Watch any sporting event live or on television, and you’re guaranteed to be treated to the spectacle of at least one athlete celebrating. Football players develop elaborate dances in the endzone following a touchdown. Soccer players will tear off their shirts as they run to the corner of the field after a goal. Volleyball teams will congregate on their side to congratulate each other on winning a rally.
In sharp contrast to these ubiquitous celebrations, many of us fail to acknowledge great things that have happened in the workplace. Work successes are also worth some demonstration of joy. So, why do athletes get to have all the fun?
There are several reasons why we’re not that demonstrative about our successes. For one, a lot of the projects that go well are the culmination of months or years of effort. Indeed, sometimes by the time the project is officially deemed a success, many of the participants in the project are tired of it. In addition, successful projects rarely have the equivalent moment of crossing the goal line where it suddenly gets classified as a success. Indeed, even landing a big contract with a client marks the beginning of a new process rather than the pure culmination of work. Plus, even when there is an unambiguous success, there are often 12 other projects going on that need attention.
Nonetheless, there are some good reasons to want to celebrate. Here are a few things you can do.
Take a victory lap
Small celebrations of successes are valuable, because they enable you to recognize how all the little things you do daily add up to something more significant. Yes, you may enjoy your job, and just being able to do the work may be rewarding enough. But, when you achieve a goal, you should find a way to mark the occasion. Develop a little ritual that you can use to enjoy the moment. You can even take the time to review some of the milestones that led to the victory.
Not every celebration needs to be done in public. Certainly, you can highlight a great outcome or a fantastic team effort in an organization-wide email or in a social media post. But, it is also nice to have private routines that enable you to savor a success. Earlier in my career when a significant focus of my professional life was on research and publication in professional journals, I would take a moment whenever I had a paper accepted to update my CV and my online list of publications as a way of enjoying the completion of a project before just diving into the next thing on my to-do list.
Be a good example
You can’t expect the employees of an organization to celebrate if nobody in management or leadership ever celebrates a win. It is important for leaders in the organization to set the tone for what and how to celebrate. This can be done in a few ways.
First, leaders should acknowledge team victories publicly. Take some time in a group meeting to call out great things that have happened. Send around an email or highlight the wonderful outcome in a social media post. When you show the team that you care about and celebrate wins, you create an environment in which everyone feels like they should do the same.
If you do have your own private rituals for enjoying big moments, you may want to share that with your mentees as well. Let them know that you take the time to recognize your own accomplishments. Your team members don’t know how you stay motivated. Sharing your secrets can help your team members to develop healthy approaches to appreciating their work.
Use celebrations to acknowledge efforts
A public celebration of a success is also a way to highlight what you think are the active ingredients in the team’s success. If you only focus on great outcomes, then you may inadvertently send the message that the ends matter more than the means.
Instead, call out the behaviors that you think are most important for leading to the successes you want. If someone persevered through setbacks, you can acknowledge them for their grit. If a team did a particularly good job of engaging a key business process, let everyone else know about it. These celebrations are also a great way to shine light on people who are new to the organization. Those messages help everyone on the team to feel valued and seen. They also provide you with a chance to demonstrate that how you achieve goals is at least as important as reaching desirable outcomes.