Don’t let Christmas be a Corporate Cliché

I spent a twelve years in corporate, from one company to another.

Across these dozen years, I have bounced around in different firms.

Christmas is celebrated more or less the same way:

A big “Christmas” party is planned

The party starts with a token prayer (typically by the HR guy)

The CEO starts a speech, usually beginning with something like “Hey, I know you guys want to party, so I’ll keep this short!” (he usually doesn’t).  It’s on       dreaded Powerpoint. It’s filled with graphs about the company, how it performed, how next year would be even more amazing.

Then the CEO ends the speech with something like a “KAIN TAYO!”

Food and drinks are served

A raffle ensues. Some games.

A band starts playing, people start dancing, and getting drunk.

There is nothing wrong with this per se.

But why call it a “Christmas” party at all?

Just call it a “Year-end company party”, since there is no mention of Christ anywhere but the token prayer. Not one of the CEO’s I’ve witnesses have ever mentioned Him. It’s all about those graphs and things.

To those of us building firms, we have a chance to do much better than this.

Let’s celebrate, but then let’s also remember why we are celebrating in the first place.