Mailing Confetti

I put in a little extra work time on the weekend catching up on a task for a client. It involved a bunch of confetti.

The final session of the custom leadership incubator program we piloted at Indwell this spring focussed on how to use The Power of Celebration to be healthier and more effective leaders.

It’s not something that leaders I work with all come to intuitively. But it is something we can learn, improve, build practices to grow, and intentionally make a part of the culture of our organizations.

It often seems like the higher you are on the org chart, the less need for and predisposition for celebration you are likely to have. (Thankfully there are some wonderful exceptions).

In our Zoom session we talked about looking for things we are CAPABLE of celebrating:

Creativity: New ideas, interesting problem solving, content that captures attention…

Accomplishments: Finished projects, quarterly goals, certifications and awards…

People: Those who contribute to all these areas in so many ways…

Advances: Progress, baby steps, giant leaps, every bit of gained ground…

Behaviour: The acts, words, and rhythms that contribute to our successes and culture…

Luck: The unexpected, the serendipitous, the blessings, the surprises…

Evidence of impact: The stories and statistics that remind us of why we do all this stuff…

I know the daily demands of real life leadership mean that these leaders will find it hard to continually look for and take time to celebrate all these good things. Understanding the power of celebration doesn’t mean much if we are too caught up in all the other stuff to do it.

So sometime in the next week or so each participant in this recent custom leadership program will receive a small package containing a reminder of what we worked on together, and a small ziplock bag of confetti to keep on their desk (or their fridge at home) as a reminder to look for opportunities to celebrate the things that make our work worthwhile.