I have just been listening to Yasmina and Kate being interviewed on the radio. They both sound great and I do love the fact that they can all say good things about each other! Even Suralan got it in the end and kept complimenting the whole “mob” this year. When the last man standing left the boardroom saying it was brilliant there was a tear in a lot of eyes round the boardroom.
The Apprentice is getting closer to real life in real business. To get money from customers they have to know like and trust you, to get extraordinary results from the people round you they have to know like and trust you. Sustainable business is not about taking the money and running, but about building relationships. What a pleasure to see that on the Apprentice rather than the flog ’em high sell ’em cheap mentality which has been a flavour of previous years.
I was particularly impressed with Claude who is a bit of a demon on the figures. He seemed genuinely concerned that Yasmina and her brother only gave 1% stake in the business to their mother who obviously put her house on the line. Karren Brady comes across as very emotionally competent and gave Kate a run around about women being stereotypically bitchy. Kate came in for a lot of flak about being perfect, and while Lorraine was criticised for her adversarial approach in the house, there was not a word of concern about a chequered cv only about dishonesty.
It all felt less soap opera and more grown up as the series went on.
Best of all Alan Sugar hired the person who listened. He was conscious of Yasmina’s rather fierce gaze, and the fact that she took the lessons of the previous task and brought them into the next. Personally I thought he was going to go for Kate, but this victory for Yasmina seems particularly well-deserved, and also feels like a win for a more enlightened way of doing business. Good for business, good for Suralan, good for reality TV and good for us all.
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