Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

In a recent conversation about my leadership strengths, one stood out to me and it may seem obvious to others but until this conversation it never occurred to me. That is the ability, willingness and desire to celebrate my people. In a December 1, 2018 article ‘Get Hits and Be a Hit’, I wrote about three levels of compliment you can use to motivate your team. If you want a simple rule to use to motivate your team through compliments, take a minute and read it. This article will make arguments about why celebrations are so important to building successful teams. There are:

Free flowing Dopamine and Oxytocin: The limbic system in your brain is wired to motivate your behavior. Your limbic system uses chemical incentives to inspire you to work hard, keep going, help others or look out for yourself. This system will feed your behavior to protect yourself, feel safe or work together toward a goal. When someone pays you a good compliment, helps you complete a task, or does you a favor, you both get a warm feeling. That warm feeling is actually a chemical high produced by dopamine and oxytocin from your limbic system. If we can get dopamine and oxytocin flowing, your people will work to help each other and celebrate each other’s achievement. Under the influence of Dopamine and oxytocin, they’ll push each other and keep each other honest without undermining or offending the team or you. They will act in ways that benefit the team.

Culture of Community: In a culture of community, celebration of everyone is baked inside. Competition among colleagues is eliminated and in its place is encouragement, support, and (of course) celebration. Take the prisoner’s dilemma for example. In it, two people each have a decision to make. 1. They can cooperate with each other and both benefit equally. 2. One can undermine the other in an effort to get everything for him/herself. 3. They can both betray each other and get nothing. The prisoner’s dilemma is what you get when you have a culture of competition among colleagues. Usually the backstabbing causes people to look out for themselves which begets (you guessed it) more backstabbing. In a culture of community, people are encouraged to work together, achieve together and celebrate together. Competition works against a culture of community. Celebrating everyone builds it.

Culture of Achievement: The feeling of success and the warm support of colleagues will drive the members of your team to want that feeling again. In a culture of community, that means more achievement. When people are willing to work together they will achieve more and look for ways to continue to achieve. Less energy will be spent strategizing, defending yourself and plotting for individual gain. In a culture of achievement people work, think more creatively, are free to speak and get things done.

Now, let’s set the record straight, you are not going to have everyone on board. There will be those who will not join the culture or will not be interested in achievement. There are people on every team like this. Generally speaking, research suggests that about 13% of the people on any team resist so don’t get discouraged because everyone isn’t on board. Having a critical mass moving in the right direction is essential for two reasons, 1. They keep things moving forward and 2. They keep that 13% from undermining your culture and your career.

Whether you have an employee of the month, a special parking space, weekly acknowledgements, or whatever your celebration, you’ll be most effective if you program has two elements and expensive isn’t one of them. It has to be meaningful and authentic. What does that mean? What you give to people has to have some sort of meaning either to them as individuals or the organization; having it, being it or receiving it has to matter to them (meaningful). Why you give it to them has to be real, not made up and delivered in a way that acknowledges their real value (authentic). Anything that feels forced or robotic will not clear the hurdle, so it will take a little effort. If you do make the effort, acknowledge your team, get flowing oxytocin throughout your people, they will build a culture of community achievement and your team will SOAR!

 

William A. Brown

April 28, 2019

 

https://www.brilliantlivinghq.com/6-reasons-why-you-should-celebrate-success/

https://blog.impraise.com/360-feedback/how-to-celebrate-success-as-a-team