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
one time home cleaning Highland Park ..No figure in history is like General Patton. He was... Read More
Eight Principles for Purposeful AlignmentEffective teamwork requires individual members of... Read More
Last month's edition of Footprints and Monuments illustrated a parallel... Read More
There's nothing that matches the power of teamwork to accomplish... Read More
In the constantly changing world of Call Centers, asking agents... Read More
Consensus is the appropriate decision strategy for the most important... Read More
I declared a Communications Major two years into school, after... Read More
As I work with clients to strengthen their teams and... Read More
Trainers, please picture this... You are presenting in a new... Read More
Young minds are quite easy to shape. International Terrorist recruiters... Read More
Companies often have incentives for reps, but sometimes that isn't... Read More
1. Involve them. Many employees want to be involved in... Read More
As a business owner, I've had staff come and go... Read More
Survival: The Name of the New Economic Game People rarely... Read More
There are few industries or service type businesses, which are... Read More
The ability to build effective teams is a must for... Read More
A tight knit team is a group of competent individuals... Read More
The effects of conflict in the workplace are widespread and... Read More
It's frustrating when your co-workers, audience members, teenager or even... Read More
So much has been written on this subject; Team Work,... Read More
Picture yourself entering a corporate meeting, team meeting, or business... Read More
A grassy field, two nets, a soccer ball and some... Read More
If you own a franchise you would be wise to... Read More
Ever watched a really brilliant idea meet with resistance and... Read More
Recently, while developing a customer service program, I asked my... Read More
licensed cleaning services Park Ridge ..When was the last time you spent excessive time and... Read More
Eight Principles for Purposeful AlignmentEffective teamwork requires individual members of... Read More
More and more I hear people misunderstanding what someone else... Read More
A tight knit team is a group of competent individuals... Read More
Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation... Read More
Survival: The Name of the New Economic Game People rarely... Read More
Any x by y matrix plan has one big risk...... Read More
The company picnic is a beloved tradition at many firms.It's... Read More
Proactive High Performance Teamwork is made up of nine proactive... Read More
Managing a small business continues to become more challenging. However,... Read More
It's all about focusing on where the best value in... Read More
The very effective tool of keeping a journal can be... Read More
Team Building Question:I'm a manager of a team of 20... Read More
Picture yourself entering a corporate meeting, team meeting, or business... Read More
If asked to look at your work calendar for the... Read More
Do you remember how you felt after your last interaction... Read More
On the trail in Northern Canada "Marche" was the word... Read More
"When teamwork kicks in, nobody can beat you." Don Shula,... Read More
Introduction:Working with teams, whether as leader of a single team... Read More
True or false? Teams that practice good teamwork contribute to... Read More
Truth on mlmDid you know that the truth on mlm... Read More
As I work with clients to strengthen their teams and... Read More
"Tak kenak! Tak kenak!" "Adak Orang sanak!????"The quiet jungle has... Read More
Have you noticed that some people seem to stop listening... Read More
"Conflict becomes politics, commitment becomes 'Only if it's in my... Read More
Team Building |