Award applications for long-term success

An honour

and a privilege

We often forget to celebrate our successes. Always focused on the next win, the things we once strived for can end up happening with little fanfare. We spoke to Mukesh Patel from Freeths about why applying for awards can help you to celebrate your victories, even before a winner is

announced WORDS BY TOM YOUNG

Award season. The red carpet’s rolled out. The actors parade along it, each echoing the phrase: “It’s an honour just to be nominated”. Watching on TV at home, we cynically mutter: “Yeah, you say that now…”

But there’s an important truth to that sentiment – the work we’re proud of deserves to be recognised.

Mukesh Patel is a Dispute Resolution Partner, and the Managing Partner of Freeth’s Leicester office. Freeths is a Top 50, full-service law firm, with a head office in Nottingham and 12 locations around the country.

Mukesh is originally from Leicester, attending a local comprehensive before going to university and then down to London to do his articles. Initially joining a firm called Davies Arnold Cooper (now DAC Beachcroft), after nine years, he returned to Leicester in 2000, working for Gateley, and eventually joining Freeths in November 2008.

With over 1000 staff, Freeths has enjoyed phenomenal growth, and Mukesh believes award recognition plays a role in that. They won Lawyer Litigation Law Firm of the Year in 2020 and have also won awards for IT innovation in the legal world.

“We’ve always appreciated that we need to embrace technology in order to work smarter and more efficiently,” says Mukesh. “The last two years have demonstrated that investing in technology and people is invaluable. Without it, we wouldn’t have been able to work with the agility that we do now.”

These awards can be used to underscore good practice and good decision making. Mukesh believes there’s greater

Success builds on success. If you have a lot of successful businesses in one area, other businesses will think: ‘That’s the place to invest’ – it puts the city on the radar

value to applying for an award than just winning.

“Applying for a particular award allows you to look inwardly at your own organisation and evaluate what’s created your recent success. It can be a real morale boost to staff and it raises your profile. If you’re not successful on the first attempt, the process will still be positive – it encourages you to believe that you’re worthy of recognition and celebration.”

It’s important to take that moment to consciously consider what you’re doing well and take pride in your strengths. It’s not something we’re always driven to do, often conditioned to keep success to ourselves.

“Sometimes people are reluctant to put themselves forward and shout about their success. Leicester is typical of this – there’s lots in the city to shout about, and we haven’t always done that.”

Leicester has had a lot of success in recent years – the 2016 Premier League title win perhaps acted as a watershed moment – an instant of ‘Oh, we quite like this winning thing; what else are we good at?’, sparking further celebration of our strengths.

“We’ve had success in the football, the comedy festival is the biggest in Europe, the space centre goes from strength to strength… they’re all giving the city more attention than it used to enjoy.”

From a business perspective, continued success makes Leicester a desirable place to be. IBM and PPL PRS set up in Leicester, and Next have their headquarters here too. It’s all positive for the region.

“Success builds on success. If you have a lot of successful businesses in one area, other businesses will think: ‘That’s the place to invest’ – it puts the city on the radar.”

One of the best things about Leicester is its central location, with its connection to London and the rest of the country a real plus. IBM is in New Walk and has benefitted from people being able to travel up from the capital and go back the same day – with the fast train, it’s just over an hour.

“We’ve got a rich diversity of businesses, from Next down to SMEs. For me, you want everyone putting themselves forward for awards, because the small business of today could be the large one of tomorrow.”

It also adds to the local job market, as businesses that celebrate their employees’ successes make for more attractive places to work.

“If people can see the quality of businesses in the area, we’ll attract the best people to work in the region. We’ve got three top class universities, yet we often lose graduates to London. More award-winning business will help to keep those graduates here where we need them!

“You don’t just want to be a university town or city – you want people to think that they’ve got a long-term future here, with a good quality of life, great job and fulfilling experience. We want people to be proud of Leicester and be proud of working here.”

But there are more personal reasons to apply for awards than just benefitting the city. An awards evening gives people the opportunity to come together. Your team can take the night to celebrate together whilst meeting other professionals from the wider business community.

“After the last two years, events are coming back into our diaries and there’s a real desire to get together in person. Awards nights are great because everybody loves positive stories and celebrating everyone’s success lifts the mood. It’s fantastic to have a chance to speak to people in person and have discussions that create opportunities.

“I’ll always find someone we haven’t met before, and that adds to our knowledge of the region. That support network is really important. If you don’t attend these events, not only might you be unaware of the people who can support you, but you might not even know the support is needed! The business community is very close knit, so we all know people who can assist others.”

Freeths provides events around and advice on business success at freeths.co.uk/category/events.