Celebrating Team Successes

𝗧𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆, 𝗣𝗠𝗜 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗳𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗱𝘆 𝘄𝗲’𝘃𝗲 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 - 𝗼𝗻 𝗮 𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗶𝗰 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗰𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝘁𝗼 𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻: 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁 𝗦𝘂𝗰𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀. 📚 Read the report: https://lnkd.in/ekRmSj_h With this report, we are introducing a simple and scalable way to measure project success. A successful project is one that 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘃𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗳𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗲, as perceived by key stakeholders. This clearly represents a shift for our profession, where beyond execution excellence we also feel accountable for doing anything in our power to improve the impact of our work and the value it generates at large. The implications for project professionals can be summarized in a framework for delivering 𝗠𝗢𝗥𝗘 success: 📚𝗠anage Perceptions For a project to be considered successful, the key stakeholders - customers, executives, or others - must perceive that the project’s outcomes provide sufficient value relative to the perceived investment of resources. 📚𝗢wn Project Success beyond Project Management Success Project professionals need to take any opportunity to move beyond literal mandates and feel accountable for improving outcomes while minimizing waste. 📚𝗥elentlessly Reassess Project Parameters Project professionals need to recognize the reality of inevitable and ongoing change, and continuously, in collaboration with stakeholders, reassess the perception of value and adjust plans. 📚𝗘xpand Perspective All projects have impacts beyond just the scope of the project itself. Even if we do not control all parameters, we must consider the broader picture and how the project fits within the larger business, goals, or objectives of the enterprise, and ultimately, our world. I believe executives will be excited about this work. It highlights the value project professionals can bring to their organizations and clarifies the vital role they play in driving transformation, delivering business results, and positively impacting the world. The shift in mindset will encourage project professionals to consider the perceptions of all stakeholders- not just the c-suite, but also customers and communities. To deliver more successful projects, business leaders must create environments that empower project professionals. They need to involve them in defining - and continuously reassessing and challenging - project value. Leverage their expertise. Invest in their work. And hold them accountable for contributing to maximize the perception of project value at all phases of the project - beyond excellence in execution. 📚 Please read the report, reflect on its findings, and share it broadly. And comment! Project Management Institute #ProjectSuccess #PMI #Leadership #ProjectManagementToday

Your team should not have to chase recognition. Great leaders go looking for it. And y’all, I think this becomes even more important as teams grow. It is easy to recognize the people you work with every day. The harder part is noticing the wins you do not personally see. That is something I’ve had to become very intentional about at Studio Grow. As we’ve grown, I realized that if I only celebrated the work closest to me, I would end up praising the same people over and over. Not because they were the only ones doing great work. Because they were the most visible. So before team meetings, I started asking our leaders: 👏 “Tell me what your team has done exceptionally well.” That question matters because great work does not always announce itself. Sometimes it is: ✨ The coach who helped a client get a major win ⚙️ The operations person who quietly fixed a broken system 🤝 The team member who made someone else’s job easier and never said a word about it Recognition should not depend on visibility. It should reflect contribution. And I’ve learned that some people are uncomfortable receiving praise at first. They blush, deflect, or say, “It wasn’t that big of a deal.” But it is. People need to know their work matters. When people feel seen, they take more ownership, collaborate better, and lead with more confidence. Clapping for someone else does not make your success smaller. It makes the whole team stronger. Who’s someone on your team who deserves recognition this week? P.S. For more posts about leadership, team growth, and entrepreneurship, follow Lise Kuecker. And if y’all want more honest conversations about building businesses and leading well, sign up for my weekly newsletter, Growth Factor: bit.ly/Growth_Factor

