A Typical Day At Flair Towers
Here’s a funny thing. A friend of mine recently implemented an enormous Internet based computer system for his client a large retail company in the UK. His team had worked miracles to deliver the thing within the expected time and budget constraints and he was both proud of, and deeply grateful for, their efforts.
So instead of attending a Friday management briefing he took them out to the pub and bought them a celebratory lunch that “ran over” a little. The team were highly delighted, his management colleagues were not.
I’ll tell you why this story connected with me: this kind of gesture is no longer common in corporate Britain. I’m not talking about a celebratory lunch, necessarily, but rather any kind of celebration for a job well done.
When I was in recruitment we regularly treated ourselves with anything from a cream cake to an afternoon off and a taxi ride home depending upon the scale of our victory and we weren’t the only ones to do so. I’m not sure that recruitment is anywhere near as much fun these days.
So why don’t we celebrate as much as we should?
For starters I think everything we do at work happens at 100 mph with very little time to spare for anything that is not screaming at us, poking us in the ribs or just about to collide with us.
Like many people I do more than one job; in fact I do 4: salesman, consultant, researcher and author. Also like a lot of people there is always something I could be doing, knock a few more things off the to-do list and try and get ahead of the game.
“Another sale, great. On to the next” This cannot be right so here’s 5 reasons to celebrate: –
- It’s enjoyable – celebrating victories is great fun and life is meant to be fun isn’t it?
- People need recognition – it’s one of the 3 key basic needs human beings require in order to feed their souls.
- Team spirit – even if everybody knows that they have done a good job having the boss demonstrate this lifts morale and helps team spirit.
- Breaks the slog – one thing relentlessly following another in some sort of corporate production line. Nah!
- Incentives – do a great job and get something nice. Can this really have an effect?
