A Culture of Celebration: The Impact of Workplace Recognition

There is a saying “What gets rewarded, gets repeated. What gets punished, gets avoided”. It shouldn’t sound new to most people, its virtually the cardinal rule of behaviour change and employed by every parent on the planet; but I think there is room to turn up the heat on the reward part in most businesses (and better still, these rewards are not financially based).

Many years ago, I worked with a company that focused on celebration and recognition, as a specific tactic to drive sales of a high value line of product. The way this would work was that whenever a sales team member made a sale of that product, the surrounding team members would actively cheer, ring bells and congratulate that salesperson for their efforts. Two things stood out too me when I first saw this in action:

1. It was not only the other sales team members who celebrated the sale, it was also the back of house, the business leaders, and even the finance and payroll people.

2. It was genuine excitement. There was not a single shred of resentment or jealously from any of the other team members.

Every person in the organisation was aligned in celebrating the win, and because of this the salespeople were actively trying harder to sell the high value product line. It should be no surprise then that this product line saw much higher sales and growth than other lines.

What impressed me more was that celebrating was truly part of the culture of the company. Team members would constantly high five each other and congratulate each other on tasks and projects that moved the organisation towards their goal. Embedding celebration into the culture created a ripple effect of positivity.

One of the best examples of this celebration culture was highlighted by Steve Wynn of the famous Wynn hotel group. Every morning meeting with staff, the duty manager asks the team if they have any stories to share of experiences with guests where they went above and beyond the call of duty. These stories are then not only publicly praised by the team in attendance, but for the truly fantastic stories, the company’s story telling department gets involved.

The storytelling department photograph the storyteller, blow up the photo and post it the back of house, and publish the story on the company intranet, ultimately capturing the most amazing stories to use as examples for new employees, and in marketing. These stories truly exemplify the highest levels of service. One memorable story involved a bellhop:

An older couple had driven three and half hours to come to stay at one of the Wynn hotel properties and during the lift ride up to their room with the bellhop, the women discovered she had mistakenly left her husband’s diabetes medication at home on the kitchen counter. The bellhop overhearing the panic beginning to take over, asks where they live, has them call their housekeeper to check and confirm the medication is on the counter, then lets them know that his brother lives nearby and will be by later that day to collect the medication and to let the housekeeper know. He assures them they will have their medication promptly the next day.

After escorting the couple to their room, the bellhop speaks to his manager and arranges for his shift at the hotel to be covered the following day. He calls his brother who swings by to collect the medication, and then he drives the seven hour round trip to collect the medication and bring it directly back to the older couple.

When telling this story Steve Wynn finished by saying “For that couple, this was no longer a hotel, this was wonderland.”

By celebrating “above and beyond” behaviour, Wynn’s storytelling department shares between fifty to eighty stories like this every week!

With the team actively looking for opportunities to impress and be recognised for their efforts, this type of positive celebration culture not only creates incredible experiences for customers, but it also damn near guarantees them!

When truly above and beyond service is received, customers aren’t just happy either, they become brand zealots actively marketing and advocating to their network (and anyone who will listen) about how they were taken care of and looked after. Leading of course to more referrals and new customers.

The other great flow on effect from this is that with constant celebration, the teams are happier, more engaged and stick around in their jobs longer, reducing churn and allowing for a more consistent experience.

When a business embraces celebrating the behaviours they want to see repeated and focuses on building positive culture, the sky is the limit.

Sell with success!

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” – Peter Drucker.