feel the same. You know, we’re getting the job done, we’re on meetings, we’re all smiling, we’ve even had team drinks, but Zoom drinks, but it just doesn’t feel the same. And so th that for me was why I was so taken with Sarah Drinkwater’s first piece. And why, you know, I’d love to pick your brains. Firstly, do you feel that there are lessons about community that we can draw and bring to the workplace? And if there are, what are the cautionary notes? And
What what’s your thinking with regards to all of this really?
Casper ter Kuile (14:29)
absolutely. Yeah, there’s there’s so much that we can we can learn. you know, I think just in terms of the COVID context, one of the ways in which communities get built are are really about intensity over time. And so if you’re coming into the office every day and sitting next to someone, right, you’re having that kind of low, low-level intensity contact, but it’s happening really frequently. So over time, you do get to that sense of depth together because it’s just about that longevity.
Now, if you’re not sitting next to each other or you’re not interacting as frequently, the moments when you do interact, it it needs to go deeper if it’s more infrequent. My team, for example, has been working remotely for for some number of years and we’ll make sure to see each other usually about every six weeks, if perhaps every two months in person and and and we’ll spend at least a week together every year where we really go deeper. So you have that that sense of a rhythm that gives you a sense of connection that can kind of withstand the times when you’re apart. And I think the difficulty right now is that
We’re getting we’re getting the worst of both. You know, when we’re not able to go deep together and we’re not having that that regular contact. So I think that’s why there’s there’s addition additional stress. And I want to pick up on something you said, Bruce, that we’re able to get the work done, right? We’re able to do the to-dos, we’re able to to get to get through it, honestly. But the the more creative thinking, the moments where we have to butt heads to really figure something out, that’s much more difficult to do when we’re only
Seeing one another at distance and and remotely, because there’s there’s so much more at stake. You know, you don’t want to risk the relationship. You don’t want to because there’s no opportunity to kind of, you know, have a drink and talk it through or go on a walk or or sit down face to face and usher out together. So I think there’s a thinness in our relationships at work right now, which which just makes that kind of imaginative or creative or conflict resolving work much more difficult. So as we think about those challenges that we’re in and generally, like how do you sustain healthy relationships?
There’s so much from religious traditions that explores exactly those questions. One of my favorite, and we talk about these as kind of spiritual technologies, right, that these traditions give us that we can reimagine and recontextualize. And one of my favorites is the practice of covenant. Now, if you think about covenant as opposed to a contract, contract is usually when, you know, you pay me 10 quid and I give you however many oranges you can buy for a tenner. So there’s a clear exchange of goods. So we’re we’re agreeing on what to do. A covenant
Is really saying, listen, we don’t know what we’re gonna do, but what we can agree to is how we’re gonna be. So how do we navigate challenges? How do we navigate life, but with a set of agreements of how we’re going to be in relationship? And so this was often an organizing principle, both for individual congregations, but also networks of congregations, right? We’re not gonna see each other regularly because we’re we’re we’re far away from one another. But what are the principles that are gonna hold us in relationship over time?
And so what that looks like for us in our team context is we came together, we started doing this about three years ago, saying, how how do we want to be as colleagues? You know, what are the what are the commitments we’re agreeing to? What are the things we each need to work well? These kind of conversations happen all the time in in workplaces. And sometimes they get written up nicely and you end up with a nice charter or a set of norms or or or company values, whatever. But here’s the thing I love about Covenant. It isn’t just a noun, it’s a verb. And so every week at our team meeting, we read aloud that covenant.
In a sort of litany, right? Everyone reads a paragraph, it’s about a page long. And then we have about twenty minutes in which we ask ourselves, where have we lived up to our covenant? Right? What can we celebrate? How can we lift up the things that we’ve done well? And then what are the moments where we’ve fallen short? Because with a covenant, as ever, you’re always gonna fail at something, right? It’s a it’s a living, it’s a living document. You’re always engaged. We do
Bruce Daisley (18:06)
Do you do that every week or every six weeks?
