The Department of Defense (DoD) is among the strongest proponents of recognizing outstanding individual and team performance that I have encountered. Whether unit level or team awards, individual decorations, retirement and end-of tour awards, annual awards programs, or other honors and recognition opportunities, I contend that the DoD does it right. The myriad benefits of personal and team accolades include enhanced morale, motivation, recognition, prospects for promotion, feedback, unit cohesiveness, and personal and professional satisfaction.
For defense acquisition professionals and for logisticians, product support, and sustainment professionals, numerous Service and DoD-level individual and team award opportunities exist. These include, for example, the Navy’s Admiral Stan Arthur Award, the Air Force’s General Leo Marquez Award of Maintenance Excellence, and the Secretary of the Air Force James G. Roche Product Support Excellence Award, as well as the Army’s Chief of Staff of the Army Combined Logistics Excellence Awards, including the Award for Army Maintenance, Deployment Excellence Award, and the Supply Excellence Award Programs.
At the department level, opportunities are just as numerous, including the Defense Acquisition Workforce Individual Achievement Awards, the Secretary of Defense Product Support Manager Awards, Secretary of Defense Performance-Based Logistics Awards, and Secretary of Defense Maintenance Awards Program, as well as the DoD Award for Supply Chain Excellence, DoD Packaging Innovation Excellence Award, and Packaging Production Achievement Award, and the DoD Diminishing Manufacturing and Material Shortages Program Achievement Awards among others.
Many of us have authored a nomination, contributed to or had a chance to review one, and in some cases, have been privileged to be a nominee or even a winner of a major DoD or Component-level award. In each case, we should remember that ultimately an individual, a board, or a selection panel reviews, evaluates, scores, identifies, and selects the winning nomination. Over my career, I have written more award nomination packages than I can count, and have participated in many DoD and organizational award selection boards. I have found that strong, winning nomination packages routinely share common attributes. Permit me to offer a few observations and lessons learned that may help both award nominees and those who write their nomination packages to transform deserving submissions into award winners.
Step 1. “The Basics”
- Review and understand the award criteria before you begin.
- Begin with the desired outcome in mind. Ask yourself what you’re trying to accomplish. Assuming the answer is to craft an award-winning package, ask yourself what it will take to get there.
- Follow the instructions. If there is a page limit, don’t exceed it. If there are format requirements, make sure that you meet them.
- Begin the writing process early. Don’t wait until late in the game to get started.
- Build in sufficient time needed for internal review, edits, staffing, rework, and approval.
- Write well. This bears repeating: Write well. Make sure that there are no spelling or grammatical errors. Avoid tense shifts. Use active voice and relentlessly root out passive voice.
- If the award nomination covers a specific period, ensure that the contributions actually occurred during the specified period.
- Whether the nomination is for an individual, a team, or an organization, clearly convey why the nominee deserves recognition.
Step 2. “Getting Started”
- Ask yourself a vitally important question before you begin: Is this nomination truly competitive? You may ultimately conclude that this simply “isn’t our year.”
- Be cognizant of the scoring and weighting categories and factors outlined in the award instructions.
- If the nomination award criteria includes multiple categories, don’t put all your eggs (accomplishments) into one basket (a single category). Pay particular attention to the most critical areas without overlooking the seemingly less important ones.
- As an addendum to the previous observation, don’t ignore the importance of a lesser weighted category. All other things being equal, a so-called less important category may turn out to be the section that ultimately separates the winner from the runner-up.
- Review previous-year nomination submissions if available. What kinds of information did previous winning packages include?
- Enlist another set of eyes. Seek subject matter experts, mentors, or trusted colleagues to review the package and provide feedback and suggest improvements. Don’t let pride of authorship cloud your judgement. No matter how good you think it is, the nomination package can always be better.
- Edit, re-edit, then edit again. Eliminate extraneous words. Avoid “fluff.” Steer clear of unsubstantiated assertions. Don’t embellish, exaggerate, or overstate accomplishments.
