What Do You Celebrate In Your Business?

We are a celebratory society. We celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, and other milestones. In our personal lives we celebrate just about every chance we get. But what about our professional lives?

When was the last time your business celebrated a birthday, anniversary, or mid-year production goal? With an eye on the finish line, business owners can miss the little successes, milestones, and personal achievements that happen on the way to that finish line.

So, what does celebrate really mean? Does it mean that every time something good happens you have to throw a party? Of course not, but it does mean that you should be intentional about acknowledging the successes of the business and its employees.

There are many ways a business can celebrate success:

• Visibly show your appreciation. Walking the floor of your business and thanking your employees for a job well done will go miles toward building their confidence. This in turn makes your business stronger because employees will feel appreciated and take more pride in their work.
   
• Acknowledge birthdays and anniversaries and on-the-job successes. You may be amazed at the amount of goodwill a $.99 greeting card presented to an employee can generate. The rule of thumb in this situation is that if you do it for one employee, it has to happen for all employees.
   
• Lunches are a great way to bring everyone together. It gives the employees an opportunity to interact with each other without the pressure of job performance and allows you to show your appreciation in a group setting. It doesn’t have to happen that often but should happen at a regular interval, such as once per quarter.
   
• Identify and celebrate milestones along the way. Much like a marathon has water stations, the path to your goals needs to have points of relief or acknowledgement. This will keep the entire team fresh and pushing towards the goals of the business.
   
• Plan and be prepared to be spontaneous. The business won’t be able to define with certainty when milestones will be reached so it is up to you to have the tools in place that allow for last minute celebrations. An example of this would be a “Celebration Tool Kit,” filled with items such as balloons, cards, banners, etc. If the tools are there, it will be much easier to celebrate successes.

These are just a few of the ways that you can celebrate the success of your business and those working in your business. They don’t have to be expensive celebrations. They just need to be heartfelt and true to the business. Management guru Tom Peters says, “Celebrate what you want to see more of.” What are you doing to celebrate the things you want to see more of in your business?