What weightage should we give to the awards we win?
I read a story in the book Creative Confidence (David & Tom Kelly) and this is when these trail of thoughts began.
Doug Dietz is an industrial designer who worked for GE Healthcare. He played a major role in the design and development of their MRI machine.
A known incident in his career: he got a chance to visit a hospital where he could see his product installed. Excited, he told a technician he’d submitted its entry for a prestigious design award and also asked her if she liked the new features. She asked him to wait outside.
This is when he overheard a frail child with her parents dreading to go inside the MRI machine he’s designed. Her parents consoled her. On further digging, he came to know that 80% of the patients needed anesthesia before the scan since they’d have to lay absolutely still in a claustrophobic chamber. It was a scary experience, especially for kids.
Even after having spent two and a half years on this, Doug knew it still needed work. That is when the MRI “Adventure series was born.” Taking kids through an immersive experience by designing the space around, adding a few elements on the machine and a guided voice tour to make them feel like they were in a pirate ship or space. What an innovative way to immerse kids!
At this point, I don’t even know if Doug won the award. But the thought of his design getting recognition on a renowned platform definitely made him feel the end result was groundbreaking enough. Had he won it and held onto the jury’s validation, seeing the issues in his design might not even have occurred.
Here, Doug is a metaphor for a lot of us who’d participate in competitions and attach ourselves with the validation we get there. That might stall our growth, narrow our definition of success and moreover hinder our chance to innovate!
How often in a competition do the jurors mention why A was chosen over B, what factors led them to secure a certain position? Do they talk about the strengths and areas of improvements of the participants? I wish the end result was beyond winners and losers. Imagine the spike in successful ideas on giving constructive feedback.
I don’t mean to look down upon anyone who works hard on something, wins a competition and gets an opportunity to publicize their efforts to present groundbreaking ideas. Just don’t stop there. There will always be a scope of improvement, enhancement or growth.
X person might be a pioneer in a subject but their judgement of our ideas is still limited to their judgement. And the persons judgement will be entangled with n number of biases.
Why limit the betterment of your idea because of that?
