Managers shouldn't start mandating daily chants or trust falls. To develop a group ritual with more meaning, consider using these steps:

1. Observe. What are teams already doing? Watch, for example, how meetings get started.
2. Keep it employee-driven. Look for ways to encourage employees to create their own team rituals.
3. Provide resources. If team members tend to eat lunch together every Thursday, an employer can consider providing money for them to venture out regularly as a group.

Many group activities involve food, from community potlucks to global design firm IDEO’s tea time.

Group rituals have three core elements:

• physical, such and specific words or actions
• communal, meaning we're all doing it together at the same time.
• psychological. I...