LET’S DANCE!
I almost got shot the other day! One of my business coaching clients called me to tell me about a very successful meeting that they had just completed that ended in them getting a very important new customer. This was a real tough one and one that we had worked on to create a powerful strategy plan to sue in the coming meeting…and the plan worked!
Well I was driving and I got so excited from my client that I began cheering and honking my car horn. Evidently the gentleman driving next to me could not understand my sudden and unbridled excitement for my clients’ success and because of his lack of understanding, mistakenly assumed that I was honking at him, which based on his reaction was a direct affront to his family’s good name or something like that. Anyway, he began yelling at me. I couldn’t make out what he was saying thank goodness. He was also making some very strong gestures of which I’m sure was some kind of foreign sign language that he expected me to understand. So as anyone would do, I did what I thought was the right thing. I turned on my turn signal and turned into a neighborhood. Luckily he didn’t follow.
My point dear friends is that it is important, no, necessary for you to celebrate your wins and the wins of others everyday of the year. You literally need to look for the opportunities and reasons to celebrate. I don’t care how small the win, you MUST celebrate! Make it a point to do a companywide “happy Dance” when something good happens to you; an employee; a partner; a spouse; children or friends.
Sam Walton, the venerable man behind Wal-Mart, made it a point of management style and company culture to actively find employees doing something RIGHT. Watch for them doing something really well or over and above the so-called “call of duty”. And his reasoning was simple. Most other business management cultures are based on catching people doing something wrong or incorrectly. Come on, admit, that’s the way it is. However, in reverse, if you constantly praise and celebrate as a matter of culture, when it does come time and is necessary to reprimand then that is the exception rather than the norm.
This strategy and attitude is applicable across the board as far as I’m concerned. It’s just as right for large companies as it is for very small companies. So make it a point to celebrate every time you, an employee or your spouse or children turn hard work into success.
Make it a point to find reasons to celebrate.
With all the things that make business ownership or management a challenge today it’s up to the owner, the leadership, the manager, the salesperson to step up and do something that’s easy and just simply something that is the right thing to do. Let’s celebrate individual and team success.
Come on people, let’s dance!
Let me know if I can show you some steps, and as always….
Be Great,
Coach Dan