How to Celebrate the Small Wins in a Startup
medium.dave-bailey.com
medium.dave-bailey.com
We’re fortunate in that we have had meaningful revenue from new customers every few months, so closing deals is a clear “moment to feel good.” However, I don’t think those “highs” are actually how we tend to celebrate most commonly between the three of us.
Our first hire had a tendency to say to each of us, at random different moments of gratitude, “I appreciate you.” That sentence is so powerful and celebratory, we’ve integrated it into our common language between one another.
When my co-founder is slogging through b.s. state paperwork for benefits, a simple: “I appreciate you” goes a long way. Because him getting over that hurdle IS a WIN, it just feels like Chinese water torture in the moment.
Give it a try sometime with a team member who just gave you a great code review, or your partner in finance who just reviewed that crazy contract for you. Small wins abound, and showing appreciation is a great way to celebrate.
So either they celebrate banalities or they don't celebrate at all...
This doesn't have to be formalised into a slot in an 'all hands' or 'TGIF' type meeting, if anything that takes away from the sincerity of it, sometimes. Can feel forced.
One particular point I want to emphasise: thank individuals for their work. Be very precise about attribution of credit. Don't thank managers publicly, even if they contributed meaningfully (if they did, thank them privately of course). Part of the deal of being a good manager is understanding that you take more responsibility than credit, so never say "thanks to <manager> and team for delivering X".
If a whole team contributed, thank each member in turn and try to pick out what they each specifically did. If you're not sure who in the team contributed, ask. Never say "thanks team" or "thanks guys" if only 1 or 2 people did any of the work.
For individual contributors nothing is more demoralising, and makes it clearer that people at the top of the company aren't really that interested in them, than this kind of misattribution of credit for the work they've put so much effort into. It's almost better to say nothing at all. This is really important and most companies and people running companies get it wrong.