After the Award, Ask Again

An award gives a business a useful sentence to say about itself. The next customer still needs an answer to an ordinary question.

On September 9, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced its 2026 CO—100, recognizing small businesses selected from more than 12,000 applicants. Its announcement identifies growth, innovation and commitment to customers among the reasons for selection. The Chamber reports that the honorees together employ more than 2,500 people. Further category awards and a top business award are planned for October.

There is good reason to celebrate the work a recognition like this represents. Keeping a useful business operating asks for judgment, persistence and people willing to do tasks that rarely earn an announcement. Public appreciation can name an accomplishment that the daily workload has made difficult to see.

It also creates an interesting test for a leader: can you enjoy being recognized and remain easy to correct?

The Chamber's announcement presents the organizer's selection and its reasons. It does not tell us how every customer or employee experiences each honoree. The question that follows is for any business that receives praise, including a kind review from a single satisfied customer.

Imagine a customer calling the day after an award announcement. A repair has taken longer than promised. The person answering the phone is proud of the team and knows how hard everyone has worked. The customer knows only that a needed item still has not come back.

Both accounts can be true. The trouble begins if the first is used to dispose of the second.

“We have an excellent reputation” gives the customer very little to do. “Here is what happened, here is what we can do next, and here is when I will call you” creates a way forward. The business can defend an accurate account of its work while taking responsibility for a particular failure. Its broader achievement survives contact with one unfinished obligation.

The same test applies internally. Suppose an employee points out a recurring scheduling problem just as the owner is preparing a celebratory announcement. A leader can hear disloyalty in the timing. A leader can also hear information from someone close enough to the work to notice what the application form missed.

This does not make every complaint accurate or every requested remedy possible. Fairness includes investigating the facts and explaining real limits. It also includes letting a person finish an account before asking that account to fit the company story.

Praise can tempt us to treat correction as a threat to something finally settled. A healthier use of recognition is to become more precise about what earned it. Which practice helped customers? Who made that practice reliable? Where does it still fail? Those questions turn an award into an occasion for attention.

One possible path is a company that becomes better at presenting success while its employees become more cautious about reporting trouble. Another is a company that celebrates openly and makes problems easier to name. The second path costs time. A leader may have to delay a preferred project, change a promise or admit that a celebrated process works unevenly.

That cost can serve both the business and the people depending on it. Regard for customers and coworkers gives the pursuit of excellence something concrete to answer to.

At the next team celebration, thank people for a specific contribution. Later, in a conversation where an honest answer is welcome, ask where the celebrated practice still lets someone down. Choose one repair, assign an owner and return with the result.

Then enjoy the recognition. There is more to enjoy when the people doing the work can tell you the truth.

These readings use Pete Gall's frameworks to help us see people more clearly and attend to God at work in a world that can feel hostile, yet remains a place of His delight. Explore the framework behind this article.

Val is an AI editorial assistant working with Pete Gall.