Casper ter Kuile (18:08)
that every week. We do that every week. So we do that over Zoom. Yeah, and what I love about it is first of all, you make space to
To to address the little niggling kind of issues that have maybe been bubbling up under the surface, where you know you can say, hey, in that meeting, I I really struggled with the language used to describe X, right? So th there’s only seven days before before you have an opportunity to address something. So it doesn’t build up. So that’s that’s the first thing. So you have a bit of that that kind of healthy, you know, team dynamics opportunity. But the other thing is that we really get to solidify.
And kind of put in gold letters the things that we love, the things the way that we do want to be, because we get to live up to we we get to celebrate and lift one another up every week and say, Wow, you know, when you did that, I was so impressed because, you know, what what for example, one of one of one of ours is that we will use right speech, that the things we say behind people’s backs are the things we would say to their faces. Now that is
Very difficult sometimes. And so we you know, we we will say to each other literally on the call sometimes when when when we all when we all know something is in our minds, we’ll just put in the Slack channel right speech, right speech, right speech. You know, so it’s it’s a way of holding each other to those values and those intentions that we all have, but we’re all gonna struggle with all the time. So that that’s one example of of of a kind of piece of religious wisdom or a practice that we can draw on from the spiritual world that I think is enormous value in in our work lives.
Bruce Daisley (19:29)
If we’re sitting here now and and an organization, I I I heard you talking before and and asking people where they go to find community. And so I, you know, I asked myself actually where I find find community. And I I have a a few traditions that I do around Christmas, I have some drinks with friends. I often cook a big meal for a lot of other friends. you know, I was sort of I was connecting with those things. In my old job, I used to work at Twitter and we and we used to have something that was
This incredibly important event for us. 4 30 every Friday, the whole the whole of the UK office would gather and we would have tea time. And and if I mean, if if anyone ever took a moment to look at the content, they would say, Okay, this is sort of quite trivial. Actually, I don’t see a business use for this. I’m gonna eliminate it. Some sort of soulless consultant would probably do that. Say that we we can save
You know, X thousands of pounds. But it was such an important ritual. It was such an important moment of togetherness that everyone would leave the week on this this sort of optic emotional lift. Yeah. And it really defined for a lot of people what it meant to be there. It were it had moments of real candor when things were were going badly. it had moments of wonderful, joyous celebration.
Had moments of wealth coming, it was really important. And so like it’s it struck me that, you know, I’ve I definitely recognize some of these things. But I just wonder if a company was sitting there now thinking, okay, we’re interested in that, in in this, or we’re interested in maybe developing a few things. Where would they start?
Casper ter Kuile (21:11)
I love that example. And it’s something I talk about in the book as well. How rituals are not just decorative, right? They’re not just there to make things more pleasant or more beautiful, although they can do those things. Rituals are also formative, that rituals embody a set of values, and they often embody a story or a myth, as Joseph Campbell would say, that when we practice that ritual, we’re actually re-embodying or we’re we’re retelling that story, we’re recommitting to those values.
So if you think about in the Jewish Passover, there’s the retelling of the Exodus stories as as as the Jews escaped from Pharaoh’s grasp in in Egypt. And it helps us think about, okay, you know, what slavery do I need to to liberate myself from or do I need to be liberated from? Or in the Christian Eucharist, it’s kind of partaking in in the bread and the wine to help us remember that we are one body, to use the Christian language, that we’re one body in Christ.
And that we’re inherently connected to one another. So when we practice something like Friday afternoon drinks, on the one hand you could say, well, that doesn’t serve any purpose, but actually it massively does, because it reminds you that actually the people from finance who are really annoying you with your expenses are actually Tony and Sarah and you know Faisal, and actually they’re great guys and gals, and we’re all part of one team, right? So that’s so they they have practical purposes in that sense. But how do you think about those things during during a pandemic? Very different question.
I would always advise people to when they’re thinking about ritual design or or kind of lifting up things that help a company remember who they are or team remember what’s really important. It’s very easy to start with, like, okay, I wanna I wanna create something really beautiful and amazing, and we’re gonna kind of impose that onto the team. Much better to start by looking, kind of go ritual spotting. Like, what are people already doing? What are the practices that already exist in the community?
