Building Community Spirit With Your Group Through Celebrations

As members of your organization interact on more than just a professional level, they're likely to come to know and care about one another. When you have a high level of participation not just in the work itself but in the celebration of achievements, you reinforce people's common stake in reaching their goals.

Celebrations, whether to recognize the accomplishment of one person or to cheer the achievements of many, are opportunities to promote individual self-esteem, but also opportunities for leaders to build healthier groups. Highly visible public recognition builds the self-esteem of the recipients, and it builds a sense of community and belonging, of working together to achieve shared goals and shared victories.

Making people feel included is a central function of any celebration, and the more people you can encourage through well designed and participatory celebrations, the more your organization's people grow close. We all want to feel that we are part of the team, but it's even more important to feel part of something larger than ourselves. Celebrations, as well as participation in developing celebrations increase the sense of belonging. In particular, participatory celebrations bring people together so that information can be exchanged, relationships can be nourished, and a sense of shared destiny can be sustained.

By making achievements public, you encourage the person being recognized and the hearts of those who witness the award. You build a culture in which people feel that their efforts are appreciated and even applauded. People who count themselves as members of this community can find meaning and purpose here. Besides, knowing that we have alternatives, who really wants to work for a place that has no ritual or ceremony - a boring place that celebrates nothing?

David Campbell, senior fellow with the Center for Creative Leadership, says it so well: "A leader who ignores or impedes organizational ceremonies and considers them as frivolous or 'not cost-effective' is ignoring the rhythms of history and our collective conditioning. Ceremonies are the punctuation marks that make sense of the passage of time. Without them, there are no beginnings and endings. Life becomes an endless series of Wednesdays." So, if you're tired of an endless series of Wednesdays, take time out to celebrate something.