Step 3. “Keep in Mind”
- Does this award nomination “stand out from the crowd”? Ask yourself what sets the nominee(s) apart? What separates the “very good” from the truly “outstanding?”
- Put yourself in the shoes of the assessors. More is not always better. Be concise. Get to the point. Brevity is often a force multiplier.
- Avoid long, flowery, overly detailed verbiage. Avoid unsubstantiated superlatives.
- Reconfirm that those specific accomplishments listed in the nomination actually occurred within the award period.
- Think carefully about whether to include accomplishments that began during the award period, but are still “in progress.”
- Constantly ask yourself the hard questions, such as: “So what?” “Why does it matter?” “Why should the reader care?” “What difference did a specific accomplishment make?”
- Be specific. Cite particular examples.
- Don’t assume the assessor will be familiar with the nuances of everything in the nomination. Clarify, explain, or provide additional context as appropriate.
- Focus on outcomes and quantify benefits. Were they one-time or ongoing improvements over a period? Performance enhancements? Were key metrics achieved or exceeded? Did the nominee simply meet the standard, or did they exceed it? If the latter, by how much?
- Were there cost savings? If so, how much? Be certain that your numbers are accurate if you cite specific dollar amounts. Be prepared to prove this, if asked. Differentiate between cost savings and cost avoidance.
- Highlight specific examples of innovation, initiative, creativity, “above and beyond” activities, unique solutions, critical thinking, and leadership
- Did the nominee contribute to enterprise outcomes that went beyond their own organization, specific programs, or themselves? Did their efforts or initiatives contribute to success of other organizations besides their own?
- Success begets success. Consider citing credible sources (e.g., senior leaders, Government Accountability Office, Service, or DoD Inspector General, and auditors) who may have spoken about the individual, team, or accomplishment. Solid, hard-hitting quotes from credible source can powerfully reinforce key points in the nomination.
- Perhaps most importantly, focus on impacts and benefits. Remember the 3Rs: Results, results, results!
Step 4. “Polish the Fenders”
- Enlist support from trusted colleagues, supervisors, and mentors to review your work and provide feedback.
- Be ruthless in culling extraneous information that doesn’t substantively contribute to the ultimate goal of an award-winning package.
- Remind yourself before submitting the final package that the awards board members will have to read it and draw conclusions based on the content and the criteria. Get to the point. Make every word count.
- Submit the nomination on time and follow-up to ensure it was in fact received.
As the end of the day, submitting your organization, a colleague, or a subordinate for a major award (or a decoration for that matter) is a powerful way to convey the significance of their work ethic, contributions, and demonstrated performance. Recognizing their success is a powerful and tangible means of signaling just how much you and your organization value the individual (or the team members) and their performance. It would follow, therefore, that if a nomination is worth submitting in the first place, it’s worth taking the time to get it right. With that in mind, also remember that competition is likely to be fierce at the Component or DoD level. Every other nomination is likely to have been thoroughly vetted, often at multiple echelons, so ensuring that the nomination stands out from the competition is critical.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, winning a Service or DoD-level award almost certainly will boost the reputation of the organization, prove career-enhancing for the individual nominee or team members and, in some cases, open the door to new and exciting career opportunities. Taking the time to provide recognition where recognition is due by writing an award-winning nomination package is absolutely worth the time, energy, and effort.
RESOURCES
Kobren, the Director of the Logistics and Sustainment Center at DAU, Fort Belvoir, Virginia, has been a certified Department of Defense (DoD) Life Cycle Logistician since 1993. He is the Executive Secretary of the Life Cycle Logistics Functional Integration Team. He has supported myriad DoD human capital and workforce professional development initiatives including the DoD Life Cycle Logistics Back-to-Basics Transformation Task Force, two DoD Logistics Human Capital Strategy development projects, the 2009 DoD Weapon System Acquisition Reform: Product Support Assessment implementation team, two Service-level logistics workforce reconstitution teams, and three life-cycle logistics functional area competency reviews.
The author can be contacted at
Bill.Kobren@dau.edu.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the Department of Defense. Reproduction or reposting of articles from Defense Acquisition magazine should credit the authors and the magazine.