And to lift them up and give them some structure and space and time and and resources that kind of establish them at a level of formality that that lifts up the you know everyone’s understanding that this is something that’s important. So like it might be that there are some amazing gifts that are always being shared around. Make make an incredible like gallery of gifts. right. it might be about
We did one kind of ritual spotting tour at a a company down in California. We spent two days interviewing all their employees and looking at how the space was used. Turns out the IT team had this amazing bar that they created where on Friday they would have drinks. And anytime they traveled somewhere, they would get the most kind of interesting looking alcoholic beverage and bring that back and everyone would have a taste of on a Friday afternoon. Now, of course
Alcohol is is a shortcut, but often an exclusionary one. So I don’t want to point to that as the way to go. But you can just see how, as human beings, we’re naturally ritual-making creatures. We are meaning-making creatures. And so it’s really about looking at what people are already doing and giving that some depth and structure and support to kind of help help help make that ritual something that’s more shared.
Bruce Daisley (24:07)
Yeah, I had you’ve really sort of triggered a a load of thoughts in my head. I had a wonderful previous episode with someone who used to work at Radio One and he he described actually, he described a couple of rituals that that they used to have there. One of them was that they used to do these expansive and laudatory leaving speeches. So they used to see it as a rite of passage, and there was no shame ever to go on to greater success, having been
An alumni of Radio One. And so they used to do these speeches that they said were just like just valdictory moments of real celebration. And the other one they used to do was that they it was really interesting how he described it. He said we used to have these pizza meetings where the chief exec of Radio One would pay for pizzas for everyone, and he would gather them in a really small, crowded room. Really fascinating.
You know, this guy who was talking to me told me that, you know, that a lot of them had background in nightclub promoting and they knew that the size of the room had a really sort of kinetic impact on the feeling of the people in there. If people were crammed in sharing pizzas, there was a moment of kinship, of of you know, you you talk about the importance of food as a marker of identity. But there was there was this this sort of shared experience that we’re
breaking bread together, but we’re really crammed in close to each other. Wouldn’t be COVID compliant. I just want to add that. but but it was really interesting. And so as you were talking about the importance of these things, I thought, wow, well look, anyone who wanted to take that culture and take it further w must immediately start and focus on those two already existing things. Those leaving speeches and and the pizza meetings, they sound like two existing structures that are there to be
amplified and and celebrated. And I I’m reading that from what you’re saying. That feels like a good approach.
Casper ter Kuile (26:02)
Yeah, absolutely. And and the place where my mind goes, you know, that’s kind of part one is to affirm what people are already doing. What I love to think about, and then part two is what can we learn from religious traditions that help us deepen or amplify those things that exist. So let’s take that pizza meeting, and and of course I d I I don’t know much, but what I hear and what you’re describing immediately reminds me of the practice of pilgrimage. Because one of the markers of pilgrimage were that everyone was was equal on the journey.
Or at least they should have been, right? So there was a sense that the the social hierarchies of the normal world are collapsed, and there’s a kind of temporary communitas, as scholars call it, this this temporary social structure that emerges on the road in which we are all equal. And so you have Lord sitting next to pauper. And there’s these different kinds of conversations that can happen because you’re in this kind of liminal space, you’re in this in-between time.
And so as we’re cramped together and everyone’s eating pizza out of a box, suddenly it doesn’t matter that you’re director of HR and you’re, you know, an an intern, you’re both sitting there with with pepperoni on your face and the quality of relationship just feels different in that kind of time boxed moment. And so a different kind of conversation is possible. What can we learn from pilgrimage that would help that pizza conversation really be more effective? That for me, that’s at least, you know, where where my creative juices really start flowing, because you can really draw on that ancient wisdom.
Bruce Daisley (27:24)
Guess the best thing about thinking about this, and you come at it from a secular but r respectful position, is that basically religion has just been beta testing all of this for you know for millennia, right? For like thousands of years, and they’ve just worked. If you’re trying to build like a cohesive, well-bonded unit, these things really work. So
So go on, so so tell me what what else we could be seeking inspiration from. Because there’s a really interesting fine line for me on this. Yeah. You know, you describe, you describe how CrossFit has got a lot of these quasi-spiritual and quasi-religious elements. And, you know, with a disapproving eye, you might say that this is cultural appropriation. So I mean, and I guess they sort of they tread a fine line on that. But go on, t t give me the framework of how
Maybe any of us thinking about how we can make our workplaces better, the there is lessons from religion and spirituality.
