How do you celebrate your victories?

When did you last celebrate a win with your employees?

You’ve just recently won that big contract you’ve been after. You’ve hit your sales target for the quarter (or even the month), your business is humming along and you’re feeling pretty good about it. There’s no better feeling, once having set a goal or a target, than when you actually achieve it . Time to celebrate!

Who do you celebrate with?

Your family? Your friends? Maybe you just punch your fist into the air and say a silent “yahoo” to yourself. But the real question is – do you celebrate with the people who helped you achieve your victory?

Don’t miss out the most important people …. your staff, your employees, your people – the ones who helped you achieve that victory. Make sure your business has a mechanism for celebration – but only if you want to get maximum employee buy-in. Otherwise, keep it to yourself, don’t let your staff know for fear they’ll ask for a pay rise (or some other reason). But that’s not the kind of culture that breeds a winning team or a winning business.

I’ve heard that the people at 42 Below have an interesting way to celebrate a victory. At their Monday morning team meetings a big win is sometimes announced …. anyone can call it – but it has to be a really outstanding victory. The custom is for the shot glasses to come out and be filled with … you guessed it … vodka. What a way to start the working week! (but perfect for the culture of 42 Below). The point is, celebrating with your staff doesn’t have to be a huge thing. It’s just really important that it happens.

If you don’t already have a method of celebrating the wins with your team, it might be time to have a serious look at putting one in place and making sure you use it. There are no prizes for keeping your victories to yourself!