The trigger to examine celebrations in organisations was an encounter with a group of managers who seemed to have difficulty relating to the idea of ‘celebrating’ and could go no further than to fall back on the idea of ‘celebrating’ birthdays of colleagues at the workplace – a birthday card crowded with signatures and a round of the customary cake-cutting, a few attempts to prise words out of the boss, and the person whose birthday it is. All over in less than fifteen minutes. Perhaps we enter organizations with a ‘Celebration Deficiency Syndrome’ (CDD).

Organizations tend to emphasise purpose, roles, obligations, competencies and regulation. They sometimes overlook the fact that people are sentient beings. There are implicit rules that asks one to keep feelings out of the workplace or call for only certain feelings to be allowed in. So, one brings a part in – never mind if you feel disassembled. Ironically, once in, you are supposed to be creative, motivated, energetic, vibrant, dashing, enthusiastic, positive-thinking, resilient, persevering, sensitive, empathetic… it’s a long list. As if they have nothing to do with feelings that people walk into the workplace with… As if feelings, competitiveness, envy, jealousies are non-existent.

The kind of organisation culture and climate has a significant bearing on what expression is considered sanctioned and legitimate, what forums for expression will get set up, what will be celebrated and how. Consider some examples:

In some organizations, celebrations are ritualised: everyone knows what is to happen, what will be said and done. Hasn’t it been the same year after year? Each one knows his part, faithfully deploys the known and familiar script, knowing that if he didn’t, his loyalty may be up for question. People join in grudgingly, come together, but carry back little sense of togetherness, can’t wait to get it over with, too scared to question. An undertone of fear and potential exclusion binds everyone. Time stand still and celebrations as a marker of time and movement takes on a circular quality much like the dial in a clock that goes around within the same confined space, visiting the same familiar spots.

Consider another organisation: Here, individual acts of courage and heroism are very much the norm, a system where everyone rides the high-energy wave, each jostling for a place under the sun, each out to prove something – celebration, here, has all the ingredients of pomp and show, winners bring their bragging rights and the keenness to outdo the previous splash of ‘indulge and expend’. Who in such a system has time for reflection?

Have you encountered organizations where everything is planned in meticulous detail? They probably even benchmark themselves on a different scale – the ‘Celebration Maturity Model Level’. Organizations such as these rarely showcase the individual and lay great store in the discipline with which they approach things. There is greater emphasis on recognition rather than rewards. They extol the virtue of duty above all else. Celebrations are tributes to role-boundedness and sacrifice at the individual level, occasions to reinforce the values of programmed existence, a reminder of the gap between the normative ideal and the present with exhortations to bridge it. Celebrations are thus tempered by sober judgment and appropriate expression.

The instrumentalising of the self is to my mind one of the principal barriers to celebration. There are organisations that are very goals-focused, ambitious; there is time only to keep running or scale new peaks,  add new competences, stay focused and be the best that one can. Celebration revolves around success and achievement, a momentary pause squeezed between busy schedules, for conferring/acquiring of visible symbols of recognition. There is lavishness that begs for leisurely unhurried enjoyment and appreciation but is sadly neglected. They are opportunities for self-promotion, visibility and network enlargement. Experiencing suffers. Reflection is an after-thought.

And then there are the few organisations that avow to value differences and emphasise a sense of community. They seek to, and often struggle with, balancing members’ ego needs and organisational non-discriminant communal philosophy, between a task-focus and community ambience, between valuing the individual and evaluating his outputs. In such organisations, expression, reflection and communion are common. Everything is one great collective struggle and is a celebration of vibrancy, of inclusiveness, togetherness, and the recognition that everyone is jointly and severally responsible for all the meaningful endeavours they have embarked on, contributions and victories.

Feelings are the fuel that energises the individual. The individual in the organisation is fragmented, an instrument, often trained and rewarded to to be a workhorse rather than an artist, a resource rather than human. Far too often, organisations focus on the gap vis-à-vis some benchmark or on lacunae in individuals and the system and overlook the considerable distance traveled. Such an approach tends to be energising and damaging to a realistic appraisal of competence and worth.

Celebration may be a means to restore humanity to oneself – to feel wholesome and joyfully acknowledge the part he / she plays, discover the power of valuing, sharing and evocation, restore energy and bring vibrancy, generate hope and most of all a sense of well-being.

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