Celebrate Success! Sounds simple. Sounds basic. Sounds logical. Sounds intuitive. Sounds like common sense. Sounds like everyone would appropriately celebrate success for a million great reasons.
Reality, in many cases, is quite different. It is astounding the number of people, the number of leaders (remember, everyone is a leader!), the number of organizations that do not make the crucial and highly profitable investment in celebrating personal, professional and organizational success.
Just as many people rarely take the time to sincerely say ‘thank you,’ many people and many organizations do not take the time, immediately following specific successes, to celebrate that success.
In the recently published book entitled: Lead with LUV: A Different Way to Create Real Success, Colleen Barrett, the highly successful President Emeritus of Southwest Airlines states the following:
“We just believe in accentuating the positive and celebrating People’s successes. To sustain our Company Culture, we cheer People on all the time. We celebrate little things, big things – we celebrate everything! Although we do have some formal celebrations, a lot of them are informal, spontaneous celebrations that cost little or no money.
What’s important is the fact that you’re honoring them [people] and acknowledging that what they do makes a positive difference. In the process, you are making heroes out of them.”
As Ken Blanchard has written, “catch people doing things right and accentuate the positive by praising them. It’s all about celebrating a success that someone or a team has had.”
Don’t praise people for just showing up; celebrate specific accomplishments! Without specificity, celebrations have little meaning and virtually no personal or organizational value. Celebrate as close to the event or accomplishment as possible. Above all else, do NOT make the common mistake of waiting until the annual evaluation to celebrate success. You will have lost at least 80 to 90 percent of the meaning, value and positive reinforcement.
Be sure to celebrate your own successes! Celebrate appropriately, modestly, and with gratitude and humility. Celebrate at home, at work, in your community and wherever you spend your time and energy making specific, positive contributions. Celebrate privately, and when appropriate, celebrate in public.
Celebrating success is a way of life. Celebrating success is a personal, professional and organizational philosophy that, if consistently and appropriately applied, will create a powerful endless loop system that will propel you, and those you serve to greater success!
Do it today! Do it everyday! Celebrate Success!
