Episode 12 –The Apprentice is like a box of chocolates...

Basil and strawberry? You've got to be kidding.

Perhaps in one of Heston Blumenthal's snail porridge-induced nightmares that combination may occur, but please leave it out of our Milk Tray.

And yet, Yasmina’s "Cocoa Electric" 'shockolates' contained this particular depth charge, as well as some other unsavoury-sounding combinations. Adult-oriented chocolates represent indulgence: they are eaten for pleasure. While some of us here at OPP Towers may admit occasionally to playing Russian roulette with a packet of Revels, it's usually only kids that eat things like Bertie Bott's stinky jellybeans for grossout tittilation.

By contrast, Kate's 'Choc d'Amour' represented an innovative idea, high-quality products, and impressive brand strength (apart from the condom-packet-like box artwork). Sadly, it was let down by an unrealistic price. As the advertising executive in the presentation noted, establishment of a new brand requires a level of impulsivity from potential consumers, and in a crowded marketplace during a recession, thirteen quid was just too much.

Although the show is about one person getting the job, having a good team proved to be tremendously important. In the final task, both candidates were able to make the most of their team's strengths. And they both looked hugely pleased to get the feedback from their teams that they were 'good leaders': without their teams, and the teams’ respect, they wouldn't have been able to compete.

One of the ways in which a leader relates to his or her team can be seen in the 'control' measure revealed by the FIRO-B instrument. It indicates how much influence and responsibility a person desires, and expresses. Kate and Yasmina clearly both exhibited the need to influence, and both wanted responsibility - but there were also key delegated tasks in this week’s episode.

In 'taking charge', Kate didn't really quiz Debra on the detailed cost breakdown, accepting a verbal "commercially viable" - and was left with a retail price that was out of kilter with the market.

Yasmina, however, did much better - she made sure her costs were under control, and created a retail price that would tempt the uninitiated (whether they'd create repeat business, who knows?).

Most impressively, she ably fielded the bizarre and maverick Philip ("One day the world will understand Pantsman. They called me mad! Mad, I tell you! But I'll show them, I'll show them all, bwa ha ha haa!"), and she was able to pacify his aggressive and blinkered ideas into producing a tack-tacular dance routine that actually fitted an admittedly naff brand.

We still wonder if there genuinely would be any appeal for a supposedly luxury item that might leave the consumer, as it did one of the actors, gagging and wanting to spit it out.

But if the shockolates left something to be desired, let us not forget the reputation that Amstrad products had, which never stood in the way the vastness of the Sugar empire... Sir- sorry: LORDalan is successful due to his business acumen, matching price to product to market, and not necessarily his attempt to produce the highest quality product possible.

We agree that both candidates were very strong indeed; the most impressive ever in the final. At the final reckoning, though, what was Lordalan looking for?

Kate would make a great corporate animal: she handles teams well (even in her final summation in the boardroom, she referred to herself as a team player, not an individual), is charming, creative, competent, unflappable and winsome. She oozes extraversion and confidence, which is important in managing others' perceptions of her.

Yasmina, by contrast, is somewhat rougher around the edges. She had many successes throughout the series, but also made a lot of mistakes, particularly at the interview stage. However, she was an entrepreneur at a young age, and already runs her own business in the real world. This is something Lordalan clearly admired, evidenced by his spirited defence of her borrowing money from her mother to kick off the business, in the previous episode. She showed that she could listen, and learn important business lessons - and put the learning into practice quickly and deftly - which is something that most pundits agree is a key indicator of potential.

We suspect that Lordalan picked someone who reminded him of himself when younger: someone that resembled his own personality type - which is not necessarily always an error. However, when putting teams together, we believe that diversity is something that should be considered: it takes all sorts to make a business, and large numbers of boss clones can lead to dangerous 'groupthink'.

That old codger 'gut instinct' reared his familiar head again. We think Lordalan's use of that term is misleading, because the specific and quite data-driven reasons for his decisions is just his shorthand for 40 years' experience, and the good judgement that comes from it. For us lesser mortals, however, let's not be lured into the 'gut' decision when psychometrics are so inexpensive, quick and easy to use as a basis for more objective people calls..!

