What Happens Every Friday Morning

The Culture Routine Kept by a Company with 45 Billion KRW in Annual Revenue

Last year, DelightRoom recorded 45 billion KRW in annual revenue and 20 billion KRW in operating profit, breaking our revenue and operating profit records for the 10th consecutive year. Looking at these numbers alone, you might think we're hyper-focused on work, saving every single minute and second. But even at DelightRoom, there's one dedicated time we absolutely never skip every week.

That is our time for self-celebration.

Self-Celebration: The Routine Behind Our Success

The Korean word for self-celebration, jachuk (자축), literally means celebrating (chuk) oneself (ja). DelightRoom adds a little twist to this: we also use it to mean celebrating frequently (jaju). All of our members invest time in celebrating frequently, and this practice has been pushing us to keep breaking our all-time revenue highs.

One Hour Every Friday Morning

Every Friday morning, all employees gather in one place to share one "thing worth celebrating" from the past week, organized by squad (cross-functional team). It doesn't have to be a massive achievement. A task well finished, hard work put in, gratitude for one another, or even a funny episode is more than enough. In fact, being able to celebrate the little things is what allows us to celebrate frequently. When a presentation is over, we clap for each other and share in the joy.

The original reason we started this self-celebration was to reduce silos between teams.

"Ah, so that's what that team was working on this week."
"They had more on their plate than I thought," "Great job, you guys worked hard."

Listening to each team's stories every week definitely bridges the gap between teams.

The Real Effect We Found Beyond Breaking Silos

But once it actually settled into our organization, we realized the true effect of self-celebration was something else entirely: motivating our teammates.

Having a dedicated time at the end of the week where our hard work is fully spotlighted feels incredibly good. Heading into the weekend, it leaves us with the feeling of, "Wow, we're actually doing pretty great!"

Raising Our Standards Little by Little Through Fun

Naturally, a subtle desire to be funny starts creeping into the presentations.

A feast of memes from unknown origins, changes in presentation styles that make it seem like people are adopting alter-egos. On the surface, it might just look like a time where everyone gets together and laughs out loud. Naturally, we end up looking forward to each team's presentation as its own piece of entertainment.

Of course, the desire for comedy isn't the only thing that grows.
The desire for substantive content grows right along with it.

Without overworking ourselves, we naturally want to put in a bit more effort to create even a minor achievement to share. It's like having $99 in your bank account and wanting to deposit that extra $1 just to make it a perfect $100. (This is why the leaders watching these self-celebration meetings quietly smile in satisfaction...)

So, We Wait for Friday All Over Again

Like this, DelightRoom gathers every week to self-celebrate and laugh over everything from minor wins to massive milestones. With that energy, we charge forward into the next week, and the accumulation of that process is how we break our top records year after year.

I'm looking forward to this time again this coming Friday. :D