> Baer offered the following strategies for avoiding the potential negative effects of awards and instead using them to encourage creativity:

> Make sure that rewards and recognition are not only offered for the outcome of the creative process -- a new product -- but also for the process of developing the outcome. For example: Have we challenged key assumptions? Have we tested our prototype properly?

> Reward both success and learning from failure. What becomes a success is difficult to predict and often entails a fair amount of luck. Thus, success and failure often lay close together. Learning from failure can be immensely beneficial and should be encouraged.

> Do not glorify someone who had one creative success by offering an outsized reward. If you want to glorify people, celebrate those who can produce creative work repeatedly.

Interesting that the first two are pretty well-known (if not well practiced). The last I find interesting and wonder to what degree it applies in an engineering/management context. I doubt an 'award' is sizeable enough to matter--for some, a huge promotion could paralyze output. We recognize this as imposter syndrome, usually considered false but in this context could be valid.