7/12/2015–Awards and recognition can’t be the goal of whatever activity warrants them.
So, is there value in receiving them? Maybe there are certain types that are legitimate to target (super bowl trophy?). The sports team exists only to bring trophies to the franchise, but the franchise exists to make a profit, which doesn’t require awards nor recognition. In fact, many teams lose top talent due to the player’s ability to get more money elsewhere. Still, winning trophies in sports has obvious value to the business.
A different type of award would be something given to a non-profit org. That seems to be an award which still goes to bring more fundraising, maybe, and thus furthers the org’s ability to do “good work”. Is true value increased, then, in the org that makes winning awards an explicit goal? If so, the entire purpose of the venture should be tailored to the interests of those who decide who gets the award. Should this fact lead a passionate group to do something they are less passionate about (in addition to “true passion” work) so they can get money later to invest into their true passion? On the one hand, this not-for-profit (NFP) does reap benefits later on by “selling out” a little for recognition today. On the other hand, any recognition and subsequent fundraising would, by definition, be certainly more applicable to the work they’re less passionate about; how would they justify investing this money in the other work? Their donors wouldn’t appreciate that. If my school club wins club of the year and gets money in recognition for health and wellness stuff, I wouldn’t feel right using it to by a piano for the students. This seems like an unlikely scenario, but if someone wants to create a club which does one type of work for which there’s no award/recognition, it’s feasible that one might do more popular, visible work with awards in mind so that they can grow big enough to do a lot of their main focus. For example, the sustainability club will never win club of the year doing the work they’re doing–not enough people care, compared to more “popular” clubs. So do they accept they’ll always be small, risking bankruptcy each year? Or, do they make a more “sustainable” strategic decision to incorporate other work to get more visibility? Neither seems “morally” better, except that the latter might violate “staying true to oneself”. Any work in non-core areas creates risk of mitigating–or even forgetting–the “meaningful” stuff, and the risk that people keep expecting the non-core work and encourage neglect of core work. The club then either forgets who it was or soon falls out of love with the whole idea of being a club.
I fall, now, on the side of only doing true passion work–however unpopular/obscure–and after the first year reassessing the purpose and strategy. By then, the club or NFP knows if it makes sense to continue; they learn if a market exists. If not, it’s good to learn your product wouldn’t sell anyway–even if you had more $ to invest in to. Again, a donor/investor wouldn’t appreciate the club who puts money where it wasn’t expected to go. A club should be able to get some amount of funding if their idea is even a little inspiring. The initial amount is representative of how much value they can create in the market. The work itself should create value; the awards would only come after.
Returning to the question of awards having intrinsic value, I say yes, but with 2 limits. First, it serves the purpose to tell the recipient they’ve reached a point of significant value creation. This is important because I, as a club owner, am passionate about my club’s work–any work that gets done is important to me, not just once we “do a lot” of it, per se. The award “club of the year” tells me (I, who’s happy day 1 and day 1,000 equally) that we surpassed some external threshold of value creation–maybe the threshold is what the runner-up did, maybe not. Either way, it’s notification that what we did is/was/will be of significant value to a lot of people who aren’t passionate about the work, which is hard to do.
Second, the award almost certainly brings resources which we can invest in continuing that “now-recognized-as-valuable” work. The caveat here–and reason why awards aren’t a legitimate “target”–is that the value of resources from this award is limited by/to the personal value you feel from the work you did to get it. A better explanation is that if a club wins an award by only doing work it’s passionate about, the award and resources from it, by necessity, cannot be of more value than the passion work itself. Therefore, the award could never be the superior goal and would just be extra; “Icing on the cake”. The club is still going to do and feel pleased with the same work with or w/out the opportunity of recognition. If the club, on the other hand, wins an award (or, sees an award within reach) by doing a non-passion event, for example, they either should A) not do the event or B) incorporate their passion into the event to justify their participation in the same way as if no award existed. In both cases, the passion work done in lieu of the event or in combination with it (option A or B, respectively) is more valuable than the resources from the award. It seems “A” would be very rare–most events could probably be incorporated with passion work, thus justifying participation.
This goes for individuals too, in some respects. Recognition brings notoriety, thus people to ask for help in doing one’s own passion work. However, it may not be in one’s best interest to pursue only passion work in the immediate respect. However again, it may be unwise to forsake certain passion for an uncertain future–a bird in the hand… How far out do I prepare for? I’ll probably be around in 5 years; why wouldn’t I prepare now for the world I predict in 5 years? Do more people say “i’m so glad I planned ahead!” or do more say, “i’m so glad I followed my dreams–took a leap of faith!”?
As of now, I’ll arbitrarily pick 5 years to plan for and follow the dreams I predict to have within that window. In this way, I’m not forsaking happiness to plan 30 years ahead which may not come, nor look as I expect the future to look. At the same time, I’m respecting the dreams which aren’t immediately accessible, but which are my guess to arise in the very near future–thus, it’s reasonable to “plan” for their achievement, though i’m not technically following my true, current passion.
Basically, I’m not recording music nor opening a restaurant before I’m set to support a family.
QOTW: “Solve the problem, not just a problem.” Barb
?FNW–Do I pull a .ppt and reco for TC design together in time? Just barely…
11/24/2017 review–I’d say now that a sports franchise doesn’t exist to make a profit, and that for-profit businesses exist to meet a need of society. Sports teams exist to provide entertainment and pride for a community’s citizens, as well as finance and revenue for their city. Awards bring these things. Therefore, I would say awards are an appropriate metric for a sports team, even though I wouldn’t consider them appropriate for NFPs. Otherwise, I do still believe that awards and recognition are probably only reinforcement to continue, not significant sources of value or metrics to aim for. Unless awards directly enable your purpose, delivering value to society in an attempt go win awards for doing so is unsustainable, like serving two masters.
Regarding planning 5 years out, I still plan ahead but without the target of 5 years. I have put enough thought into what’s important to me that I don’t expect my purpose to change anytime soon. I also expect that the way I’ll achieve that purpose will be what I think it is now. I am preparing for a longer-term future than 5 years out. What I’ve found to be most helpful for this is to prepare in a way that would allow flexibility in unexpected circumstances. Since identifying a purpose, this is based on three things: seek broadly-relevant work experience, save money based on expected expenses, and maintain valued relationships.