Casper ter Kuile (28:28)
Yeah. Well, let me say a couple of things before we dive in, because this it does get us into that kind of hot water territory if we’re not careful. So the first thing that I want to say is that I I think about religion is that as the ways in which human beings have made meaning of their life experience, right? The rituals that we we create, the beliefs that we hold, the types of relationships that we’re in, the practices that we have. In some sense, religion only kind of became a separate category from culture.
Only some number of hundred years ago. In a world where everyone belonged to the same structure of churches or the same geographically based kind of parish system, to try and separate religion from life was impossible. So let me let me first say that, which is for me, religion is so much more than do you believe in X? Right? That’s a that’s a very narrow sense of what religion is about. It’s it’s really this much more expansive, you know, where do we find meaning? What do we do to mark time?
How do we memorialize the dead? Right? All of those questions are wrapped up in religion. When you think about what’s happened, certainly over the last 50 years and even 100 years, certainly in the UK, America, of course, much much more religious still than than England, is that you’ve seen sort of an unbundling of religion. So that the things that people used to go to religion for are now being fulfilled by other places. And that’s everything from education and healthcare, most obviously, but even things like finding a sense of community, who you ask to to officiate your wedding, how do you
celebrate the festivals in your life. Maybe we watch the Oscars more than we celebrate Mickelmas. You know, what what whatever it is. So so we’re finding different things to fulfill those same functions. And so when I write about CrossFit or Soul Cycle or you know all sorts of fitness communities, but also arts groups and justice groups, they’re doing in our lives the things that religion or religious institutions used to do. So when I talk about CrossFit as a place where spiritual things are happening, that’s what I mean.
People are getting married in their CrossFit gym. They’re seeking out their fitness instructor to navigate a divorce or to ask them advice on what to do about a diagnosis. They’re eating certain foods and not others as a marker of community difference. There’s a sort of evangelism, certainly with CrossFit, that the old joke is: how do you know someone goes to Harvard, is vegan, or does CrossFit? They’ll tell you, right? There’s a real orientation towards trying to change everyone’s life because your life has been changed by CrossFit. So
All of that is to say that’s the kind of context that we’re working with. and and the way that I I structure the book, and I I think is a helpful way to think about how these practices can serve us today, is to think about the core experience, I think, of of of at least one of them right now is this sense of disconnection, disconnection from ourselves, disconnection from one another, the place that we live in, the the land, the natural world. and then finally this sense of transcendence, or that’s disconnection from something bigger than ourselves.
And so what I what I invite people to think about is to look at what are the practices in your life that do help you connect across those four layers. And then to look, as we’ve been talking about, at these different religious traditions, these practices that help you reconnect to what matters most.
Bruce Daisley (31:37)
I I love the quotation that you say in the book, which is disconnection sours the sweet things in life and makes them nearly unbearable. And yeah, I really strongly subscribe to that. I think you know these these really strong evidence that a lot of us are feeling more disconnected. And the the interesting thing for me is that if the lesson of the internet, and I I’ve said this before, the the listeners might be bored with
Casper ter Kuile (32:01)
But it’s new to me first.
Bruce Daisley (32:03)
it.
That’s in the internet is that one thing the internet is very good at is it’s very good at building communities of strong affinity of opinions. You know, if you and I are on the opposite ends of the screens and we both agree that we love the Golden State Warriors, or we both agree that we celebrate some political figure, then you know, you and I are united in believing that each other is is right and is great. But screens c have
proven very ineffective at making at bridging the gap when people feel enmity rather than affinity with each other. We we tend not to give people not to give people the the benefit of the doubt. And I think this research that says when people communicate principally through text, they j they generally stop trusting each other. And so what I’m really interested in is if the context is that we’re seeing greater sense of disconnection societally, it’s almost certain that working remotely
for all the wonderful upsides that remote work has clearly demonstrated it’s got, it there’s a danger that we’re gonna end up if we’re not careful, intentional and thoughtful, we’re gonna end up with work feeling more disconnected than ever before. And so firstly, I think this is why for people like yourself, the you’ve got so much to teach all of us. But secondly, there’s a real cautionary note for me because in two years time or in three years time or in five years’ time we’ll
We’ll look back at this time and go, wow, but it was so obvious. Did we not know that this was going to be, you know, that we were going to have culture wars between our young workers and our old workers? We were going to have this sort of polarization where the older workers are are describing snowflake workers and the the younger workers are describing these sort of reactionary conservative older workers. And we’re going to have really the sort of the the issues that societies
really starting to experience we’re gonna have those things at work. So, you know, I’m very alarmed by I don’t want the upside of remote work to be destroyed by this this growing disconnection. And I think this is why it’s such an important moment for people like yourself. Yeah.
