In a world of high performance goals, monthly, quarterly and yearly targets, rarely do we slow down long enough to celebrate the wins that we have along the way. In most organizations today the company initiatives far outweigh the number of hours in a day to get them done. In Franklin Covey’s wildly popular Four Disciplines of Execution, in the initial surveys that were conducted only 15% of the employees could name even one of the top three goals their leaders and identified. The other 85% named what they thought was the goal, but if often didn’t’ remotely resemble what their leaders had said.
What was determined from their findings was that working on any more than 2 initiatives at any one time means that rarely are any of the initiatives accomplished. We know this to be true, and yet we continue to pile on initiative after initiative and wonder why we never accomplish anything. The fact is, this is the state of our society. We truly believe we can get it all done, rather than methodically working our way through 2 initiatives at a time.
With many of us feeling as though we are in a perpetual state of “going through the motions” and dealing with the day-to-day urgency that the whirlwind creates, the need to celebrate small wins is higher than ever.
A study was recently conducted by The Harvard Business School. They studied how everyday life inside organizations can influence people and their performance. After analyzing nearly 12,000 diary entries from 238 employees in seven companies they found something very interesting:
“The efforts of tracking small achievements every day enhanced the workers motivation. The practice of recording our progress helps us appreciate our small wins which in turn boosts our sense of confidence. We can then leverage that competence toward future, larger successes. This is because any accomplishment, no matter how small, activates the reward circuitry of our brains. When this pathway is opened some key chemicals are released that give us a feeling of achievement and pride.”
So what the people in the study had essentially created was an addiction to progress. Pretty amazing, isn’t it?
What would happen if you started tracking your small wins and not just what you didn’t get done?
Step One: Start recording the small wins you have each week. Ask your staff to do the same.
Step Two: At your weekly meetings (or at least once per month), have everyone share their small wins and celebrate them together.