If I had to summarize 2018 in one word ... it would probably be “flossing” (kids, am I doing this right?). But let’s put the dance moves aside for a minute. As my dentist continually reminds me, it’s easy to miss stuff when you don’t take enough time to look in the mirror, really focus, and ... floss. No, reflect! Reflect. So while 2018 is still (minty) fresh in our minds, we’re taking a moment to take another look at some things you may have missed from us this year:

1. AI is behind many products at Google, but this year it created some new beats, took a shot with the NCAA during March Madness, and took us on a scavenger hunt to find emoji. But what about those of us who aren’t DJs or data scientists? There are lots of ways you’re already encountering AI in your daily life. 

2. We met many a Googler this year—from interns to our resident productivity expert to the couple behind Chromecast—who gave us an inside look into what they do and how they do it. We went back in time to learn about Google execs’ first summer jobs, and saw a glimpse of the future that one Googler imagines in her children’s book: “propelling girls in the direction of exploring coding and engineering.”

3. Though we spent lots of time with Googlers in the wild, we also had some fun with animals during the Year of the Dog. A pack of adorable Akita dogs made their debut on Street View, a farm in the Netherlands is using TensorFlow to track the health of its cows, and a flock of egrets landed at the Googleplex for the summer. 

5.Through products like Street View, VR and Arts and Culture, we took you on a kayaking trip with blind veterans through the Grand Canyon, a frigid arctic expedition to Canada’s high north, and a crab migration in the "Australian Galapagos." We don’t take the word "magical" lightly around here, but when you're taking people to Disney parks and the world of Harry Potter, well ... if the slipper fits…

6.We heard from a daring climber and Lin-Manuel Miranda about places that are important to them, and traveled around the world with Waldo—stopping along the way at a wedding and the Google science fair.

7. We turned 20 this year! During our month-long celebration, we went back to our roots in the garage, recalled oodles of Doodles through history, and examined how our mission applies to the next billion users. And as icing on the (birthday) cake, we put together some highlights from two decades of Google history.

8. We got organized, and made a few lists of different ways to use our products, whether you’re taking food pics like a pro with your Pixel or consulting Google Maps to plan your travels. The list of I/O announcements made it to 100, but for our products with a billion users, we went straight to the source.

9. We believe that technology creates more opportunities for those who might not have access to it—and this year, we saw proof of this from sock sellers, creative coders and organizations like AI4ALL. Whether in Singapore or in our own Northern California backyard, we’re excited to introduce even more people to coding in 2019.

10. Any year has its ups and downs, but through it all, were heartened by the stories of people using our products in inspiring ways. Two of those stories come from Robbie Iveyand Tania Finlayson, people who aren’t defined by their disabilities—instead, they’re using Google products to live a more independent life. Another story hits close to home—a Googler helped a refugee family using Google Translate, and make some lifelong friends in the process.

Ok, that was a lot of sweet stuff. Now it’s really time for the dentist.

Rituals are ubiquitous across cultures and time. From marriage and burial rituals to pregame and postgame sporting rituals, these intentional routines have been performed for centuries to foster a desired outcome or behavior.

Now, organizations are tapping into the power of ritual to encourage innovation. These small acts can be used in the workplace to engender a sense of community, build cohesion and ultimately help take an organization from good to great.

How rituals can help teams

The sporting world is filled with examples of how rituals help wire organizations to achieve greatness. In fact, New Zealand's national rugby team, the All Blacks, credits much of their success to the rituals that form the bedrock of their culture. After each match—win or lose, home or away—everyone on the team cleans the dressing room until it’s spotless. It’s a ritual designed to show thanks, build humility and reinforce that each team member is just as important as the other. The Japanese soccer team beautifully demonstrated a similar ritual when they left their locker room spotless after a gut-wrenching loss in the World Cup.

These sporting rituals are more than just good manners or superstitions. In fact, researchers are starting to find that these types of symbolic actions do in fact have an effect on behavior. According to recent studies, regularly performing rituals helps regulate emotions, elevate performance states and foster social connections.