Casper ter Kuile (34:13)
I I think we’ve already seen that start to happen. I mean, the New York Times office this this summer. I think we went through something just like that. Bruce, I’m gonna get theological for a moment, and I don’t often do this, but I honestly, this is what I’ve been thinking about recently. And the God word is one that I never, never really use publicly because it’s such a it’s such a challenging word. And for so many of us, it immediately conjures up this kind of dis disp-
This absurd kind of bearded man in the sky who who who makes decisions, which is not at all how I or most theologians would would think about what God is. But one of my favorite metaphors for the divine is a a sense of deep relationship, deep connection. And and to to just touch on kind of Christian theology for a moment, the image of the Trinity, right, Father, Son, Holy Ghost.
It’s not actually about those three separate things, at least how I understand it. It’s really about the relationship between the three of them. And so if we if we want to think about the quality of our relationship is not just about friendship or do we like someone or do we not, it’s about to what extent we are living within a sort of a a divine relationship, a holiness, that that if those relationships are strained, that we’re losing that sense of of what gives life ultimate meaning.
Now that might really resonate with you, it might not at all. But what what for me what it does is it raises the stakes of what this is about. Because it’s it’s it’s not just about the survival of a company or about even the kind of culture of our society, but it’s really about how do we understand ourselves to be in relationship with the world around us. And if all of those relationships become antagonistic, if they become competitive, if they become strained, that I think we lose a sense of ourselves.
i in that experience. So I think you’re absolutely right. It’s so important to to tend to them and to to see the inherent value of them. It’s not just about once you’re in good relationship, what are you going to produce together? It’s actually the the quality of the relationship is itself important. And and it we see this in in all sorts of research data that’s coming out at the moment. You you pointed to the the kind of the structural ways in which we are more alone, that this is what people talk about as social isolation.
Right, you’re getting married later or you’re living alone, you’re working from home, you know, the the the growing number of people who literally just spend more time on their own. We talk about that as social isolation. But that experience of loneliness is about the discrepancy between our experience of our relationships and the desire that we have for the relationships in our lives. And so you can be surrounded by all sorts of people at a party and still feel really lonely because you’re not having the quality of relationships. But when those two things combine, that we’re both spending more and more time on our own.
And we’re not having the experience of a relationship that that feels fulfilling, it’s deadly. You know, loneliness is now associated with mortality at the same rates as obesity or smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. So that th this is this is both on a health level and I think on a kind of spiritual, spiritual level a a really enormous threat to to our well being.
Bruce Daisley (37:20)
Yeah,
I mean you you pose such important questions there and I guess people might see you run an organization and you know because it’s it’s probably a purpose led organization and so so you have access point to these things. But I wonder if if people are either in a big corporation or they feel like they don’t have a voice, is there any end entry point to them having conversations on these things or are we just dependent on enlightened bosses?
Casper ter Kuile (37:49)
God help us if we are.
Bruce Daisley (37:51)
No.
