It's awards season! My LinkedIn feed seems filled with announcements from companies, associations and some groups I've never even heard of showing photos of fancy parties, shiny awards and smiling faces.
There are probably a mixture of emotions with that.
- people who get excited at the thought because they believe their project might receive one and they want to celebrate (I've been this person for most of my career)
- people who are indifferent because they're not motivated by awards or don't find any meaning in them
- people who get depressed at the thought because they are good at their job, perhaps better than those they see winning awards, but don't believe that they will ever receive one. (I'm sometimes this person, despite having a couple of minor awards under my belt)
So this article is mostly for the people in the third bullet point, who have lost faith in the awards process or have self-doubt that they will be recognised. What have I learned over nearly 20 years in the industry that could help you?
- It is rare that you will win an award without any involvement in the process so don't expect one to just land in your lap. Most applications are quite involved and would require at least some input from you personally.
- Awards are won by the people who nominate, not necessarily the 'best' for a particular task / category. I've won two awards for stormwater projects and in both cases, I am fairly sure that it was a decision between at most 2-3 submissions in the category. Be bold, throw in that nomination and give it a go!
- Back yourself! There is no shame in nominating yourself for an award. If you don't feel right about it, you could always write the submission yourself and just ask a trusted friend or colleague to lodge it on your behalf.
- If you don't win, try again next year. This is from personal experience. A different year with different judges and different competition could make the difference, even with an identical submission.
- The quality of award submissions count. This is a criteria based assessment in most cases where you will be scored against set criteria. You could have the best project in the world but a poor submission will rule you out. Ask a friend to review your submission. Keep the judging criteria on hand and set out your submission as though it is a university assignment. Make the judges' work easier and spoon feed them the information they need.
- Some of the major awards are really a marketing opportunity. Many of the bigger firms (and perhaps the small) may fund preparation of awards applications because they believe that promotion of their staff reflects well on their brand. It can be hard to compete against a funded campaign.
Don't forget that for every winner, there are more people who missed out. There will be people who didn't nominate because they expected their bosses to nominate them. There will be people who did a great job but didn't do well on the written submission. There will be others who simply didn't have the self-esteem to nominate or thought that they're chances of winning were too low to make it worth it, even though they had a great project.
Ultimately, awards are nice but they're not the sole metric to determine who is doing a good job and who isn't. That said, nominating your colleagues and projects for awards, whether they win or not, can be a great morale boost for everyone.
So best of luck if you decide to chase next year's awards season! Awards are great but don't let the absence of an award slow you down or dim your confidence.
