NOMINATION HINTS

by Jim Butler (January 2005)

I have been on the Awards Committee for most of my twelve terms on the Board. I realize it's not because I'm good at it but because I'm not associated with any of the child support offices. Thus, I'm supposed to be objective. One would think it would then be easy to evaluate the candidates. Afterall, I don't have close contact with any of the nominees. Guess what? It's tough.

Sometimes it's tough for no fault of my own. The nominations can be...well, let's say less than ideal. Hopefully, some of the hints I give below will give nominators a better chance in having their candidate win. Before we start, I have to say, these are my opinions. Do not consider my ramblings as the view of any other Board member. I've talked to many award committee members over the years and we recognize these issues and the 'gaming' that goes on. We don't always agree on the same severity of the problem or the solutions. Perhaps you can shine a light on how to get out of our despair. If so, drop me a note at jbutler@policy-studies.com

First rule: THINK LIKE AN AWARDS COMMITTEE MEMBER

Child support workers are busy! The committee wants to do a thorough job but there's a point where committee work becomes a chore taking too much personal time. In a typical year we will receive 30, 40, sometimes as many as 50 nominations. After awhile, they can blur together in sounding a lot alike. Anything you can do to make it easier gives your candidate a minimally better chance. I say 'minimally' because it is still the candidates' qualifications that we are evaluating. I think the closest contest we have had is a difference of 1 or 2 points out of a possible 800 points. But if the nominator had clarified one statement just a bit, it could have swung the vote.

We try to ignore spelling, grammer, and format. That's a flaw of the nominator, not the candidate. But if two candidates are dead even where one has a poorly written nomination and the other is grammatically correct, which nomination do you think will get the tie-breaking point?

The person receiving your nomination will work with you. He or she will be hesitant in rewriting anything you submit because of a) time and b) the worry that your point will be lost or recorded inaccurately. However, if you ask for a bit of extra time, then you will likely have a sympathetic ear. For example, typed nominations are easier to read than handwritten. Nominations from the website or delivered in an email or Word document can be edited immediately and dropped into the award speeches. But don't miss the deadline. If the voting has started, your late arrival requires extra work to compare yours to those already evaluated. Re-evaluations take time and a ticked off reviewer is a low scoring reviewer.

Hint #1: CONTACT THE AWARD'S CHAIRPERSON OR PRESIDENT AND ASK FOR AN EXTENSION IF YOU'RE CLOSE TO DEADLINE. Make the extra effort to get it right.

Frankly, I think award committee members should be allowed to make nominations. They often make the best nominations because they know what the Board likes to hear. We have no rules against who can make a nomination. But to convince a committee member or Board member to make a nomination is tough. Again, it's a matter of time. More importantly, it's the fear of being accused of favoritism. If you want a law passed, ask a legislator how it's done. If you want a nomination to have the best chance, ask the evaluator what sells. I believe it's better to have the best candidate win regardless of who makes the nomination. Just be careful placing the board members in an awkward situation where they may recuse themselves.

Hint #2: ASK FOR HELP. Board members will tell you how far they'll go in helping you.

Likewise, I believe board and award committee members should be eligible for an award. In the past we've handled this by carefully numbering and distributing the nominations. The committee member does not see his or her nomination and does not recognize that their stack to evaluate is one short. Why shouldn't you nominate someone you elected to represent you on the Board? He or she obviously has some trait worthy of recognition.

New committee members often have the same surprise, i.e. nomination quality varies a lot. Every year, the experienced committee members try to indoctrinate the rookies in ignoring the writer's style and evaluate the nominee. This is most difficult if the nominator forgets to answer a question. Does one grant zero points or twist answers from other questions to fill in the blank? Also, in some cases and regardless of the amount of editing, the candidate is recognized. How much personal knowledge should be factored in? The answers are left to each committee member and varies significantly. The result: the average score will always drop for the candidate since some will assign zero points.

Hint #3: ALWAYS ANSWER EVERY QUESTION. Edit more tightly and eliminate duplicate thoughts to make room but never ignore a question.

Rookie committee members are also surprised at how nominations will have similar quotes from different writers for the same candidate. A campaign to have many nominators nominate the same person gains nothing if similar answers are given. The extra nominations slow down the work of the committee and I've seen where the scores slowly drop for each additional nomination as committee members get bored and aggravated with reading the same thing over and over. If writer 1 lists 9 items and writer 2 gives 8 identical and 1 fresh item, each nomination may get 9 points. But if the two writers compared notes and offered one nomination with ten unique items, the score would probably be a 10. Don't depend on the evaluators to combine points from different nominations - they won't. Each nomination is voted on its own merit. After the voting is done and the winner determined, only then may the speech writing combine comments from multiple nominations. In summary, flooding the committee with a campaign is a risky approach. It is primarily for this reason that the best county award was dropped from being a nominated category.

Hint #4: MAKE IT A TEAM EFFORT TO ENTER A NOMINATION. Two or more heads will always result in a better nomination.

What about the supervisor that nominates every person on their staff? The committee likes to recognize all of the candidates and every good worker in the State. As we work harder in publicizing the nominee list, it gets more obvious that the team has been shotgunned. The reviewers can often detect a writer's style. That detection is made easier if the writer uses the same phrase in a majority of their nominations. The impact to the score can be expected. The same words tend to get the same score. Again, the committee gets bored and the wasted time tends to send scores lower. Because the supervisor didn't submit only their best, the individual team members tend to get lumped together, averaged out, and end as mediocre.

Hint #5: SUBMIT ONLY THE BEST TO GET THE BEST SCORES.

The final time waster I wish to discuss is the inappropriate category. It's a matter of apples and oranges. Placing the candidate in the wrong award category makes the committe member's job harder. Anything that makes the decision more difficult tends to get a score below the best. There are differences between categories. A jack-of-all-trades may appear to fit into each category but reviewers tend to expect more from administrators than support staff. Thus, the evaluators tend to discount the administrator's score in competition with the support staff.

Hint #6: NOMINATE IN THE RIGHT CATEGORY. If in doubt, ask an awards committee member.