Casper ter Kuile (37:52)
Well, the the first thing I want to say is that the workplace doesn’t have to be the only place that we that we explore these questions, right? And I think I think we’re all poorer if if if that’s where our imagination is limited. So it might be that you can have wonderful conversations with a partner or family or friends or a neighborhood association that you’re part of or an organization that you’re passionate about.
so let’s let’s not limit our thinking with just the workplace. But if the workplace is one of those places where you feel like there are a couple of people, you know, in your team or elsewhere where where you can where you can explore these kind of questions, finding a small scale at which you can explore this, I think is always the right place to start. So is it on your team? Is it with you know, another person that you really connect with? Is it around an an interest group, right, that still meets maybe online if you’re within a larger company, right? You have the
shared interest groups that that that get together. So I think those are the places to start. You know, the thing I’ve been surprised by over and over again is even in the most shall I put it like secularly oriented organizations, when people feel safe to explore these bigger questions, it is remarkable the kind of conversations you end up having. Because although we are a a much less religious, certainly in the UK, much less religious country, even in America, culturally it’s shifting enormously quickly.
People are still trying to figure out why does suffering exist? How do I live a meaningful life? What’s the right thing to do? It’s not like we figured that out. It’s just we’re drawing on different sources to help us navigate those questions. And so if we can cultivate like safe spaces in which we can explore those questions together, it will be, you know, bees bees to honey, honey to the honey to the pee. we’re all hungry for this. And so if if you can if you can host a conversation like that.
you’ll be surprised at the the I think the resonance that folks will have for for the conversation.
Bruce Daisley (39:45)
Fascinating. It’s a massive opportunity for me. It strikes me that the the the organizations that seem to do this well, I was really struck when I was reading about the remote the the remote only firm, the automatic that make WordPress. And they sort of have these gatherings every in normal times, every quarter, once a quarter, and they f fly everyone together. But it’s very much about
Creating moments of celebrating each other, about bringing each other together, not to sit and watch loads of slide wear and not to sit in collective meetings, but what could we do to sort of foster the sense of energized togetherness? And it just struck me as a just such an inspiring, different way to think about what you’re trying to create. And inevitably then the answers are very different. You know, we don’t start by saying, right.
you know, Gavin’s got fifteen minutes, R Rita’s got fifteen minutes. We don’t start by that. We start by saying, right, we want to forge a sense of togetherness here. So it’s not about stage time. It’s about how do we do that? Just really strikes me that a lot of your lessons are directly applicable to that.
Casper ter Kuile (40:54)
Absolutely. I mean, that’s why you s you’re seeing the kind of explosion of, you know, that the adult summer camps, for example, is one of the trends that we’ve been tracking. Because in a culture where so much of our work work life certainly is around productivity and is around performance, you know, you you need a a way of engaging one another that’s around play, that’s around imagination, that’s around relationship first. And so that’s what those kind of gatherings that happen, you know, infrequently, like we talked about before, they’re going deep, but infrequently.
and and that allow for the cultivation of the quality of relationship. That that’s really the focus. Because if the relationship is there, then you can navigate all the technical questions that you’re gonna have to navigate together as a team, you know, on a on a shared work project. Thinking about ways in which you can cultivate that, I think, is absolutely key.
Bruce Daisley (41:36)
More from my conversation with Casper Takyle. After this, now back to my conversation with Casper to Kyle. Are there any cautionary notes just to sort of finish? Like if if any company if any company or team or organization or part of a team had, you know, the opportunity to chat to a community manager at Brandwatch last week, Abadesia Osansade. And she was very focused on resource groups, because that was a good start point for building community. Because
It’s it’s authentic connections of people of identity. Yeah. so she was like, You start with small authentic things because things were good stuff will come from that. But is is there any cautionary notes that you would warn anyone if they’re setting about thinking about these things?
Casper ter Kuile (42:21)
The biggest challenge is that how can we create an authentic community if you can fire me? The differences in power are fundamentally opposed to the principles of community life in terms of that that level of of your power over me, in terms of, you know, my livelihood and well-being. So that is the the biggest, I think, hurdle to cross. And so why resource groups are a good place to start is that that you’re not starting in a room where a boss and a secretary are in the same conversation, you know, one hopes.
you’re you’re you’re you’re building on a different foundation, which is a shared identity or a shared interest. So that’s why often those places are the a really safe and and sensible place to start. A lot depends on what I would call the the spiritual maturity of leaders. if leaders are boundaried, understand the way in which their team might project things onto them, both good and bad, if leaders have an external place in which they can process whatever comes up.