You never know which Apprentice you're going to get - and it was delightful to see a pair of potential winners who represent modern management in all its participative, empowering, and collaborative glory. Despite this being the closest competition ever, we think he chose well from two exceptional contestants, by rejecting the smooth, but perhaps a little cloying, Kate, in favour of the more textured and bittersweet Yasmina.

OPP

P.S. There were no muppets this week – we were genuinely tremendously impressed - and sadly nor shall there be for another year.

We have very much enjoyed putting together this blog over the past eleven weeks, and hope that you have enjoyed reading it as much as we've enjoyed writing it. Come back next season for more!

Episode 11 - This is a job interview from Hell...

We are sure that getting an executive position at Siralan's empire is no walk in the park, but we find it difficult to believe that any interview process would be quite so harsh in the real world. Making Nick and Margaret seem positively benign, Siralan cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war: a Bulldog, a She-Wolf, a Silver Fox and a Rottweiler. And attack they did, reducing all but Kate to stammering puddles of jelly, or sweating buffoons. 

We are unsure that the exhibited techniques would genuinely work in the real world. There are harsh interviews, of course, and then there's good telly, and we are fairly sure which of the two things here the producers were aiming for. Certainly were we to be subjected to the insults flying at the candidates in the interviews, we would think twice about joining the company, regardless of the position. 

Selection for recruitment is one of our core areas of expertise. We were disturbed to see how much gut feel and intuition there was in the discussions in the boardroom. The attack dogs are all highly successful businesspeople in their own right, and have no doubt recruited hundreds of people over the years – yet at the end of the day, they had more hunches than the annual Notre Dame bellringers' convention. 

How much better for them to have a more objective viewpoint of the candidates.

Put it this way: even for an entry-level position, you are looking at an investment of around £20,000 per annum; for managers and senior managers, multiples of this. For a similar investment in a business service or a piece of equipment, executives would expect an extreme amount of due diligence. And yet OPP research reveals that 4 out of 10 managers rely on nothing but face-to-face chats and gut feeling, despite the large amounts of money that is tied up in the decision.

The "robotic" Kate is a case in point. Claude the Bulldog said, accurately, that she is an "excellent candidate" – implying that excellence in candidacy is a learnt skill. How is it that someone who does everything right is criticised for that very ability? "Maybe she hasn't got a personality", said the Silver Fox, illogically. Clearly the interviewers are floundering here: their gut instinct does not reveal the true Kate. This is a perfect illustration of why psychometrics in recruitment is tremendously valuable. The 16PF is the ideal tool to reveal the underlying traits of a candidate. It would show if she is "contrived or controlled", or whether she is genuinely as perfect as her teeth (her stated gender bias aside).

The other candidates appeared easier to read: while their personalities may have been overlooked, due diligence was certainly performed regarding their CVs, and one by one their "spin" was revealed. Yasmina's embarrassing gaffes regarding the difference between net and gross profit and the public nature of her company accounts certainly gave the Bulldog misgivings; Lorraine's "mistake" regarding her length of employment made the She-Wolf prick up her ears, and her near-supernatural explanations of her intuitive nature (the MBTI 'N' preference); James's overreliance on telecoms jargon did not go down well (though we would have expected the Bulldog to know what an SLA is...) and his sweaty brow sent him off with his tail between his legs.

With Debra, again, we see how the hunch-based interview technique proved ineffective. Was Debra using her not-inconsiderable self-promotional skills to pull the wool over the She-Wolf's eyes about how much she had developed, or was she telling the truth? They couldn't tell. How valuable, then, was the 360-degree feedback solicited from her former colleagues: and how tragic for Debra that "telling colleagues to F-off" is not one of the prerequisites for an apprenticeship with Siralan.

Finally there's a definition problem: where is it writ what the mystical role of Apprentice shall comprise? It's not helpful to be recruiting as if it was a dark art, rather than a question of defining a target and trying to hit it with as many bullets as possible. We always advise our clients to pin down exactly what they want the ideal person in that role to do, to know and to be capable of – then to ask questions and to deploy psychometric instruments designed to measure candidates against this model. Precision – rather than persecution - is everything.

