Opinion

Career Coach: I’m being asked to create a scam award entry – what should I do?

awards, winnersIn a regular new column career coach Kate Savage gives advice to people in a pickle. This week looks at what to do if you’re being pressured to enter scam work in awards.

Dear Kate. I’m a suit at [An.Other agency] and during awards season I’m always pulled in to coordinate entries into the different awards – I guess I’m good at getting shit done! Don’t get me wrong, I love winning awards as much as the next creative (well, maybe not that much), but my values have been challenged recently when I’ve been asked to be…um…creative with the entries. When I raised my concerns I was told to ‘just concentrate on winning the award’. What should I do if this happens again?

– Confused @ Cannes

Dear Confused @ Cannes, I was going to start by saying you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, but you’re not really. It’s more like being stuck between a rock (your boss/agency) and a huge piss up and pat on the back (awards all-nighter & ammunition at the next review time). And that makes it harder.

Kate Savage

Kate Savage

You need to make some choices, and these choices could depend on what level you’re at. If, as it sounds, you’re not too comfortable with the claims this entry is making – you need to make a choice. First and absolutely, you can, and you should, raise your concerns. In writing. That’s a given.

But remember, strong opinions lightly held; this email needs to be really thought through in terms of timing, content and recipients – and the reason why you’re sending it.

If your name if the first on the accolades list and you’re going to be the one going up on stage accepting the award, you need to decide…is it worth the risk of getting found out? Do the possible career-boosting points outweigh the defamation if you get found out? Or, you respectfully recuse yourself early on, at a point where you can claim plausible deniability (yes, Law&Order is my favourite show).

If you’re lower down the food chain, you have less to win, and so less to lose. It’s like this. If Mumbrella wrote an article about this campaign and this entry, would your name appear in it? If not, and you are but a mere toner cartridge in the awards entry machine…it should be easier to back out, or to go with the flow. But it’s still a choice you need to make.

Should you tell your client? Should you tell the judges? Personally, I’d say…no- one likes a tattletale. This isn’t House of Cards. No one’s going to die if this entry goes through, even if the conspiracy does come to light. It’s advertising. We sell stuff – ideas, campaigns, scopes of work – sometimes people get too excited and the lines get blurred.

As long as you stop and make a choice about your involvement, that’s what I’d be asking of you. Then whatever you decide, you’ve taken back control and can proceed with plan a or plan b. The worst thing you can do is get swept along on a wave you’re not ready for, and then crash and burn at the end of the journey having left your values somewhere out to sea.

What’s most important to you at work? Promotion, values, success, awards, respect, likeability – figure those out, and then these decisions will get easier.

  • Kate Savage is a career coach and mentor at Elbow Room Group

Got a question for Kate? Email kate.savage@elbowroomcoaching.com or contact her on Twitter @ElbowRoomCoach

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