Want to know Google’s secret to employee motivation? It’s so simple, any founder can start using it today: At Google, I’ve seen firsthand how recognition fuels engagement, collaboration, and retention. And surprisingly, it doesn’t take much—just a simple system called Peer Bonus. Here’s how it works: STEP 1 — Nomination Anyone can nominate a colleague for going beyond their core role. STEP 2 — Reward It comes with a small financial reward, but the real power is in public appreciation—managers, teams, and leadership see the impact. STEP 3 — Magic happens A ripple effect starts—when people feel valued, they contribute more. I’ve seen this in action countless times. A Googler helps another team solve a problem outside their immediate scope. Their contribution gets recognized with a peer bonus. Soon, others step up to do the same. Recognition becomes a habit, and collaboration follows. Why this matters (beyond Google): ✔ Motivation thrives on appreciation When people feel valued, they don’t wait to be told to go the extra mile, they just do it. ✔ Recognition builds culture No expensive perks required. Just a commitment to making great work visible. ✔ Startups can do this today No need for a formal system. A quick shoutout at a weekly meeting or a Slack highlight can have the same effect. 3 ways founders can build a culture of recognition: 1 — Start every meeting with a shoutout Take 2 minutes to acknowledge great work from the past week. It sets the tone for a culture of appreciation. 2 — Make recognition public Whether it's a Slack message, an email, or a team-wide announcement, make sure others see and celebrate contributions. 3 — Give specific feedback Don’t just say “Great job!” Be specific: “Avi helped us achieve X by doing Y. The total impact was Z.” Founders: How do you make sure your team feels seen and valued? #LifeAtGoogle

A Product Manager is nothing without the development team, who make the product vision a reality. Yet, as a PM, it's so easy to forget oneself and take all the glory for a release success. Here are 10 ways to ensure your team feels appreciated and recognized: 1) Celebrate Team Achievements Publicly Always acknowledge the team's hard work in company meetings, emails, or on social media. A public shout-out boosts morale and shows that you value their contributions. Perhaps invite a team member to join or replace you in a big presentation of a successful release. 2) Share Credit Generously When discussing successes, use "we" instead of "I". Highlight individual contributions and how they impacted the project's success. I often forget that even though I truly believe in every word of this post. 3) Provide Growth Opportunities Offer team members opportunities to learn new skills or take on new responsibilities. Investing in their growth shows you care about their professional development. Work with their team leader so everyone has a varied set of tasks to complete to make the work interesting. 4) Listen Actively Make time to hear your team's ideas and concerns. Active listening fosters a collaborative environment where everyone feels heard and valued. Never skip a retro! 5) Give Constructive Feedback Provide timely and constructive feedback that helps team members improve and grow. Be specific about what they did well and where they can enhance their skills. Remember to provide negative feedback privately. 6) Recognize Efforts Not Just Results Acknowledge the hard work and dedication, even if the project didn't turn out as expected. This encourages a culture of effort and resilience. 7) Foster a Positive Team Culture Encourage teamwork and camaraderie. Organize team-building activities or informal gatherings to strengthen relationships. It can be as trivial as taking lunch together. 8) Be Transparent Share information about your vision, company goals, and any changes. Transparency builds trust and shows respect for the team's role in the bigger picture. Be there corporate ally/ 9) Empower Decision-Making Allow team members to make decisions in their areas of expertise. This trust empowers them and increases their investment in the project's success. 10) Express Gratitude Personally A simple "thank you" can go a long way. Take the time to personally thank team members for their contributions. Name the success so it is not a lazy, generic gratitude. There you have it, my 10 tips to ensure your development team feels valued and appreciated. Do you agree with these suggestions? Which ones do you already practice? What's your number 11 advice? Share your thoughts in the comments! #productmanagement #productmanager #teamappreciation 📌 P.S. To become a great Product Manager who leads with appreciation, check out my courses at www.drbartpm.com :)

You can’t move fast without clarity. Speed without direction does not quarantee any progress. When we look at the key drivers of project success, one factor stands out: a clear vision of what success actually means. PMI’s latest Project Success research makes this very tangible: 💠 Projects with a clear vision achieve a Net Project Success Score of +41. 💠 Projects without one drop to –18. That’s a 59-point gap driven by clarity alone. Clarity, however, doesn’t stop at vision. The most successful project professionals measure outcomes, not just outputs. They apply what PMI calls the measurement trifecta: 1. Define success upfront 2. Use a measurement system to guide decisions 3. Track progress toward outcomes throughout the project Projects that do all three see a +23 point lift in success compared to those that don’t. And here’s the shift I find most important. The strongest driver of success is not the framework or the methodology. It’s how project professionals see their role. Those who step beyond task execution and take ownership of outcomes expand their perspectives, understand their business partners, and multiply their impact. When all of these behaviors are present, success scores nearly triple. This is where project professionals become transformation leaders. So how do we get there? ▶️ Get clear on why the project exists. If you don’t know, ask, until you’re able to explain this to everyone with confidence. ▶️ Measure what truly matters, not just what’s easy and readily available in the existing dashboards. ▶️ Be willing to challenge constraints in the service of value. Step into ownership even when no one explicitly “gave permission”. You can’t move fast without clarity. And you can’t transform without owning outcomes. Where do you see the biggest gap today in the project management practice? Vision, measurement, or ownership? #ProjectSuccess #Leadership #Transformation

