There are winners, there are losers. The winners are better than the losers. They’re smarter. They’re more adaptable. They produce more. They accomplish more. In almost all ways it is better to be a winner than it is to be a loser.

I live in a culture and a time where this simple truism is rejected by some as being elitist, classist, insensitive, or politically incorrect. I live in a time of “Honorable Mentions” and “Participation Awards.”There are times where firing someone for being bad at their job is difficult to impossible. The culture I find myself in allows for “I wasn’t warned” to be an excuse for everything from spilling hot coffee on yourself to falling asleep at your desk.

I’ve got a friend who talks about this as the “Everybody’s a winner” mentality. The theory goes something like “Well, it would hurt Johnny’s feelings if he didn’t get an award, so we give him and everyone else one too.” Of course, there’s still first, second and third (lest we be confused for not honoring competition) but there’s also this “Thanks for showing up!” prize. As if showing up meant something.

To me, this is why we have people who show up to work every day, do the job poorly, and expect to not be fired. We told them showing up was enough when they were young, and now they are grown-ups who have had it engrained in themselves that showing up to something was all it really took to be considered part of it.

I, and I think objective reality, disagree. Showing up is part of being a winner, sure. You can’t win if you aren’t there, however; the risk of losing is also part of winning. How valuable is first place when there was never a chance for you to get “no place”? What’s the point of competing if no one is going to go home crying? What’s the value of winning if you never had to worry about losing in the first place?

So, I’d like to suggest three new prizes. If we simply MUST keep an Honorable Mention or Participation Award then I must insist we add three more – “Third Worst”, “Second Worst”, and “The Absolute Worst”. These describe awards should be given in competitions to the competitors who clearly thought that just being there was good enough and who didn’t bother to put in enough effort. The trophies should be pictures of dog shit, or a kid with his head hung low and his shoulders slumped, with the worst “YOU SUCK!” displayed beneath his name.

I’ve earned these awards myself more than a few times, in life. And I’ve given them to people when I ranked them for their promotions. I’ve seen it done in the real world and I’ve seen managers put all sorts of bows around the concept in order to avoid hurt feelings or lawsuits. Hell, I’ve sat in a room with an “Absolute Worst” award winner and convinced him that his performance was what it clearly was. So why not start children off early in life showing them what it’s all about? Lets be honest with ourselves about who has what it takes to make it and who doesn’t, and lets communicate failure in an open and honest fashion. The cost? A few hurt feelings. The reward? Success would actually mean something, and people would have shame as a motivator.

Win/Win!