Be careful what you praise…because you’ll get more of it!
Awards should recognize only results that are important to the organization. You might think this is a case of stating the obvious; but, then, you’d be surprised.
All of us have known a manager who claims to value teamwork but rewards the person with the best individual performance; or a manager who wants her senior sales staff to mentor and train junior employees but rewards salespeople based solely on their personal performance; or a university dean who wants his professors to continually improve their teaching abilities but rewards and recognizes professors only for their research and publications.
No matter what you say, employees will do what you reward.