Recognition and awards business is big business: from fictitious awards to sell plaques with your face on it to local programs presented by magazines such as Smart Business to national peer-reviewed awards programs that have elements of selling plaques and ad space, which also provide sophisticated client interface tools to make the relationship win-win-win.
While the three tiers I just laid out are hierarchical by level of promoter sophistication, they’re also predicated on the consumer’s level of appreciation. Sometimes the promo companies get me. I really like the look of the plaque — I gotta have it.
Business magazines are not the only organizations that have discovered the blessings of recognizing local talent. A Northeast Ohio Turkish heritage organization known as the Niagara Foundation has an annual award called the Peace & Dialogue Awards. ClevelandPeople.com similarly presents the Cleveland International Hall of Fame.
Two-part problem
So we have recognition programs run by mainstream organizations as well as heritage and minority organizations. But who’s getting the accolades? The mainstream recognition programs are themselves predominantly white and publishers have to stretch to find minority representation.
The minorities are there, but it’s a two-part problem. First, unless we’re really progressive, regardless of our heritage, we tend to nominate people of our own heritage. Secondly, the vast majority of “people like us,” who are different, are not in the habit of nominating each other. It’s a mix of cultural and learned selfishness.
The problem is far broader than minorities and far broader than recognition programs. The majority of Americans’ imagination doesn’t stretch past their wallets. The banks can’t get them to save. The churches can’t get them to tithe. And the politicians can’t get them to vote. We business owners — and business stakeholders — are a very active subset. We save. We contribute. And we vote.
Do we nominate?
But we don’t all nominate. Whites are into nominations. But, Asians, blacks, Indians and Hispanics aren’t. “People like us,” who are different and who I see socially, are not all into this nominating and promoting business.
So my call to action for the Smart Business minority readership: nominate and promote each other. When we see an awards nomination invitation, look around at our peers: white, black, Asian, Latino, women — it doesn’t matter. Let’s get in the habit of digging into a person’s accomplishments, the person’s “value add” in the community and the person’s character. And nominate her or him.
Your nomination may be one of hundreds, and not have a ghost of a chance, or you may be one of the few who took the effort to exhibit several traits of great leaders: humility (to think highly of another), magnanimity (to raise another as a role model for yourself) and perseverance (to get the nomination in before the deadline). We need “people like us” to be on magazine covers, obtain awards, be recognized and be successful.
Margaret Wong is the founder of Margaret W. Wong & Associates Co. LPA. Margaret has been practicing immigration law for more than 38 years and is internationally renowned as an expert in the field. She is a co-chair of the National Asian American Bar Association’s Immigration Law Committee and an adjunct professor of Immigration Law at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law. She has the highest rating, AV, from Martindale-Hubbell and is recognized as a “Super Lawyer” and among the “Best Lawyers in America” by her peers.
