Imagine attending a banquet, and learning when you arrive that there would be 54 speeches throughout the evening. Not three, not five… 54. How do you think you might feel at the end of the evening? Invigorated? Inspired? Uplifted? Surely not. But surprisingly, that was my exact experience last week.
Our oldest child graduated high school on Friday – a major milestone in its own right – and his school, New England Innovation Academy, marked the occasion the night before graduation in a beautiful way that might have something to offer each of us who works with a team. For some context, I managed and hosted the annual banquet for alumni and graduates of Harvard Extension School’s degree programs for close to ten years – which helped me to see the differences between banquet leadership, potluck leadership, and Thanksgiving leadership – so I am on the lookout for what we can learn from events like this. Still, NEIA’s Celebration of Graduates Dinner was unlike any banquet I’d been to before.
New England Innovation Academy, a middle and high school, is a start-up – this is its fourth year – and the innovation in its name is engrained in its methodology and pedagogy, with human-centered design and experiential education at the heart of its integrated curriculum. The size of the school – around 120 students this past year – means that the school is nimble and able to try new things, and it also means that students and staff all know each other well, with a tight-knit and supportive community. This was on display throughout the evening.
Over the course of the dinner, each of the 27 graduating students made their way to the podium (they didn’t know in which order they’d be called; they were prompted by the MC showing a baby picture of them on the big screen, along with playing their chosen 20-second snippet of music). They each delivered a short speech reflecting on their time at the school, or their educational career to date, and anything else they wanted to share – words of thanks, words of encouragement, and words of wisdom. The speeches were surprisingly moving. Even more emotional was what happened next; after each student spoke, a member of staff – often a teacher, but sometimes a member of security, or dining services – joined them at the podium to share their own thoughtful and personal tribute about that student. In each of these 27 cases, this was someone who knew the student well, and who had taken time to outline specific memories, forgotten stories, or ways that they had learned from the student. Each speech honored the graduating student for who they are and what they brought to their community. It was absolutely beautiful, with nary a dry eye in the room by the end of the night.
While most companies and organizations I know host annual celebrations of some kind, I would bet that most don’t bring with them the personal touch, the honor, and the respect that this one did. But this level of respect can be possible in corporate celebrations too – especially on a team level. So how can your team find some of the same touchpoints, in ways that are unique to you?
This Week’s Tip:
- If you lead a team: Start to plan a celebration of your team that allows each person to have their voice heard. This can be in-person (ideal) or online (if it works best for your team) and it will need the team to be involved beforehand: asking each person to share recent projects / accomplishments they’re proud of can be part of the event, but asking them to do that without warning will not feel like a celebration. Consider different ways to acknowledge each person that don’t all come from you – as a manager you could hopefully list a number of specific things each person has done well, but it will be more meaningful (and build a stronger team) if each person is involved in acknowledging as well as receiving. One option would be for people to prepare an acknowledgement of the person (as in the banquet example above); another option would be to ask someone to volunteer in the moment to acknowledge the person; you could also consider having people submit written acknowledgements ahead of time (ask people to be as specific as possible, avoiding pleasantries like “you’re awesome,” “amazing job” etc.), but to keep the personal touch, have someone read them aloud during the event.
- If you don’t lead a team: Consider other ways you can celebrate your teammates. This might take the form of writing personal notes (handwritten notes are especially powerful), but it could also simply be a practice of telling your teammates when you see them do something that was effective, that you liked, that you’re learning from, or that made your day easier in some way. Ask yourself: How have the people around you made you better? If you can do this in a group setting so other teammates can hear the acknowledgement too, so much the better, but you can also use your knowledge of the other person to make a judgement call – would a public acknowledgement be meaningful to them, or would it embarrass them to the point of them not really hearing it? Find ways to deliver the acknowledgement that make sense for the person receiving it.
Try these out this week, and let us know how it goes – we’d love to hear from you.
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Building Bridges Leadership 