#66 Celebrate Your Performance Successes

If you've been monitoring your business or team or personal performance for some time, you should celebrate! Even if you still haven't achieved your targets, or even if you still haven't got any significant performance improvements, celebration should be a regular part of managing your business performance.

3 important reasons to celebrate performance successes

Firstly, celebration injects positive feelings into the typically dry experience performance management. Performance measurement most certainly is not just about the numbers. It's about the kind of change we want in the things that matter to us, the things we care about or have strong feelings about. Celebrating performance successes firmly funnels our attention on great things we have achieved, however small. It helps dilute the sting of negative results or negative feedback, which human nature funnels our attention toward with far greater bias than the positive results.

Secondly, celebration builds momentum toward your performance targets. Particularly when you set staged targets along the timeframe to your ultimate targets, celebrating the progress along the way consolidates what's working, and reminds you that you do have influence and control over your performance results.

Thirdly, celebration reminds you what matters most. The spotlight of celebration keeps your attention on what you want more of, doesn't distract you with over emphasis on what you want less of. It's too easy for performance management to be all about fixing problems. Where attention goes, energy flows. Where do you want the energy in your business to flow?

But what kinds of successes can you celebrate?

Decide on some small goals along the way to having that complete performance dashboard that tells you all you need to know about your business results. Celebrating these goals will remind you of the positives of measuring performance, build on your momentum toward your targets, and . Consider celebrating goals like these:

* Celebrate when you have finally chosen a set of performance measures that your team feel excited about, or at the very least feel committed to reporting and using.
* Celebrate when you have brought a measure to life - even just one measure - so that you are now getting the data and using the measure to make your decisions that little bit wiser!
* Celebrate when you find out why performance isn't where you want it to be, and you now have more choices - better choices - for how to influence that performance.
* Celebrate when you see your performance measure respond to the improvements you are making.
* Celebrate when you see your performance measure not responding at all to the improvement you are making (you've learned what doesn't work - very important).
* Celebrate achieving staged targets along the way to your ultimate targets. It helps if you make the earlier targets easier, gradually building the challenge in proportion to the momentum each achievement adds.
* And of course, celebrate when you achieve your ultimate targets!

How do you celebrate performance successes?

There are lots of ways you can celebrate progress along your journey of business performance management. But do choose those that mean something to your staff, that, given their values, they will truly appreciate.

* Consider an awards ceremony (serious or light-hearted) to reward and recognise people that have played special roles in achieving the current performance successes.
* Have a party! Just make sure the reason for the party is clear - perhaps theme it along the lines of the performance win it celebrates (e.g. a birthday party for your new performance measures).
* Reinvest some of the gains from performance improvement, like saved time, saved money or additional revenue, into the workplace for everyone to enjoy - a coffee machine, a massage chair, weekly fresh flower deliveries, bowls of fresh fruit every day. Whatever your staff would most appreciate.
* And many times, a simple heartfelt "thank you" is all that's needed.

What you and your team recently achieved in your management of business performance? Have you celebrated it yet? Drop me an email and let me know how you celebrate it!