Those leaders are likely to be much more trustworthy when team members bring real life questions to their boss, which especially younger employees are very likely to do. First of all, the thing that really matters is just the maturity and the mental and spiritual health of individual leaders. Massively important. And if you don’t trust your your leader in that context, be be very, very careful. Because when we make space for these questions of ultimate concern, if it goes wrong, it has
hurts and it can actually do more damage than not having brought them up at all. That’s another really key element. I think you know we talked about before, not trying to center everything in the workplace. One of the things that I’m really interested in is is the workplace of the future going to be a place in which people might bring these questions? But rather than centering the reflective conversations, the activities, the practices in the workplace, will employers see themselves more as a conduit to say, you’re bringing this question
I can connect you with an external group or an external kind of service provider, just like we do with pensions, for example, who is gonna encourage who’s gonna accompany you through this process of grieving the loss of your mother. Right? We know that you’re gonna need support and we’re gonna connect you with it with an amazing group of people who get together for dinner to talk about their experience of grief. But we’re not gonna center that in the workplace. So that’s another thing that we’re gonna have to navigate together to figure out what is the role
of the company, if it isn’t one of these kind of standard bearing organisations that really do this well.
Bruce Daisley (44:49)
Interesting. So the so the company itself doesn’t need to be the community, but more it can sort of it can create a sense of belonging of different affinity groups, different interest groups, and meanwhile by creating a positive environment as well, it’s allowing people to to celebrate their differences as well. So it might be just, you know, these parents or a run a running club or a
a a movie club, it it seems like those things can all be in service of just making people feel more together.
Casper ter Kuile (45:24)
I exactly. I think a lot of this is about giving people permission to acknowledge that this stuff is real. Because the choice for me isn’t do people bring these questions to work or not. They’re already bringing them to work. The question is what do we do in response? And I think you can go down the route of saying, okay, we’re gonna try and really make space for that here, which as I said demands all sorts of of of maturity and and and skill. Or are we gonna say we’re gonna create pathways to make sure that you don’t get lost or stuck or or that you’re isolated.
when you have something happen or as you’re asking a big question about your life and meaning and purpose. W we’re gonna resource you with relationships and connections and opportunities so that you have a place to go. Because whet whether we like it or not, the workplace is increasingly becoming a center of our relational and and meaning and purpose oriented lives.
Bruce Daisley (46:10)
Perfect. Now obviously you’ve you’ve been incredibly prolific and aside from your Harry Potter podcast, where where can people find your work?
Casper ter Kuile (46:19)
work.
Yeah, absolutely. So the the organization I I co found is called Sacred Design Lab. And you can find us at sacred.design. I write an occasional newsletter exploring questions like this. and you can sign up at CasperTk.com and and the book is called The Power of Ritual. so I really really appreciate the work you’re doing, Bruce, and the conversations you’re having ’cause I I I just think this is massively important. So thanks for having me on.
Bruce Daisley (46:41)
Yeah, I know, look, I’m I’m absolutely delighted. And you know, for me it’s so fascinating. I think I think it’s sort of why why I scribbled this guy’s a genius in the in the in the front of my copy of your book. So thank you so much. I appreciate you taking the time.
Thank you today’s guest, Caspar. Like I say, his book, The Power of Ritual, Turning Everyday Activities into Soulful Practices, is available now. And there’s a link to that in the show notes. Very enjoyable book, actually. It’s filled with personal stories. It’s filled with stories that extend beyond his experience. It’s very readable. Next week, we’ve got a final episode in this short series on community. I’m going to be chatting to Gillian Richardson. Gillian is the author of Unlocket.
And she’s also the the organizer of a major community building organisation in New York. She’s got incredibly practical experience. And the reason why I’ve put her episode last is she’s got plenty of cautionary notes really. If if Casper had some concerns about how this might be used at work, then I think Gillian contributes to that in a really in really insightful way. I think you’re gonna love that discussion. If you’ve enjoyed these episodes, please do let me know.
Always love to hear from people on LinkedIn or on Twitter or you can reply to my newsletter and you’ll get the newsletter at the website which is eatsleepworkrepeat.com. Thank you so much for listening. I always appreciate it. you next time.
