Dangers in Lean Manufacturing Awards from the Got Boondogle blog:

Another good post from an excellent blog that is well worth reading. Much can go wrong when pursuing an award.

I am not convinced pursuing an award is definitely a bad idea. It might be that the pursuit of an award can help the organization focus. However, I also see the dangers and would have to guess in most instances it is less effective to pursue management improvement awards than just pursuing improvement of the organization.