When was your last team celebration? Have you been way too busy to bother? Sometimes we get so caught up in day-to-day work that we don't take the time to step back and celebrate success. Some teams may even consider team celebrations as "silly."
It's critical to celebrate success if you want your team to maintain their high performance. Successes are the "motivating fuel" that keeps all of us pushing toward achieving the "bigger and better" goals that we set.
What types of team interaction and discussions normally occur on a day-to-day basis with your team? If you're like most businesses, it's along the lines of the following:
- What's going wrong with the current project.
- Recovering from changes that impact your product or service schedule negatively.
- How to satisfy a disgruntled customer.
If all of your team interactions focus on what's wrong with your business, what happens over time? Team members lose sight of the positive things they do. This can have a demoralizing effect on a team and your business.
Team celebrations help a team bond together. This helps the members maintain focus on their common goals and direction. And, celebrations often help team members deal with stressful changes and prevent "burn-out." They provide revitalization for the team.
Has your team celebrated any successes lately? What did they celebrate? How did they celebrate? For some teams, it's necessary to add structure to the celebration process to ensure that they make the time. To do this, use our three-step process:
1. Identify What To Celebrate
2. Determine How To Celebrate
3. Create A Celebration Action Plan
1. Identify What To Celebrate
It's important to determine what events or activities the team should celebrate. These can be major events or events that help the team reach a milestone. Get your team together and brainstorm a list. Your list might look like the list below.
- Identifying and solving a major roadblock (e.g., customer or quality related issue).
- Taking on added responsibility.
- Adding new team members.
- Dealing with a project crisis.
With the group together, determine the activities your team wants to celebrate.
2. Determine How To Celebrate
Next, identify how you could celebrate. Again, with your team together, brainstorm some celebration activities. These don't have to be major. They could be fun stress relievers or activities that help make your team more visible to upper management. Some ideas are included below:
- Create a presentation for upper management highlighting the team's achievement. Present with all team members in attendance.
- Have the entire team meet with a customer during an on-site visit.
- Invite a senior manager to your team meeting.
- Bring snacks to a team meeting.
- Put congratulatory posters on the wall.
Determine how your team would like to celebrate. Remember, team celebrations don't have to be expensive, time consuming, or difficult to plan. Team celebrations can be formal or impromptu. The key of the team celebration is that it must be sincere.
3. Create A Celebration Action Plan
Create a celebration action plan for the team for (at least) the next six-month time frame. Once the action plan is created, have your team plan the first celebration that will occur in the coming months. This gives them something to look forward to while accomplishing team objectives.
It will take a little effort on your team's part to complete this process, but the pay back in productivity will be worth it. Get going. It's time to celebrate!
Denise O'Berry (aka 'Team Doc') provides tools, tips and advice to help organizations build better teams. Find out more at http://www.teambuildingtips.com
no-contract cleaning service Glenview ..Managing a small business continues to become more challenging. However,... Read More
The people in your team may feel a bit uncomfortable... Read More
You're at a meeting with key staff. You want some... Read More
When was your last team celebration? Have you been way... Read More
Most managers simply herd some people in a room with... Read More
Perhaps you're a small business owner wondering how you and... Read More
Companies often have incentives for reps, but sometimes that isn't... Read More
There is a WHOLE lot of talk these days about... Read More
Ever lost for ideas while working in a group? One... Read More
Maybe you find yourself in a new team environment and... Read More
Reed Employment made a survey of their clients and compiled... Read More
So much has been written on this subject; Team Work,... Read More
For a brief time, I tried to sell life insurance.... Read More
The company picnic is a beloved tradition at many firms.It's... Read More
Survival: The Name of the New Economic Game People rarely... Read More
As a manager, your employees will come to you with... Read More
The Sales Director had organised a great conference; the venue... Read More
Trainers, please picture this... You are presenting in a new... Read More
As I work with clients to strengthen their teams and... Read More
Teams, teams, teams. They're all the rage these days. Whether... Read More
In the new corporate environments where everyone wears more than... Read More
A tight knit team is a group of competent individuals... Read More
Recently my fourteen-year old son Matt dressed up as Santa... Read More
1. Humor reduces stress levels and stress is the number... Read More
One of the greatest challenges a coaching manager has is... Read More
house cleaning company Glencoe ..One of the best lessons I have learned is the... Read More
Recently I decided to stretch my athletic abilities and add... Read More
Introduction:Working with teams, whether as leader of a single team... Read More
As a manager, your employees will come to you with... Read More
In a recent group coaching session, a client mentioned that... Read More
Abstract: Based on significant research, Entelechy has defined characteristics of... Read More
Many believe a leaner government promotes better freedoms with respect... Read More
A lot of effort has been carried out in the... Read More
Several years ago I took an assignment as a Manager... Read More
Reed Employment made a survey of their clients and compiled... Read More
Any x by y matrix plan has one big risk...... Read More
There are few industries or service type businesses, which are... Read More
Perhaps you're a small business owner wondering how you and... Read More
If asked to look at your work calendar for the... Read More
CREATE A MOTIVATIONAL CLIMATE: Create a climate where others find... Read More
Feedback is such an important communication tool. Openness, honesty, candor,... Read More
Recently, while developing a customer service program, I asked my... Read More
Turbulent TwistersYou've read about it in the headlines and experienced... Read More
Someone once said - "Feedback is the breakfast of champions."... Read More
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation... Read More
The feedback I'm talking about here isn't some sort of... Read More
When was the last time you spent excessive time and... Read More
7 Key Dimensions of High Performance Teams We can always... Read More
The Sales Director had organised a great conference; the venue... Read More
A college football team has it. A corporation has it.... Read More
Team Building |