Leading Through Organizational Celebrations

Every society must mark milestones and “bury its dead” – we must celebrate and wish people well in their new endeavors. Still, there are many reasons to celebrate both inside and outside the organizational context, but I have noted in my career that it is important to maintain continuity and regularity without making the celebrations seem tired and worn out. Setting aside a standard time for celebration such as the first Friday of the month or second Thursday of the month helps facilitate celebrations at regular intervals. Regardless of the time allocated for celebrating all the various events, there should be a person tasked with responsibility and a budget to host the events. Some might argue that you can celebrate too much, but there is important information sharing and acknowledgement of effort that takes place at these meetings.

Here are some of the reasons for spontaneous celebrations catalogued by Kouzes and Posner (2002), including some additional thoughts:

• Stages of organization change – the company is expanding, opening new offices, reorganizing the management structure, closing/altering capacity, merging with another company/operation, the sun setting of old technology, the dawning of new technology and occupying new office space, etc.
• Successes – financial, promotions, individual awards, company awards, new customers, new strategic partnerships, product extensions and market expansions, etc.
• Losses – old practices/procedures are retired, financial opportunities, contracts, retiring/resigning employees, job changes, status changes, death of a colleague and recap of an experiment that failed.
• People – teamwork, team success, founders’ contribution, winners of sales contests, President’s/100% club, employee of the month/quarter/year awards, individual birthdays, marriages, and group reunions.
• Events – a company’s anniversary, grand opening days, holidays, new company vision or mission, change in company vision or mission, etc.
• “The Unknown” – paradox, ambiguity in the marketplace, or just simply to rally the troops because they seem to need it, etc.

Reference

Kouzes, J.M., & Posner, B.Z. (2002). The leadership challenge (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.