Celebrate Your Wins: The Key to Good Morale and Happiness

I think I was a pretty effective operating executive when I was at Yahoo! But I admit that I ran my team and the business hard. While we hit our aggressive numbers, despite it being satisfying, it was also in retrospect probably mechanical and joyless. We didn’t celebrate our wins. We just went onto the next quarter and the next goal. 

This is pretty much how most type A individuals live their lives and run their teams. Get the win and then move onto the next thing. This becomes an endless death march, especially for teams. They get burned out. 

I learned to do things better when I was at 500 Startups and my SF-based team lived the motto “Have Fun, Get Sh-t Done” and for the first 4-5 years it really worked out well. I’d like to think we accomplished a lot but also enjoyed the process along the way. 

The lesson I take from this is that you need to celebrate the small wins,  both personally and for your team. They are important touch-points and great moments to slowdown and reflect on what you accomplished. It’s a good rite to celebrate. Then you have proper closure to jump into the next big thing. 

And hopefully enjoy the journey a lot more too. As the cliche goes, the journey is everything. This seems to be a much more sustainable way to work. Treat your life like a fun marathon and not a painful sprint.