And the winner is....

Awards can further your association's goals. Just don't let six misperceptions lead you astray.

Have your members ever complained that your association's awards program favors certain categories? Or that entering the competition takes more time and money than it's worth? Or that your association gives so many awards that their value is diluted? Or that an award does not represent or further your association's goals? Or worst of all - that your association's awards are irrelevant?

Associations create awards programs to differentiate the extraordinary from the ordinary and reward outstanding achievement. And as long as the programs are properly conceived, planned, budgeted, judged, and presented, that's exactly what they do.

But . . .

When awards go awry 

When awards programs fail, they fail publicly.

Many remember the 1996 country music awards telecast in which Garth Brooks was named entertainer of the year. He strolled to the stage and claimed he hadn't done much entertaining that year. As a consequence, he didn't think it would be appropriate for him to get the award. Then he walked off, leaving the award behind like a jilted-at-the-alter bride.

An equally scalding moment occurred during a Clio Awards presentation when someone declared that the judging had not been completed for the yet-to-be-announced categories and, therefore, the evening's business was concluded. The waiting nominees, all furious, rushed the stage and looted the remaining trophies.

Take the high road

The road to Awards Hell is paved with uninformed opinion about the basic principles of awards. As you are shaping your association's programs, don't be led astray by these six misperceptions.

1. Awards have intrinsic value. Actually, awards draw their value from the importance of the achievement they honor and the people who accept them. For example, the 85member Hollywood Foreign Press Association gives out the Golden Globes. The association is composed of some legitimate journalists, but also suffers the criticism of being rife with "car dealers, accountants - only part-time journalists whom Hollywood caters to because they give out awards," according to the Los Angeles Times article "Is It Too Big A World After All."

Despite questions about the quality of the group that gives them and how they are administered, the Golden Globes have soared in value as predictors of the Oscar nominees and winners. And they continue to annually draw every major star in the Hollywood firmament . . . which in turns draws a huge television audience . . . which generates worldwide interest and publicity.

2. The value of an award is constant. Wrong. Like any commodity on any market, the value of an award fluctuates according to its assets and productivity. An award's assets are the achievements it honors and the people who accept it. An award's productivity is the fairness - real and perceived - of how it is administered.

3. All awards are alike. The mission statements of association, business, and other recognition awards point out their fundamental dissimilarities. Association awards should represent the professional purpose of the association, further its goals, and reflect its values. For example, the Academy of Television Arts & Science's stated purpose is "to further the arts and sciences of television." In keeping with this, the academy has designed its Emmy Awards to honor and encourage excellence in the production, recording, and transmission of television programming.

Business awards are designed to recognize outstanding achievement in business systems, services, products, and quality achievement. The Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award highlights customer satisfaction, workforce empowerment, and increased productivity. At the 1996 Baldrige Awards, President Clinton said that the recognition "has come to symbolize America's commitment to excellence."

Recognition awards - such as service, sales, safety, and special achievement awards - are meant to help improve quality, encourage teamwork, motivate employees, build morale, create awareness, increase loyalty, decrease turnover, and enhance a recipient's image in the community and among customers.

4. The more awards the better; the fewer awards the better. There is no constant relationship between an award's quantity and quality. If you hand out too many awards, you dilute their value. If you hand out too few, you overburden the capacity of each award to bear its load.

5. Awards are reliable indicators of quality. Because awards subdivide the world into the good, the bad, and the rest, they present tempting opportunities for a kind of simplified decision making that is a central irony of the Information Age: the respectability given to uninformed opinion. For the most part, this has minor consequences, such as the cost of the ticket and the boredom generated by the must-see, but lousy, movie that won all the critics' awards.

In other situations, the consequences may not be worth the risk. For example, if a videotape has a seal of approval from an organization that espouses family values, should parents automatically give it to their children? Or should they rent it, fast-forward through it, and sample a few sections in real time? When parents choose books for their children, should they base their selection on an award seal on the cover? Or by examining the contents between the covers?

As with all choices, selections, and purchases, the buyer must beware.

6. Awards presentations are intrinsically boring. The business of awards presentations should be the giving and receiving of meaningful awards that are of interest to the audience. No amount of showmanship can overcome the indifference of an audience that does not believe something important is happening when awards are placed in the hands of winners.

Conversely, no amount of inane acceptance speeches, bovine stage action, or technical glitches can dampen an audience's enthusiasm for the presentation of awards that are significant to nominees, winners, and audience. Did you see the recent Emmy telecast at which actress Lee Grant was announced as the winner? It was anything but boring. Having accepted her Emmy at the podium, she waited for the applause to die down. Then she said: "The feeling is mutual." Having said it all, she left the crowd with no doubt that she was an awardworthy performer.

John Leverence is awards director for the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Worth Hollywood, California, and author of the book And the Winner Is . . ., published by Merritt Publishing.