Brian Gareau Engaging High Performance Blog

Meaningful Celebration

8/23/2013

“Please come and see the fantastic donation we received today,” the non-profit leader said to me. We walked down the narrow hall of the child welfare and development organization and past the big viewing window of their crisis nursery. There, lining both walls of the hall, were 40+ colorful gift bags. Inside each were a cake mix, a disposable foil pan, canned icing, candles, and a hand-written card. “Many of our clients struggle to ‘celebrate’, in even the simplest ways, their children’s birthday. These will bring a lot of smiles to our little friends. ”

Many organizations misunderstand and/or underestimate the power of meaningful celebrations in engaging high performance. They think it is a waste of work time. So, they rarely celebrate internally and just keep pushing toward the next goal, objective, or deadline. But, by minimizing and/or not celebrating important accomplishments, significant events, and/or honoring groups and individuals -- they miss opportunities to inspire, reinforce, signify, praise, and create greater inclusiveness. Lack of simple, meaningful celebration can lead to de-motivation, resistance to change, and disengagement.

Here are six questions I ask my clients to consider. Are leaders in your organization:

Overlooking extra effort employees make through challenging economic times?
Forgetting key milestone accomplishments and just driving toward the end result?
Ignoring significant change and related stress employees go through when new initiatives are launched; technology is replaced; processes change; or cost cutting continues?
Savoring success for seconds and then spending most of the time talking about “challenges, headwinds, and missed opportunities”?
Neglecting to acknowledge all the small things done consistently well every day?
Disregarding the need of people to feel visible and appreciated internally but actively practicing this with external customers and business partners?

I encourage you to take the following MCA (meaningful celebration assessment). Compare your answers to those of your employees. Is there alignment or disconnection between your perspective and employees?

Celebration in our organization is ‘more’:

Frequent or Infrequent
Timely or Untimely
Specific or General
Genuine or Scripted
Eagerly or Reluctantly Attended
Inclusive or Exclusive
Inspiring or Unexciting
Boundary Breaking or Boundary Making (between groups with the organization)

Meaningful celebration does ‘not’ have to involve lots of time, money, and/or effort. And its focus is ‘not’ on amusement or entertainment. Meaningful celebration must be:

Sincere and genuine
Reinforce what really matters
Inspire others to replicate or duplicate
Motivate employees toward the next goal
Breakdown some invisible barriers between employees separated by functional boundaries
Remind employees they are working for a winner

Sports teams celebrate goals, touchdowns, runs, and individual plays. Families celebrate weddings, anniversaries, new births, and other life events. High performance organizations celebrate execution of strategy, accountability, innovation, inclusiveness and sustainable progress. All groups (sports teams, families, organizations, etc.) know that adversity will occur. So they celebrate what they want to see more of and its relevance. It helps provides hope, motivation, and commitment. Just like the more than 40 children from the crisis nursery who will get to celebrate with a birthday cake and candles this year.

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A Creative Reality Check

8/7/2013

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With summer in full swing, I have discovered some unique T-shirts sayings while working out at our local YMCA. Examples include:

“Talented But Lazy”
“Professional Role Model”
“Cleverly Disguised As An Adult”
“You Read My T-Shirt; That’s Enough Social Interaction For Today”

When I see a unique T-shirt saying, I find it interesting to quickly analyze if the saying is reflective of the wearer’s behavior. Sometimes it is dead on - like the summer intern who was calm, cool, and very much a “professional role model” despite the high energy level of the large group of five and six year-olds around her. Sometimes the T-shirt saying is ‘misleading’ – like the young man at the basketball court who still needed work on his jump shot to be talented.

This same exercise can be applied to organizational communication. Picture an imaginary T-shirt. The front side is the organization’s message and the back is how employees really feel about the message. Sometimes there is complete alignment. Other times, employees’ perceptions are very different than leaders. And, when perception gaps exist, it can create discontentment, disengagement, and resistance to change.

Here are a couple of examples from past clients who have used the T-shirt exercise:

(Front) “Supporting & Improving Our Neighborhoods”
(Back) Picture collage of multiple employee volunteer events
(Front) “Quality First”.
(Back) “It All Depends!” Picture of a calendar with the last two days of the month marked out with a red ‘X’.
(Front) “Commitment to Superior Shareholder Returns”.
(Back) Picture of closed factory gate. A sign on the gate reads - “Ongoing shut downs & layoffs”.

Identifying if critical organizational messages are consistently perceived by both leaders and employees is only step one. The second step is even harder and less often successfully executed – addressing ‘conflicting’ perspectives. Here are six practical reminders:

Avoid confirmation bias. Leaders can’t just look for evidence that supports their decisions/actions. They must also pay attention to perceived misunderstandings and/or animosity – even if known to be incorrect.
Be proactive! It can reduce the potential negative consequences of ‘conflicting’ perspectives.
Determine key actions, events, and/or behaviors that triggered the perception gaps.
Balance rational and emotional elements in your explanations. Bombarding people with only facts and data isn’t enough especially, if there are perceived fairness issues.
Be consistent. Employees need to hear the same messages and clarifications from all leaders at all levels.
Don’t expect immediate results. Generating understanding takes clarity, credibility, consistency, and time.

Every organization needs an occasional reality check. Why not be creative with ‘virtual T-shirts’? Populate them with current organizational messages to customers, shareholders, and employees. Then, ask employees to complete the back side of the T-shirt with open, honest feedback. Are the messages consistent? If not, then apply the six practical reminders above. Remember - how employees think and feel impacts how they act. And, how employees act impacts an organization’s brand, customer service, and ultimate performance!

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Meaningful Celebration

A Creative Reality Check

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