Celebrating While Scaling

Less work for you. More fun for the team.

One of the many things I get asked to do is help celebrate my teammates. Maybe it’s a birthday, an anniversary, a quick thank you, or even an appendectomy.  I’ve come up with a  way to make celebrations easy so I can just sit back and join in the fun instead of running around planning and organizing. Here’s the secret:  Empower your people. Give them the means to self-serve any celebration. Allow me to introduce…

The celebration station

• Location, Location, Location: Find a kitchen drawer, a corner of the supply closet, or an unused shelf to be your canvas. It’s key to have the celebration station in a high traffic area for maximum effectiveness.
• Now add some color.  Stock your nook or cranny with the essentials of a celebration station: a helium tank, balloons, ribbon, cards, pens, party hats, banners, candles, and a lighter. A deluxe celebration station may also include wrapping paper, loaded gift cards, branded cards or swag, stickers, cake cutter, forks, plates and postage stamps.
• Put your masterpiece on display. Change your team’s behavior (I know, it’s hard) from messaging you to organize an occasion and instead empower them to use the fully stocked celebration station to prep their own party. They can blow up balloons, create a card, and even have candles for the birthday cake.

Now decide how much ownership of the celebration process you’re willing to give up. Will you give your team license to streamline the process? Or will you order the cake, send a calendar invite, and create the mini get-togethers? Either way, you’ve crowdsourced some of the setup, saved yourself some time, and, most importantly, sparked your peers to be both thoughtful and more spontaneous about honoring each other.

All you have to do now is keep an occasional eye on how well stocked you are.

Keep calm and celebrate on!