Obama and the Peace Prize: "A" for Attitude

Beyond the obvious snub to the Bush Administration, what was the Nobel Committee's goal in awarding President Obama the Peace Prize? Certainly this is not an "A" for accomplishment, as it will take years, if not decades, to discern whether the Obama administration's international overtures and embrace of the UN system will bear fruit. (Let's remember to acknowledge the hard work of Hillary Clinton here too.)
Rather it is an "A" for attitude; it's for Obama's "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," as the Nobel Committee put it, lauding his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to prevent nuclear proliferation.
Obviously this comes at a very good time for the Obama administration. Of course, it will infuriate his critics on the right who despair (sometimes correctly) of the weaknesses of the UN system in dealing with the challenges posed by Iran and North Korea. But it will play well with the "sensible middle" of the nation, the pragmatic independents who, one hopes, will take this as evidence that Obama's efforts to end the long dark night of American unilateralism and isolation are bearing fruit.
The Nobel Committee's actions do, however, highlight an interesting and quite general management issue. When should we reward people for "right acting" as opposed to "right results?" When is the process worthy of the praise?
The answer is that managers should reward people who exhibit the right attitudes (and supporting actions, of course) whenever (1) it's difficult to make a direct connection between actions and measurable accomplishments (for example, because of a significant time lag) and (2) it's important to encourage people to continue thinking and acting in the right ways, to motivate them to pursue desired goals (for example, when we are trying to change a company culture).
Obama's situation definitely meets the first criterion, as it will take a long time before we know whether his efforts will pay off. But the Nobel Committee certainly had criterion #2 in mind in awarding the Peace Prize to our President: they wanted to raise expectations and so provide Obama with an incentive to aggressively continue to pursue his current approach.
In the research we do on negotiation, this is known as a commitment tactic. It effectively commits someone to pursue a specific course of action or else suffer a big loss. If you were in the President's shoes, you'd have to be thinking, "How will it look to history if I was awarded this prize for trying hard, but never accomplished much"?
And here lies the real risk for our President. As Cyril Connolly, the English critic and writer put it so aptly, "Whom the gods wish to destroy they first call promising."