Do You Celebrate the Small Stuff?
Think small when you think of quality with your employees. Why small? Because whenever you celebrate the “small stuff” with your employees, you are depositing good will into their emotional account. Steven Covey coined the phase “emotional bank account” in order to build stronger relationships. The more you deposit into the account, the more the employees respond and are more productive. If you make a mistake with your team, since you have made deposits into your relationship with them, they don’t over react and instead respect that you are human.
That’s why celebrating the small achievements, contributions or support each employee offers, you build a stronger team that are willing to build a successful company. Celebrate when a customer gives good feedback as that encourages employees to build stronger relationships with them.
“Team Celebrations – Do It Often!” by J. Michael on Paretocentral.com offers a sound perspective on the benefits of celebrating all achievements – big or small.
Go to any professional sports event, you will see the players celebrating after every achievement – big or small. They don’t wait till the game is won to do the celebration. As it turns out, there is good psychological rationale behind that pattern – the series of small celebrations build up positive energy that leads up to the big achievement.
Another important point made in the post was that employees see each other in the celebrations. They build stronger relationships with other team members.
Final Thought
Most managers feel they don’t have time to stop and celebrate everything. You can start small! A simple way is at the end of the time, take time to reflect on each employee and what they have done during the day. If you don’t know, this is usually a good sign that you need to be more aware of the person. Capture all of the achievements as well as issues that you have noticed. The following day, first thing in the morning have a “recognition” meeting or go around and let each person know you appreciated their contributions the day before.
This does two things – starts the recognition habit and helps build your awareness of your employees. You can guide them better when you are engaged with their performance. Let them know when they have done a good job.
Be well,
Pat
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