Hardwiring a Winning Small Business Culture
A winning team is an energized team. Celebrate the wins to increase employee engagement, productivity, and performance.
If you’re reading this, you have cause to celebrate. What we’ve been through since the pandemic is breathtaking. I don’t know of any small business leader who hasn’t experienced widespread and sudden change since 2020.
It’s time to celebrate the wins. Your wins as a business leader and the wins among your employees. A winning team is an energized team. And an energized team performs with higher engagement, productivity, and performance.
Celebrate the wins, so you create more wins in the future.
At Inspiring HR, we uncomplicate HR and empower small businesses. Here are just a few of our clients’ wins that you’ve likely had, too, which you should celebrate:
- Embracing a hybrid or all-remote employment model
- Keeping great team members in a highly competitive job market
- Correcting difficult employee interactions without incurring labor law risks
- Getting the right hiring and retention practices in place
- Converting your employee files to paperless
- Winning an unemployment claim because your documentation and process was ironclad
You might think celebrating the wins is just a feel-good move with ROI. It’s anything but!
BJ Fogg, Ph.D., a scientist at Stanford University, teaches the Fogg Behavioral Model, which he calls “Tiny Habits.” (His book has over 3,800 5-star reviews.)
Fogg’s groundbreaking work on breaking negative habits and creating positive habits requires that we celebrate to make good habits stick. His research shows that we change best when we feel good.
So celebrate the wins. Big and small. Your wins and your team’s wins.
Celebrating the wins also helps us to overcome Negativity Bias. This cognitive bias results in adverse events having a more significant impact on our psychological state than positive events.
I suspect you’ve had your share of challenges and setbacks in the last few years. Because of our brain’s bias for negativity, we remember the bad more acutely than the good.
So celebrate the wins, so you remember the Big Picture: the good things, along with the not-so-good.
You may have experienced setbacks but also demonstrated resilience, strength, and overcoming challenge. You may have learned valuable lessons. That’s cause for celebration!
Celebrate the wins, so you feel more optimistic, confident, and committed to creating more wins.
How to Hardwire a Winning Small Business Culture
Personal
- Write down 3 wins for the day. They could be small wins or big wins.
- At the end of the week, count up your wins.
- Then celebrate!
During Check-Ins With Employees
- Recognize your employees for their wins and contributions to the company
- Invite them to share their wins.
- You might learn that your employees are bringing even more value to the company than you realized!
During All-Hands Meetings
- Kickoff the meeting by celebrating recent wins
- Acknowledge employees for their wins and contributions
- Encourage employees to recognize their colleagues
- Celebrate together
You might be facing uphill battles right now. There may be any number of challenges weighing on you. It’s understandable to be focused on what’s not working, so you can plan and execute strategically and effectively.
But don’t neglect the power of celebrating the wins. A winning team is an energized team. And that positive energy can be vital in helping your business win in the future.
Interested in other current employment trends? Click the link to view the recent blog: Top HR Small Business Needs Checklist or check back for more on human resources, payroll, insurance, and benefits.
This article does not constitute legal advice, and there are subtle variations in employment law as it pertains to this topic, depending on where your business operates. It is strongly suggested that you seek consultation or legal counsel before making policy decisions.
