Fulcrum Awards that took place this year at the end of PRAXIS in Hyderabad were a stellar show. From its inception in 2016 they have strived to be a unique platform in several ways.
- The jury member organisations cannot participate in the awards programme.
- It is not organised by anyone who participates in the awards.
- It has a dedicated independent awards director.
- It has one of the Big Four audit firms as process reviewer.
- It does not accept sponsorship from any of the organisations that are shortlisted.
- Most importantly neither the organisers of the awards evening nor the director has access to the results as the process reviewer safeguards these at the end of the jury meeting.
All in all, these awards are a robust programme which are fool proof and water tight in every way with people of integrity as co-organisers in the form of Ben Smith and Roshan Alexander, supported by Hina Huria.
I have played the role of being a silent bystander and the host of the awards night. 9 out of 10 people appreciate the awards programme. But there is always that one person who has a problem with the awards because they or their organisation did not win. And this is both human nature and normal behaviour.
However, my thoughts as someone who has been nominated to many awards and won few and lost some is as follows –
- Yes, there are awards programmes which are manipulated. This is not one of them.
- Yes, biases creep in but the scope is limited here especially since neither consultancy professionals nor corporate communications professionals who are participating are on the jury.
- There is no scope to tamper the results since they are in the safe custody of an audit firm.
- Neither the awards director nor the co-organisers interfere at any level with the jury process.
- And most of all, an entry is sometimes only as good as its submission. Half the time an entry loses out because it is either badly written or wrongly entered. Many times, an entry is written and sent to various programmes as is. Each programme has a different submission criterion.
The only currency I have had in my professional life is my integrity. I would not trade it for anything in this world. I am sure there is always heart burn for not winning. But awards are only a piece of the cake called life. It is good to win them, but the world does not end when they are not won. Participating in them is more important because one had the courage to do great work that can later be collated and presented.
This is to all the courageous professionals who do great work and then submit it to an independent jury.
Do not give up because your work did not get shortlisted or did not win. Someone has to win and someone has to lose.
We are aware of what we do but not aware of what others have done within the resources they had at their disposal.
The bottom line is that we need to celebrate each other.
He is also the Founding Dean of the School of Communications & Reputation (SCoRe).
He can be reached at @amithpr on twitter.
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