It is said that Halloween is the spookiest night of the year, where some people say that spirits wander the earth freely. It’s the time of the year where kids, and the young at heart, dress up and go trick or treating. It’s also the only time of the year that it is acceptable for your house to be covered in cobwebs!
Many people celebrate the holiday, and then hang up the costume and decorations and forget about it until the following year. But we believe that much of the magic of Halloween is relevant to our business on a daily basis. Here are our top tips for incorporating a little Halloween into your organisation:
Make sure you clean out the skeletons in the closet – Sure we all have them, things we are meaning to do but never find the time. Or those mundane tasks that we just keep making excuses so that we don’t have to deal with them. This could be that huge pile of paperwork that we have been meaning to file, the clutter in your inbox, the list of courses that you have been meaning to enrol into or even just the “too hard” pile. Every now and then we need to take stock and clear them out. The last thing we want is for them to jump out unexpectedly and scare us!
Work out if it is a trick or a treat – Opportunities arise all the time in business. Sometimes they can seem too good to be true and other times the opportunities are too good to pass up. The key is to do your research to find out if it is in fact a trick, or a treat. Sometimes these are once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, so when opportunity knocks you want to make sure that you are prepared and know whether you should take it or not.
Look past the wart at the end of the nose – Not everything is pretty in business. We need to look past the exterior appearance of things and focus on what is important. If the product or service is good, perhaps all that is needed is a new package or branding. Just because something has a wart on it, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it is a witch, or is something we should be scared of or shy away from.
Encourage your team to bob for apples – To ensure growth and professional development within your team, your team members need to be challenged. They will thrive with thinking of new ways to succeed and accomplish their goals. But make sure they are set up to succeed. Goals that are unobtainable will have the opposite effect on your staff and they will give up. Just like bobbing for apples, your organisational goals need to be challenging for your team but not entirely out of reach.
Share your candy and celebrate! – After all your hard work, it is important to acknowledge everyone’s input and celebrate. This could be done at the end of a project, end of the financial year, Christmas time or any other time throughout the year. It also doesn’t have to be a grand and formal event, but something fitting for the work that has been done. As the saying goes, a little “thank you” goes a long way.
In the essence of Halloween, I will leave you with this wish for the holiday that has been adopted in Australia:
“When black cats prowl
And pumpkins gleam
May luck be yours
On Halloween”
