Awards

Awards of any kind are a dignity-shredding affair, especially when your auditors can’t count envelopes, but just what is going through the mind of an investment banker, or recruitment consultant, who thinks it is wise to hold, participate in, win, or humblebrag on LinkedIn about, an industry award is genuinely hard to fathom.

These gala events used to be convened only by those tedious free industry magazines as a means of rewarding patient and persistent advertisers (does anyone actually read Risk Magazine? Why? When?) but in recent times those comparatively austere publications have been joined by all kinds of obscure “industry networking platforms” and hitherto unheard of “trade associations” in making arbitrary, meaningless and sometimes frankly outrageous awards to individuals whom you would think the simple pleasure of excelling at their professional calling, or failing that, being richly rewarded for it, ought to be award enough.

But nonetheless, some are afflicted by a neurosis courtesy of which they seek public recognition for their endeavours. There are some insecurities that only a gong for “Person of the Year, IT Procurement, Government Sector”; “Business Development Professional of the Year: Information Services Sector” or “Contentious Litigator of the Year - Alternative Dispute and Mediation sector” can redress.

It must be nice to have doubts that are so easily quashed. These awards are “judged” anonymously, without reference to published criteria and awarded to persons who usually don’t have obvious merit in their nominated field — beyond representing a prolific advertiser — at all, let alone to such a degree to warrant being lionised so aggravatingly.

These awards foster unconscionable behavior too: The humble-bragging by the recipient on LinkedIn or the Corporate Intranet; ostentatious brown-nosing from inferiors and those keen to build network