Celebrating professional accomplishments is important, whether it’s a successful launch of a new initiative, the rollout of new software, a promotion for you, being named employee of the month or year, etc., all reasons for celebrating. Leaders often miss out on celebrating by looking forward to the next initiative or new thing. But the people who did the work need to celebrate. I’ve watched leaders (me included) make two common mistakes in my career, 1) they minimize it, meaning they do something, but it’s just enough to say you did something, but they don’t make a big deal about it, and 2) they fail to acknowledge support people.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t recall even one time in my career when an employee said to me, “Mr. Kreienkamp, can you please stop recognizing our work and celebrating it.” It never did and never will happen because people love recognition and love celebrations. Leaders, hint, hint, make a big deal about the accomplishments and celebrate, celebrate, celebrate. I too often was the leader who was ready to move on, but later in my career understood the value of celebrating. Don’t be me.
Never forget the people behind the scenes. If you’ve rolled out new software in your organization, it’s easy to highlight the roll-out team and IT professionals, everyone sees them. But who worked extra time or took on some of their work to free them up? Someone in their department. Who missed out on seeing their loved one? Their family. Find a way to take notice of and celebrate the people behind the scenes. Do something for them too. Maybe hold your recognition event in the evening instead of the convenient lunchtime and invite spouses and significant people they are in a relationship with. That type of recognition goes a long way.
It’s easy to spend the organization’s money on a celebration and have things brought in. But I learned that when I do something myself as their leader, it becomes more personal and means more. When I was in the first half of my career, I had too large of a staff and not enough resources to do something individually for each person. Our solution was for me and my wife to prepare a special meal for everyone in celebration, and yes, I was part of the cooking team and serving team. Of course, my cooking skills were limited, but the fact that I was doing part of it myself was significant for my staff.
When you are recognized personally, how do you include your family? Often those career accomplishments are celebrated at work, not at home. As my children grew older, I became more aware of how my absence impacted them. One time in my career, they were part of choosing how to recognize the accomplishment. I was honored with an unexpected bonus for an intense period of work over six weeks that was significant for the organization. My three sons and wife chose to spend it not on a vacation or something for each of them, but instead a big screen TV everyone could enjoy. Today the cost of a TV is much less than 20+ years ago, as we spent $2,600, the entire bonus after taxes on a rear projection TV (state of the art back then without a wall mount), which today would cost about $4,600. To this day my sons remember that TV.
When I think of celebrations that are personal, I think about professional hockey and the Stanley Cup. It’s the best celebration tradition in all sports. Each player on the winning team gets to take the cup trophy home to celebrate, however, and with whomever they choose. In 2019, my hometown St. Louis Blues won that special honor. Here are how a few of the players celebrated.
Coach Craig Berube celebrated with children from his hometown letting them drink orange juice from the Stanley Cup.
Jordan Binnington started the day with his grandmother.
Alex Pietrangelo spent time on the golf course with family and friends.
Brayden Schenn took the cup to Saskatoon Fire Station No. 1 to celebrate with his father, a battalion chief, and his fellow firefighters, then Royal University Hospital to see children and then visited the arena, where he played as a child.
Make the celebrations for your team significant and personal. Make a big deal out of the accomplishment.
When Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and charioteers rushed into the sea, the Lord brought the water crashing down on them. But the people of Israel had walked through the middle of the sea on dry ground! Then Miriam the prophet, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine and led all the women as they played their tambourines and danced. Exodus 15:19-20 (NLT)
