We live in a society that seems to have a day for everything: Measure your feet day, national handwriting day, national pie day, national rhubarb pie day, and even kiss a shark week. Yes, kiss a shark week is real! We have all these days on top of birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, and holidays. But are we celebrating the small wins, achieved goals, and our team successes? Are we taking the time to acknowledge these every day wins?

Anytime we get our team together to celebrate some type of success, improvement, even a small step to the bigger goal, we can bring our employees closer together and give everyone a much-needed morale boost. We shouldn’t wait for just the big wins. Its important that we take the time to acknowledge the small wins when they happen. This way we can keep our team motivated and let them know that their efforts are appreciated. Don’t wait for the end of the month, or the quarterly business meeting. There will no doubt be larger things to recognize at these meetings, but most of the time the larger wins are because of a series of small steps taken to get there.

Celebrations are often the first things to go when the times get tough. Times like these make celebrating the small improvements even more important. If we continue to acknowledge the small wins during tough times, we show that there is trust and confidence in our team’s ability to weather the storm and come out stronger than before. It can be a long time between the big wins at your organization. Its important to have a way to recognize the small wins to build moral, and motivation, among your team. Once your team hits a certain objective, or point in a project, celebrate in a simple way. Often the best rewards for times like these are simple. Acknowledgement from leadership while sharing an extra cup of coffee on a break with your team is often all that is needed. Given the choice, I think most people would choose coffee over kissing a shark any day of the week!