Party On!

A reminder that people still want to belong.

The crowd–hundreds strong, loud and anticipatory–exchanges high fives and equivalent greetings all around. The men, in all styles of tuxedos, and the women in flowing (and occasionally sparkly) ball gowns, gradually shift their attention to the stage.

The Master of Ceremonies signals the musical director to quiet the music. Anticipation builds.

The Academy Awards? The Emmys? The Tonys? The Espies?

Nah. It’s another Men’s Wearhouse (MW) Christmas party.

One of many held across the country beginning the weekend before Thanksgiving and ending just before Christmas. The Master of Ceremonies? George Zimmer–CEO, Cheerleader Extraordinaire. The musical director? More like the Emperor of Energy–the ever-smiling, always upbeat Brad Kinney.

What began decades ago with a handful of employees in a small Houston restaurant has grown into a large-scale, lights-out, emotion-filled rock-and-roll extravaganza. Words do little to describe the scene, other than to say it is mystifyingly electric. And even that misses the mark. There was no mystery. There was sheer intention.

The intent to have fun.

To celebrate the wins–store of the year, salesperson of the year, and long-tenured employees.

But most of all, to celebrate each other. To be family.

The scene settles as George takes center stage and welcomes the employees and their plus-ones to the evening’s festivities. The awards begin with pins for tenure. Five years, ten years, and the like. Several other awards are given, all leading up to the highlight of the evening–the coveted Aloha Awards. The winners, as the name implies, receive an all-expenses-paid trip to the Big Island of Hawaii.

For some, this will be their first time–first time on a plane, first time out of their home state, and certainly the first time in Hawaii.

When the awards end, the rock and roll party begins.

Glow sticks. Inflatable guitars. Streamers. Kazoos. You name it. All the gloriously kitschy accoutrements are soon passed out and thrown to the crowd. T-shirts, emblazoned with “Christmas Party Tour 20XX” are shot out of a cannon as all party hell breaks loose.

A few hours later, sensing a lull, Brad cues up the giant balloon drop–not to celebrate the New Year, but to celebrate each other. The excitement from this alone launches the party into overdrive.

Hours after that, an MW crew moves into the now-vacant hotel ballroom to disassemble the stage, pack the sound system, and load it all into a 40-foot tractor-trailer emblazoned with Rolling Thunder. In the wee hours of the morning, they’ll be rolling into the next city, setting up the stage to do it all over again.

This is one of at least 20 parties where George and Brad are the MCs. They’re the “A” team. There’s a “B” and “C” team replicating the same party scene at the same time in different cities across the country. A small market with only one or two stores? No problem, as Brad and his team assembled “Party in a Box,” always cognizant that every store, no matter the city, is part of the MW family, and part of the celebration. No one was left out.

One of my fondest MW memories is watching a woman completely overcome with emotion, both crying and laughing as she ran to the front of the room to receive her accolade. All I could do was smile and shed my own tear for her as I shared in her joy and took a moment to be proud to be part of something so impactful.

Another fond MW memory was reuniting with the wife of an MW vendor after several years and catching up, comparing notes on friends and family. As she was all agog with the energy and fun of her first-ever Christmas party, she also asked me about the status and whereabouts of my daughter, Emily.

I pointed slightly upward. Emily was dancing on top of a speaker, streamers in one hand and a drink in the other.

Quite the scene.

And yes, vendors we invited to the parties. Go figure.

The annual cost of these events? Millions.
ROI? Pfft.

If you have to ask, you just don’t get it. That was never the point. The point was to have fun, to celebrate, and to connect.

Is this any way to run a business? You freakin’ bet, as these parties become the stuff of MW lore.

From the outside looking in, it’s easy to dismiss something like this as excessive—or worse, expendable, to improve the bottom line.

But the real bottom line is this: building a great organization can be the re-creation of the family you came from…or the antithesis of it. It doesn’t matter. It’s the want, the connectedness that can be created, and if done well, can be the glue that holds the organization together. It was clearly the secret sauce of MW.

Maybe–just maybe–this is the kind of secret sauce that we need as a society. People want to belong to something that sees them. Not an app. Not a mission statement. Not a Slack channel. Maybe by connecting, one-on-one, we can put down our phones, set aside our differences, and find those seemingly banal social niceties that can be the glue for a more peaceful time.

Curmudg opinions about resolutions notwithstanding, this ain’t a bad one.

TL;DR: Men’s Wearhouse didn’t just throw Christmas parties—we staged full-scale celebrations of people. They were loud, expensive, emotional, and unapologetically human. The ROI was never the point. Connection was. Belonging was. Maybe we could all use some secret sauce right now.