A glimpse from The Telegraph School Awards For Excellence

The lessons to be learned from award ceremonies are legion. The recent The Telegraph School Awards For Excellence, which has become a landmark event showcasing scholastic excellence in equal measure with courageous competence achieved against all odds, held many motivating messages for the audience.

The recognition that happened to a large cross-section of student and educator and rickshaw-puller alike was quite remarkable in the way their successes had been ferreted out by the organisers. The victors emerged from unloved bylanes, unlettered crannies and unsung schools. Battling sickness, poverty and lack of opportunity, the ones who came into public view conveyed the fact that excellence is an uphill task achievable through grit, guts and the gumption to gore all difficulties.

While many companies have committed a number of monetary rewards in various categories, we were wondering why not a parallel set of awards for the bravehearts in the corporate world? Recognition comes to the leaders of business and industry, no doubt, in glitzy ceremonies. But there does not seem to be a similar kind of show of appreciation for a section of the workforce who have had to face unpalatable circumstances to achieve the levels they have reached. The journey to the top is hugely potholed and cratered, for those who have the unfortunate luck to be born less privileged.

Could there not be committees set up by chambers of commerce who could create guidelines that would enable companies to extract some astonishing stories about “ordinary” employees who have either made some amazing inventions, put forth great cost-cutting measures, or simply gone up in the hierarchy through individual effort?

There’s a flip side of such awards, too. Take a look at an organisation called CorpWatch. It actually gives out bimonthly Greenwash awards to “corporations that put more money, time and energy into slick PR campaigns aimed at promoting their eco-friendly images, than they do to actually protecting the environment”.

The movement focuses on investigating and exposing human rights violations, and champions the cause of social justice, environmental sustainability, and peace. What one found particularly important is their move towards tracking transparency and accountability amongst companies.

The Greenwash “awards” are pretty hard-hitting. Their articles talk about corporate influence on the media, of corporations raking in the windfalls of war, and even a most recent piece focusing on India. It is a 3,500-word declamation by Nick Robins, author of The Corporation that Changed the World: How the East India Company Shaped the Modern Multinational. Co-authored by Pratap Chatterjee, it talks about how, 60 years after India gained independence, British capital is still exploiting poor communities in its former colony!

Also initiated in the US are the BENNY Awards, (BEN stands for Business Ethics Network) to “recognise outstanding work to hold corporations accountable and rein in corporate abuse”. Last year’s winner challenged the marketing and political muscle of bottled water companies to protect people’s access to water as a fundamental right.

Whether it is a rap on the knuckles or a pat on the back, such tracking of both achievement and apathy has become the new necessary tool for corporate reward and rebuke.

(Do you have a story of success against all odds in the corporate world? Tell t2@abpmail.com)