Lessons from my television

I've been spending some time lately watching the last series of The BBC show - The Apprentice. Where "16 business tycoons of tomorrow" so to speak, compete against each other in a series of delegated business tasks to be Sir Alan Sugars next apprentice. It's one of the only things I watch on tv, as it makes me feel like I've snuck into a board meeting of some top company and I'm following the executives as they go about their business.. Not only this but I get to see whether they have made the right decisions or not...Sweet!

One thing I've noticed in this episode so far is that the ones who are the first to be booted out are the ones who 1."Have never failed at anything before", 2. "Never use the L(Losing) word" 3."Have extremely high IQ - and are therefore more intelligent than everyone else". The last one sounds to me like conceit. There is a difference between self-confidence and conceit and in my opinion, self-confidence ends when others are being brought into the picture and comparisons are being made. That's where conceit, if not arrogance begins.

The task in hand was that all the "tycoons" were asked to go to a popular shopping centre, take peoples photographs and sell these photos back to the people. Both teams were run differently, but the results were slightly similar. Team A's strategy was to bring a David Beckham lookalike and offer photos with him for about £25.00. I'm not sure hot they came to choose this approach, but I'd expect that that it was probably a suggestion from one of the team members. Helene, the project manager was very authoritative - in the sense that she delegated tasks to various people, with a "make sure you do it" kind of attitude. This shows assertiveness, and may be necessary sometimes. However, I do feel that a good leader should try to "take care of the goose that lays the golden eggs" sometimes as well. The team member who was asked to process the photos on the computer put her hands up immediately they delegated the role to her. She confessed that she wasn't very good with technology. The team leader basically replied that she "shut up and get on with it", forgetting that if someone is challenged, they are challenged - besides technology is not something you can learn in one hour. In my opinion, the team leader was running away from the job - because she knew she wasn't too computer-friendly. Why then did she not "do unto others as you would like them to do to you", and acknowledge that Lucinda was also computer-shy? At the end of the day, they won the task, but inmy opionion, it was the David Beckham guy that made it possible. His appeal to the customers was probably greater than the damage done by Lucindas tecnophobia. Verdict: Helene - Authoritarian, not considerate of team members strenghts and weaknessess.

The other team lost. In my humble opinion, I guess their idea was a little harder to sell than the David Beckham face. Why? Because the idea came out of 1 head when there were about 6 heads present that could have provided a better alternative. 2 heads are better than 1, and 6 heads are better than 2 but Simon wanted to do it all by himself because in his words "if given a chance, he would turn this round on its head and should what a great business person he was". Hmm. No wonder he didn't listen to others very much - Because he wanted to show how good he was. He was extremely passionate about the task though, I must say, but his way of managing that passion wasn't the best. He wanted to do it all himself, and didn't want to delegate anytjing at all. I'm sure if you left him, he would sit by himself and set up the whole thing, take all the pictures himself and sell everything himself. I did feel sorry for him towards the end though. He looked like he was going to cry , and that shows how much passion he had for the project.
Verdict : Simon - Very passionate, authoritarian. Not considerate of his own weaknesses.

Here is a link to the episode in question :
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
I guess that's it for the post. Wow - I got lost in it and it's not 3:31am. Must go to bed now!