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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ryujin" data-source="post: 9621668" data-attributes="member: 27897">But I think you can have both. You can reward participation, while also rewarding exceptional performance. I think that both are necessary to a healthy culture. You both want and need exceptional people to do exceptional things, while hopefully not stifling those who aren't exceptional. You maintain with the average person. You advance with the exceptional. Both are needed.In the 1970s, in Canada, we had a programme called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ParticipACTION" target="_blank">ParticipAction</a>. It was created because studies determined we were becoming couch potatoes, as a nation. If you at all took part you received an embroidered patch indicating that you did, but they were also graded bronze, silver, and gold for your levels of achievement. I think this was a good way to handle it. I still have my bronze patch in a drawer, somewhere, 50+ years later.Of all the things I treasure from me life, the one thing I have in a place of honour is my tiny academic achievement award, from 1976-77, when I was in grade 7. It kept me going at a time when my father was constantly telling me that I wasn't doing well enough in school. It told me that he was the only one who thought that. Don't under estimate the value of markers of achievement.</blockquote>