celebration as one-to-many communication
Leaders self-handicap, often, by skimping on award-giving and other forms of celebration of work well done. This is one of those cheap incentives you control when you’re running the little nano-economy of your team.
One mistake leaders can make is thinking that an award is mostly or even solely about the feelings of the recipient. Some leaders refrain from giving awards or celebrating because they think the recipient will be embarrassed or doesn’t like the spotlight. These leaders can overlook the fact that they are communicating to the whole team when they celebrate and award. Even an award that recognizes a single person, rather than a team or the whole org, is a one-to-many message, not a one-to-one message that everyone else gets to eavesdrop on.
Whether these words are printed on a plaque the recipient gets or not, you’re saying to the whole crew: “this is the kind of thing we value around here. We’re the kind of place that cares about x.”
By default, your people want your approval, even if the idea of accepting an award in front of a crowd gives them the howling fantods. They want your approval, even if they have a Gen X slacker / Millennial self-doubt / Gen Z stare sort of take on Your Whole Deal – those same skeptics, of whatever generation, often understand the nanoeconomics that surround them. They want security and they want to get ahead. They see the incentive underneath the award.
Style, delivery, tone of the celebration - those can all be customized to your team and culture. Some places get a lot of mileage out of awards that are deliberately ugly or low-status.
The part that’s important to nail with at least some part of your incentive economy is celebrating specifically. You’re awarding a discrete choice or move that all the other observers can make, too, in their own contexts. If “what we care about around here” is something that is impossible for others to do, like “being Ben”, your one-to-many message will be a frustrating, enervating one. If “what we care about around here” is something others can do, too, like “enacting our shared value of [truthseeking] by [redteaming the hell out of a proposal from the exec team]”, that message can directly motivate others to do that thing.
-eric
