I’m a gamer. I have a couple 70s in World of Warcraft and I run a small guild. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, bear with me for a moment.

My guild is a group of individuals who band together inside a computer game to achieve objectives that take teamwork. In the game setting when we do something we’ve never done before, like defeat a huge monster or rescue a prisoner on the brink of sacrifice, everyone cheers and afterwards we usually talk over the highlights of what went right and who was awesome.

In gaming it’s easy to have a culture of awesomeness – we’re all wearing heroic looking armor and using superhuman powers. Inside a number of CPA and law firms around the Twin Cities, I’ve seen the opposite: a culture of humility. I have a privilege to work with some amazing people, people who are saving businesses tons of money, making life easier for folks and who are generally smart, conscientious and generous. Yet they seem to not want to or know how to talk about it.

When service professionals are encouraged to share what they did right and to acknowledge each other, everyone benefits: excitement builds and positive strategies spread. I think one of the great gift of the Millennial/Gamer generation is going to be a willingness to be awesome and share the feeling of victory with others.

How can you help create a culture of awesomeness in your firm?

• Take time at staff meetings to talk about wins and victories and to acknowledge each other’s successes.
• When you do something amazing for a client, tell a colleague.
• When you do something amazing for a client, make sure you tell that client!
• If a client sends a thank you note, read it aloud at a meeting or post it somewhere public.
• Ask your clients what’s working for them. Listen for similarities and get comfortable with how you’re awesome. We’re all awesome in different ways. Do you know what your super-powers are?
• Think of ways to measure your awesomeness. One reason it’s easy to be awesome in a game is that the computer is keeping score. Make up a scoreboard of your own and make sure it’s one where you can win often.
• Listen for positives in the client stories your colleagues tell and highlight them.

There are a lot more ways to create a culture of awesomeness once you focus on it. And from my gaming experience I can tell you that once people can see their performance improving and start feeling like heroes, they just want to do more.

Question: What do you do to create a culture of awesomeness?