- 17 December, 2008 08:36 AM EST
- Gyokuro, Sencha, Matcha and Me: The Ritual of Process
Green tea: One of the few essential elements of life. After decades of toying with tea in little bags - the American way - my taste buds have staged an oral coup. Over the past few months, I've dived deep, deep, deep into the rarified world of high-end green teas - teas prepared from whole leaves; teas in their most natural form. The flavors and feel are phenomenal, the caffeine can be sense-jolting, but is somewhat muted by theanine (see here for details), the catechins will make me live longer, and the complex processes for harvesting and preparing the teas are amazing.
There are two points to this post:
1. If you drink from little tea bags, you should really experience tea that hasn't been funneled through a little doll-house throw pillow. The quality of a cup of gyokuro - made from pristine leaves - is far superior to the already wonderful tea you can get from a dip-and-dunk approach. Try it.
2. We humans love ritual. We love to use language, semiotics, nuance, mystery and repetition. I believe that the "tea culture" that has been around for centuries is a good example of a refined and rarified ritual. Ritual is powerful. Ritual transcends simple understanding. Ritual cannot be ignored.
Drink your green tea. Experience the ritual. And as you do, keep in mind that your organization is chock full of ritual. Ritual is a manifestation of your culture and your culture will make or break your processes. So, if you don't respect ritual, you'll damage your process efforts. If you don't acknowledge ritual, you'll run into walls - walls you can't see.
Ask yourself a question: Is "ritual" an inhibitor to progress, or is ritual a way to incorporate process into the culture? If you answer correctly, you will have to say, "It's both." The trick is to find out what to keep and what to throw away. What part of ritual is critical for adoption and what part is just a legacy of mythology and habit?
Look at your organization and ask one more question:
Which portion of our process culture represents the rich, colorful tea and which represents the leaves? Which portion do we want to savor and which do we need to discard after it has served its purpose?
