Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Many organizations planning events work hard and plan for so many months in advance that celebrating the wins is often overlooked. There are multiple things to do, tasks to perform, and there are still just 24 hours in a day. But if we don’t stop and celebrate the good things as well as debrief the important things, we’ll be teams of event robots. Nobody wants that!

Celebrating can be simple and take a little time or it can be as elaborate as your imagination and budget can handle. And stick to celebrating! It’s got to be separate from the debrief. Don’t let conversations turn into a nit-picky, detail-crunching, roll-your-sleeves-up event debrief. Celebrate the wins and congratulate each other. Something good had to have happened, otherwise, the next conversation needs to be why you’re having the event in the first place.

If you’re a leader, it is especially important for you to be highlighting areas where each of your team members rose to the occasion. As the event unfolds, it is part of your job to be watching and guiding them. Let your team members know where they did great work or went above and beyond. Encourage them as they are developing in their role as part of your organization.

One quick and easy way to show someone you noticed them is to award them with a “Silly Award.” Volunteers we worked with in the past have enjoyed this little surprise and it creates a fun, celebratory atmosphere after the event. It also lets them know our team took time to think about each one of them personally. You can absolutely create your own, but here are five examples:

• The Duct Tape Award – for being able to fix anything
• The Swiss Army Knife Award – for being indispensable
• The Single File Award – for being able to keep people in line
• The Wikipedia Award – for having an answer for everything
• The Bunsen Burner Award – for having the hottest ideas

And don’t forget the value of a hand-written thank you note. People still get excited over receiving a piece of snail mail that is not an advertisement or a bill but a card addressed just to them. It lets them know they’ve been thought about. Celebrate people!

If you would like more ideas, I’d be happy to talk through some with you.
Send me an email and let’s set up a time to chat.

Know an event planner? Send this blog their way~it’s chock-full of helpful tidbits!