I was working with a logistics company a while back. Solid team. Decent margins. Good people who showed up and did the work.
But there was something flat about the place. Functional. Just not alive.
I asked the operations manager when they last celebrated something. She thought about it. Said they’d had a good quarter six months ago. The CEO sent a company-wide email.
That was it.
I am thinking about the Knicks. About what is happening in New York when they win. People who have nothing to do with basketball are out in the street, arms around strangers. People who no nothing about the game are excited, and celebrating. It’s not about sport. It’s about something far more primal. We are wired to belong. To feel the collective win. To be part of something bigger than our own Tuesday.
Science backs this up. Shared celebration releases oxytocin, deepens social bonds, reinforces identity. Your brain doesn’t distinguish between a playoff win and a team shipping their best week ever. The chemistry is the same.
We brought in a small brass bell. Hung it in the ops center. The rule was simple: when the team hits the daily dispatch target, someone rings it. Loud. Everyone hears it.
Three weeks in, people were hustling to hit the number before 4 pm. Not because I asked them to. Because they wanted to ring the bell.
This is not complicated. It doesn’t require a budget, a consultant, or a team-building retreat. It requires a leader willing to say: what we do here matters, and I’m going to make sure we feel it when we win.
Find your bell. Ring it.
Your people are already the crowd. They just need a reason to roar.
