I’m a great believer in celebrations. They can be for large and small events. I like to keep them frequent and meaningful.

Business and life can be filled with drudgery. Taking time to acknowledge victories keeps things in perspective. Fortunately, upon close inspection even that routine daily work activity invariably yields many positives for celebration.

Leading and Managing in the workplace consumes us with solving problems and constructing scenarios. Individually, we may take positive feelings from these results, but that’s not always enough.

More public displays and celebration confers many powerful benefits:

• Teambuilding: Sharing, Mixing, Culture Molding…
• Reflection and Personal Growth
• Regeneration
• Morale uplift
• Individual Acknowledgment
• Practical Rewards
• and, more

These are all very positive results. And, it’s wise to actively seek out reasons to celebrate rather than stumble into belated demands for such action. It’s invariably better to be proactive and creative.

Generating a culture of acknowledgment and celebration offers pleasant distraction and reward. Again, just ensure selections are meaningful.

These same philosophies hold equally true in our private lives.

As with most good experiences there are risks and downsides. So now, let’s consider False Starts.

If you celebrate prematurely or unwisely and something goes wrong, it’s bad news. We’ve all seen such gut-wrenching incidents:

• A player inadvertently drops the ball in celebration, before crossing the goal line
• The salesperson brags of an order which ultimately fails to materialize
• A CEO prematurely promotes quarterly fiscal strength that then falls short of consequently inflated Expectation

And, so on.

Lists of such failures are endless and we can all relate many.

But, the real issue here is their consequences:

• Leaders appear foolish/imprudent/inept
• Trust is lost
• Reputations are damaged
• Practical Repercussions often follow
• and, more

Celebrations are generally of incremental value. Ironically, failed Celebrations often have more permanent, negative consequences.

The simple fact is we can almost always avoid such liabilities; just don’t ever pull the trigger on a celebration till it’s in the bag.

In practice, nothing is certain until the last link in the chain is truly secured. So, figure out what that link is, and wait. If you must err let it come from practicing too much patience.

Premature acknowledgment is one of those areas where small risks, however unlikely, can have great consequences. Realistically, if:

• The order isn’t in-hand, it might as well not exist
• A check isn’t cashed/deposited and recorded, you don’t have the funds
• Metaphorically, it’s not on the score-board, it hasn’t occurred
• and, so on

Specifically, if you don’t have in-hand a definitive expression of success/victory, then it’s too early to celebrate. And, remain aware that a celebration has begun the moment you acknowledge success in any form.

Some things take longer to reach fruition than we might recognize at first glance.

For example: We finish the installation of a complex, new software system. Let’s hold off the victory lap until trials or some proof-of-value completes successfully. This software may be a bust. And clearly, analogies to this scenario are endless.

Additionally, absolute success is often less well-defined when people are involved. In this event a victory is only confirmed when they say it is.

Lastly, be aware of colleagues inadvertently announcing victories on your behalf. A boss (say, or other person) prematurely flagging a success on your turf might be insensitive to liabilities. Practically, they might just simply need a win, be untouched personally by downstream hiccups and so more inclined to such premature and ill-advised announcement.

Don’t let this happen to you. If it’s too early to celebrate, then speak up. When appropriate mention the need to wait-and-see, or reference a milestone you recommend which determines success. And, once victory is clear, then own the celebration.

Ever been caught out by celebrating too early? Have you then needed to crawl away and facilitate damage control? A repaired victory is invariably tainted.

Always celebrate successes appropriately and whenever due. But, first be sure that results are definitive and proven rock-solid.

Ian R. Mackintosh is the author of Empower Your Inner Manager Twitter @ianrmackintosh