When I talk about recognition out in the wild, one of the things people are often surprised by is how much information is hiding inside a single message. If I send you a thumbs-up emoji, I've communicated a little something. You know I appreciate what you did. But you don't always know why. But when somebody takes the time to explain what you did, how you helped, what problem you solved, or why your contribution mattered, they're creating something much more valuable than a moment of appreciation. What they’re really doing here is describing how work gets done. And that’s incredibly valuable information.  At Workhuman Live last year, I showed a real recognition moment for one of our own people, Cameron Torre, after his recent promotion. The message itself was rich, but what really mattered was the pattern in the comments. Five independent people used the word “dedication.” Three different people described him as a natural leader. One colleague said that three or four months into the role, he had assumed Cam was already a VP because of how he showed up in the work. That is what I mean by information density. It wasn’t one manager making a call. It wasn’t one annual review. It was people who had worked with Cam, seen him in action, and used remarkably similar language to describe him. That's why recognition data has become so central in the age of AI. If somebody spends a little time explaining specifically why they're thanking a colleague, they're leaving behind dozens of signals about skills, expertise, leadership, collaboration, and trust. As an engineer, that's fascinating to me. And it is why a “well done, Bob” recognition program is not enough in an AI world. A quick emoji may create a nice moment, but there is no information density in it. The gold dust is in the paragraph, when someone explains what happened, why it mattered, and how that person made the work better. Recognition is a profoundly important thing for an individual, to motivate them and make them feel appreciated. But a recognition message is not just appreciation.  It's also one of the most rich sources of decision-level data a company can get.

Female economists are twice as likely to be denied tenure as their male colleagues. Yet it's not a productivity gap—before tenure review, men and women publish at similar rates in journals of comparable quality. One explanation lies in how collaborative work is recognized. When economists publish solo, women and men have identical tenure success rates. Every solo-authored paper raises the probability of tenure by about 8–9% for both. But once coauthored papers enter the picture, the two paths diverge. Men receive just as much credit for collaborative research as for solo work. Women, however, receive less than half as much credit when collaborating with other women. When women collaborate with male economists, those publications provide virtually no measurable boost to their tenure prospects. This is one of the examples we explore in The Science of Science: credit is not a direct readout of contribution. It's a judgment the scientific community makes, shaped by bias, familiarity, and status—and it can diverge sharply from who actually did the work. So what can we do? One approach is to make contributions explicit. Sociologists typically order authors by contribution rather than alphabetically. Tenure rates in sociology are comparable across genders, suggesting that making contributions explicit leaves less room for assumptions to shape evaluation. Another is to make credit allocation measurable. New computational tools can estimate how the scientific community attributes credit among collaborators. These tools don't completely eliminate bias, but they make an otherwise invisible process visible—helping us understand, and eventually improve, how recognition is distributed. As science becomes increasingly collaborative, improving how we allocate credit may be just as important as improving how we produce knowledge.

What Does Project Success Really Mean? You hit the deadline. You stayed on budget. But was the project really a success? We talk a lot about project delivery. But sometimes, a project can look “complete” on paper and still feel off. So, what does project success actually mean? Here’s what I’ve learned: It’s not just about finishing the project. It’s about delivering something that matters : to the right people, at the right time, in the right way. Here’s how I define success on any project (before I even build the plan): → 1. What does success look like for them? Your stakeholders’ version of success might not be the same as yours. Ask early. Align often. →  2. What problem are we solving? If no one can answer this in one sentence, you're not ready to start. Projects without purpose usually fail quietly. →  3. What does done actually mean? No vague language. Clear deliverables. Shared understanding. One source of truth. →  4. What does failure look like and how will we avoid it? Talk about risk. Talk about trade-offs. You can’t control everything, but you can plan better. →  5. What’s our plan to keep people aligned? Because even strong plans fall apart without strong communication. Successful project management doesn’t start with a tool. It starts with a shared definition of what matters. So if you’re about to start a new project, try asking this: 👉 “What does success look like and how will we know we’ve achieved it?” The answer might just change how you lead.

