Companies Deserve Participation Trophies Too!

April 16th 2025

The classic boomer complaint is that that too many participation medals are being handed out in schools which is bad for the children. The reasoning given varies.

Some people say it undermines the value of true achievement and thus diminishes the drive for improvement. Others day that it fosters a sense of entitlement.

Is this complaint simply a disagreement of values between older and younger generations? Or is there actually some harm being done to children and this is something that objectively should be avoided?

The real answer, as with most things, probably lies somewhere in-between.

I certainly don't have a care in the world for these participation medals. As someone who was the probably the heaviest kid in fifth-grade, I got plenty of these ribbons, and they annoyed me.

It's not just schools where you see participation trophies, you see them at work too. Sometimes directly, and other times more subtly. A technique for picking the "worker of the month" is to bias the results to newer hires. Encouraging anxious new hires for their exploring of the new workspace and integration is sometimes more important that rewarding continuous output delivered by older hires. I don't want to imply that all "worker of the month" awards are actually "participation" awards. But if the award's purpose is ambiguous, then the true purpose is left up to the interpretation of the recipient and observers.

Likewise, I am generalizing when I say this, but it's the older workers who tend to have more experience, be managers, and choose to give out these commendations in the first place.

Confusingly, we can extend the argument to the entities that are the corporations themselves. I can list several companies that have been recognized by other companies with with "partner of the year awards". The awards typically range in the multiple product categories that the awarded company provides to the other, and vice-versa.

Why? What's the point of declaring a company your best friend? If you wanted to let the world know that you have a strong partnership, why don't you just do what everyone else does any make a press-release for it?

And most interestingly, what is the significance of the physical, glass or plastic bubblegram awards they like to give each other?

Let me know if you figure out that last question. No seriously, let me know. I have no idea.