How Do You Celebrate Victory?

Whenever a sports season concludes, the champion or winning team celebrates. It has become a cliché of professional sports to see the players of the winning team spraying each other with champagne following a victory in the World Series, the Super Bowl, and other end-of-the year championships.

Today, newspapers are filled with images of the jubilant Boston Red Sox celebrating their victory in the World Series. First the players all crowded onto a small space in the infield to jump for joy and hug each other. Then they retreated to the locker room for the obligatory round of champagne spraying. Once the champagne was flowing, the spoken tributes began. If you watch enough sports in the U. S. , this is a very familiar pattern.

We can take a few lessons from these celebrations and apply them to our businesses. Celebrations are important. Following tradition whenever you celebrate adds emotional value to the celebrations. Allowing for some spontaneity makes each celebration memorable. Celebrations must be sincere and they must honor something real, something significant.

Lessons from the Pros

Celebrations of achievement at work are important because they provide something that employees value even more than money: recognition. By far, recognition is the most powerful motivator for employees. When we make a show of celebrating achievements, we are endorsing the successful employees as well as the work that made the successful and that will breed a desire for more recognition.

Tradition adds meaning and value to celebrations. It's a way that allows us to connect to great achievements from the past and perhaps with people we have held up as heroes.

Part of what makes each achievement special to the achiever is the sense that it is unique. In addition to wanting recognition, we all enjoy being singled out for being ourselves. So while it's important to let traditions develop around your celebrations, it's also a good idea to foster some spontaneity. That way, each person being celebrated gets that feeling of uniqueness that is so important to us all.

Finally, celebrations must be grounded in real achievement. We all have a built-in detector for insincerity. If you decide that you want to celebrate your employees, please make sure that you select important accomplishments to celebrate. If not, you'll end up with the dreaded employee-of-the month syndrome. That's where the honored employee is embarrassed by the honor because he or she knows that the honor gets passed around nearly at random so that the management team members can feel that they have done their duty to recognize the employees. Instead, look for achievement first and then plan your celebration.

A Few Tips on Celebrating Your Employees

• Celebrations of employee achievement don't have to include champagne and gourmet food. In fact, the best ones are events that fit well into the social culture of your business. Does everyone prefer pizza and beer? Great! Get some good pizza and good beer and let everyone know how proud you are of their achievements.
• Pictures help us build memories. Take plenty of pictures when you hold your celebrations. Get a good picture of each employee receiving his or her recognition and then give out framed prints to the achievers.
• Involve employees' families as much as possible. Invite them to your celebrations.
• Publicize your achievers. A short note and a picture sent to the local paper could result in some nice publicity for your employee and your business as well.
• Make sure your customers learn about your achievers as well. Consider starting a "Hall of Fame" wall of pictures or plaques celebrating your employee achievers.

Whatever you do to celebrate your employees' achievements, if you follow these tips you'll have memorable celebrations of memorable accomplishments.

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