If you want stronger fundraising results this year, start with how you recognize your team. Research shows when employees feel valued, it leads to increased motivation, performance, and retention. In one of my favorite studies, fundraisers who received personal thanks from their manager increased their outreach by 50%. In advancement, recognition leads directly to increased fundraising outcomes. The good news: Recognizing your team doesn’t require extraordinary expense or effort—but it does require intentionality. Here are 15 ways you can put this into practice with your team: 1. Send a handwritten thank you note to your team member. 2. Acknowledge your team member’s accomplishments at an all-staff meeting. 3. Don’t miss the moment, such as after a meeting or presentation, to recognize what a team member did well and how it helps the organization. 4. Ask a senior academic leader (President, Dean, Provost, etc.) or advancement VP to personally thank a team member. 5. Start a team meeting by asking team members to acknowledge someone else on the team who helped them recently. 6. Extend access by inviting a team member to attend a strategy meeting or board meeting—a seat at the table they might not otherwise have access to. 7. Nominate your team member to lead or participate in a cross-functional committee that advances an important initiative for the organization. 8. Make a meaningful introduction to a trusted mentor in your network. 9. Create clarity on growth within your organization through a career pathways document. 10. Include learning and development goals as part of the performance evaluation process, not just fundraising metrics. 11. Acknowledge work anniversaries with university swag or a balloon at their desk. 12. Build a ritual to celebrate as a team when fundraisers close an aspirational gift. 13. Surprise a team member by sending a $5 Venmo for coffee to cheer them on when they’re en route to an early morning donor meeting or speaking at a conference. 14. Set up a thread (text/email/Slack) to celebrate your team’s Win of the Day (WOTD) where they can chime in with their progress and work wins. 15. Before you move on to the new fiscal year where the efforts start all over again, celebrate your team’s progress and accomplishments for the year. One of my favorite work memories was dreaming up and implementing a New Year’s Eve party (with party hats and confetti) in June to honor all of the work that went into a successful fundraising year. You don’t need to do all 15 at once. Start somewhere. Recognition builds connection, community, and culture in your advancement organization. What’s one of your favorite ways to recognize your team members?

𝐑𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐈𝐬 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐚 𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐞-𝐭𝐨-𝐇𝐚𝐯𝐞 Many leaders still think of recognition as a soft, optional thing. A “nice-to-have” once the real work is done. But here’s the truth: Recognition is a 𝗱𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿 𝗼𝗳 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲.   And a 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿.     And a 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲-𝗯𝘂𝗶𝗹𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗼𝗼𝗹. When people consistently do good work and it goes unnoticed, this is what happens: They disengage They stop going the extra mile Or worse — they leave Not because they need praise. But because they need to know 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬. And they need to know what they should keep doing to perform even more. 💡 What gets recognised gets repeated. What gets ignored disappears. 𝐒𝐨 𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐝𝐨 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐠𝐧𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥? ✅ 𝗕𝗲 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗹𝘆 Recognition delayed is recognition forgotten and denied. Don’t wait for the performance review: Say it when you see it! ✅ 𝗕𝗲 𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗳𝗶𝗰 “Great job” is nice, but “The way you led that unhappy client call with calm and clarity was very professional and effective” is meaningful. And it will encourage them to do the same, again and again. ✅ 𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗴𝗻𝗶𝘀𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗼𝘂𝗿𝘀, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝘂𝘁𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲𝘀 Especially when effort was high and results were impacted by external factors. People need to feel seen for HOW they showed up, not just what they delivered. ✅ 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 𝗶𝘁 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗰, 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗮 𝗰𝗵𝗲𝗰𝗸-𝘁𝗵𝗲-𝗯𝗼𝘅 𝗲𝘅𝗲𝗿𝗰𝗶𝘀𝗲 Recognition only works if it’s sincere. Trying to “spread it evenly” so everyone gets their turn (like in those dreaded employee of the month awards) doesn’t make it fair. It makes it meaningless! People don’t want recognition for the sake of it. They want to feel seen — for something real, something they genuinely did well. Want to build a culture where people care? Start by showing them that 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝘄𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗱𝗼! #PeopleStrategy #LeadershipTips #Recognition #PeopleDevelopment #Startups #ScalingTeams #CultureMatters