I admit I don’t go out of my way to watch “The Apprentice” these days. But last night’s episode was all about creating a video and putting it on to YouTube which seemed like a welcome change from selling in the street.
There were many interesting factors to note – the first being the small gap between winning and losing. Just like life – there can be a hair’s breadth between the two. If you are on the losing side you can learn from your mistakes and get up to fight another day.
Not on The Apprentice. Once you are on the losing team you don’t often get compliments. It seems a rather black and white in the television boardroom.
Last night was no exception. They got little praise from each other or Nick or Karren. Their behaviour was very poor: a complete inability to listen, and the wish to simply tell Lord Sugar how bad the other candidates are and how good they are.
It seemed as though having decided to fire the first person, the remaining two thought they were safe and failed to simply keep quiet. Lord Sugar then went on a bit of a firing rampage and got rid of the second, and then when the leader thought she was safe and was still talking her fired her. She couldn’t believe it and continued to explain why she needed a second chance.
Rules is rules. If you are playing someone else’s game with someone else’s rules they can do what they like. Running a Care Home means exhibiting some caring qualities, having an online dating site would involve some web experience, having a film business would seem a more natural activity if you have uploaded videos to YouTube. Each of the candidates lacked some basic experience in actually taking an approach that showed some graft and the wish to get started. Lord Sugar of all people, favours in-the-trenches experience over academic qualifications.
Three people have never been fired before in one episode in all of the 10 years that the programme has been running.
The business take away is that your customers may not have behaved in a certain way before, but don’t assume they won’t.