I attended a college graduation ceremony for one of my young cousins today. Barely into the 4 hour ceremony, I asked myself why we go through "Pomp and Circumstance" when we graduate from school. This is the same question I asked myself at my own graduation years ago. I decided then that it was silly. I didn't even want to attend, to be honest. I knew the graduation represented a celebration of an accomplishment (earning a degree), but I just wanted to get on the other side of the ceremony to the part where I start making money. In thinking about this today, I recognized that ceremonies like the one I attended are important, but not just for the obvious reason.

Sure, graduating from college with a degree is an accomplishment. Even if hard work wasn't present, endurance surely was. At my graduation, I didn't consider it much of an accomplishment, so I downplayed the celebration. But remove the accomplishment from the equation and minimally, graduating from college is a life milestone. Forgetting all of the minor milestones on a project plan for a minute, true milestones in life don't come very often- maybe just a handful in a lifetime: graduation, marriage, parenthood, promotions, etc. are few and far between. Yet each mark a significant point in life when change occurs. It is the change that we should be celebrating and these milestones should be cherished.

Recently, I have been reading two books by Jack Welch, the 20 year former CEO of General Electric. Jack: Straight from the Gut and Winning both press the message that companies need to celebrate success more. His premise in both books is that we identify so much with our jobs that when we struggle to succeed at work, we need to celebrate the accomplishments aggressively. After all, we don't expect our favorite football team to win the Super Bowl and then not spray champagne on each other. The ability to celebrate with work teammates is one of the keys to a winning organization that Welch presents in Winning.

For the same reasons Jack Welch points out, the struggles and transitions that graduating from college represent are enough to make a celebration necessary, even if that means wearing a silly costume and getting a bunch of pictures taken. Reasons to celebrate milestones come too infrequently to pass up the chance.

As of this writing, the newest member of our J&R Consulting staff, Chris Boyd, will be graduating from Xavier tomorrow with a degree in Computer Science. Although this message will be late for Chris' big day, my advice to him is to savor the day. Savor the ceremony, the pictures, the speeches, the hugs, the tears, and the dopes who write messages on their caps. Savor it all and recognize the milestone that this represents in your life. Soon enough, you will be in the daily grind and your project managers will forget to give you time to celebrate. Take the chance to do it now. I regret now that I didn't do the same at my own graduation.