Take for example one of my favorite workplace rituals that happens at OXO, the global housewares manufacturer. The company focuses on building products that fit comfortably into people’s hands, and they adopted a team ritual to bring that value to light. Whenever an employee finds a lost glove, they bring it back to the office to hang on the wall to depict all the different hands they are designing things for. This ritual may look like a seemingly random act on the from the outside, but OXO defined a clear intention to constantly visualize and focus on who they are building products for.

Using rituals to encourage innovation

If you want to encourage innovation on your team, design rituals that emulate characteristics that are associated with it, like being comfortable with failure and team collaboration.

Rituals can help build the muscle memory of an organization’s culture, but they have to be intentional and repeatable. Think of your ​organization’s​ ​operating system​ as its collective set of rules, norms and behaviors. These are the basic pieces of code that define how your organization runs. If you want to recode your organizational operating system to be more innovative, you must create new cultural algorithms in the form of rituals.

My team has a ritual that we take part in at the beginning of every weekly team meeting: Everyone shares a failure—personal or professional—and what they learned from it. The ritual is repeated every week and helps build psychology safety and comfort around failure. Similarly, Alphabet’s X holds an annual celebration that celebrates failure where they share stories about defunct projects, failed experiments and even personal failures. Old prototypes, sticky notes with product ideas and family mementos are placed on a small altar and burned during this ritual.

You can also develop rituals to encourage collaboration and strong team cohesiveness—characteristics which are associated with more creative teams. For example, Google employees can reward a coworker with a peer bonus when they go above and beyond and exemplify these qualities. Not only does the peer bonus ritual recognize the collaborator with a small monetary gift, but it also recognizes them with a thank you note that is sent to their peers and managers. We’ve built an entire peer bonus system online that allows team members to recognize this positive behavior again and again, helping to build reinforce this behavior.

Ultimately, the rituals you build come down to the values you want to instill. Ask yourself: How can we bring our values to life and make them tangible through rituals? For centuries, humans have innately understood that small, tangible acts done routinely can carry meaning. Now it’s time to see how they can create new cultural algorithms for your organization or team to run on.  

Editor’s note: Riley Shanahan is computer science major at UC Berkeley, an explorer of the world's hiking trails, and a trailblazer for other young women delving into the unfamiliar terrain of STEM. She and I both had internships at Google’s headquarters in Mountain View this summer—I was a part of the BOLD internship program, and Riley was an Engineering Practicum intern. I recently tagged along on one of Riley’s days to learn more about what she was up to all summer. 

What has been your favorite part of working at Google?
My team—they’ve empowered me to make a difference and grow as an engineer and person. I know how important it is to work on something I’m passionate about, but I’ve found that I’m most energized to contribute when I’m on a team with psychological safety, support and drive. Everyone on the team worked to build each other up, rather than leaving anyone to build something alone.

How did you find your path to computer science?
I did Girls Who Code after my sophomore year of high school. My chemistry teacher recommended I apply for the program because I loved science and math so much. It was a pivotal point in my life. I discovered that the opportunities to help people through engineering were endless, and I could make the most impact while having fun doing computer science.

How have you used the joy you get from CS to make an impact?
The summer after Girls Who Code, I applied for and received a grant to teach a summer computer science program to 50 middle school students from underserved schools in the East Palo Alto/Redwood City area. I got about 25 laptops donated, and I built a curriculum centered around game design, where every student would end each week with a tangible product to show their accomplishments and development. Based on my own Girls Who Code experience, I knew that building toward a final project gives you confidence, ownership, and a sense of accomplishment.

I worked with several female engineers at Google to plan a field trip for all of my computer science students during their last week to visit the Mountain View campus. Seeing how much they cared about my students and the success of my program reaffirmed my dream of going back to Google, not on a field trip or as a guest, but as an intern or engineer.

Looking back on your internship, is there one moment or memory that sticks out?
100%, Google’s Women Engineer conference (held every summer for female engineering interns). It was magical. I never anticipated that Google would make such a significant contribution to both my personal and career growth. I met so many fellow interns and full-time female mentors at the conference, I had never felt more part of a family.