Despite all this, we feel very strongly that the right two candidates were retained. Will Yasmina's error-prone entrepreneurial spirit be enough to counteract Kate's unflappability? It's a dog-eat-dog world at the Apprentice, and only Sunday will tell.

OPP

At least we know who the muppet of the week isn't: James told us plainly, "Siralan is no muppet" – sadly, James's flustered bluster, proudly bringing ignorance to the table, awarded him that coveted spot.

Episode 10 - When the chips go down...

Flanked by henchmen Nick and Margaret, Siralan greeted the contestants at dawn at Ally Pally with the menacing demeanour of a mafia boss from a Guy Ritchie movie, about to punish some people who owed him a lot of money.

The punishment was not delivered as a nasty beating round the head with a golf club.

It was something far worse...

Not in a million years would we wish "presenter of a home shopping channel" on our worst enemy. Not even if they kicked puppies for pleasure. A thankless, difficult, nerve-wracking - and frankly humiliating - task, and therefore the perfect challenge for the put-upon contestants at this stage of the game.

And sure enough, the moment the cameras started to roll, things began to fall apart. Lorraine's "car crash" demo had us gnawing our knuckles up to the wrist.

But it was the discussion between Lorraine and Howard that gave us at OPP Towers the most pause for thought. Lorraine reckoned the products chosen should "reflect our personalities", whereas Howard said they should "reflect the target audience".

This represents the classic MBTI "Feeling" (F) versus "Thinking" (T) preference dichotomy. And in a way, they were both right: while it would be absurd to traipse around Newcastle knocking on doors and trying to flog a lump of coal, if you are going to do sell anything face-to-face, you really need to be behind the product. In most businesseses, sales and marketing people may not truly believe in the products and services they sell; yet they are usually able to enter a strange half-world where they have convinced themselves of a fundamental validity, and their professionalism allows them to go along with this minor delusion.

In front of the camera, however, it's something of a different story. Unless you're a seasoned professional, it is very difficult to convince others of the utility of a product that you personally think of as a dreadful bag of crap - as evidenced by the contrast between Kate's woeful attempt to flog a polystyrene kitten, and her air guitar heroics. This is where Lorraine's "F" preference would have helped: products that are commercially sound, but about which the presenters can actually enthuse.

Howard also had a point, however, in terms of demanding structured pitches that each product must receive. In a good presentation, while the presenter's personality should shine through, the background knowledge must be there to facilitate this. Research and a solid grounding in your subject cannot be faked. And it was this lack of knowledge of the products that led to Lorraine and Howard abandoning any USPs, calls to action, or benefits of their expensive deep fat frier, in favour of stuffing their faces with chips.

"You can have them with beef." Really, Howard? We never would have guessed. I always eat mine with chocolate mousse.

What a mistake, too, to go for high volume sales. Howard was been characterised by Siralan as "risk averse", which something the 16PF instrument could reveal in a recruitment situation (in 16PF terms, a risk-taker would score highly on the 'Social Boldness' and 'Liveliness' scales, whereas Howard would probably score low on 'Liveliness' - indicating caution). However, he inadvertantly took a gigantic risk by attempting a large number of sales in an untried medium, rather than one or two high value wins. Since the winning team was to be decided by revenue, not margin, this should have tipped him off to such a strategy: there are always going to be one or two mugs out there in TV land who'll buy any old tat - not hundreds of them.

The teams should have also tried harder to fit the message to the medium. It's television, and there was nothing more telegenic in that warehouse than the affectionate dinosaur (though we were pleasantly surprised to see how well both Deborah and Yasmina came over in front of the red blinking light!). Despite its high ticket price, two or three sales of something that packed the punch of novelty would have made all the difference.

What a shame that as team leader, Howard couldn't have combined both the T and the F components of the team (together with some strategic thinking).

Thence to the boardroom! While his being given concrete boots and sent to sleep with the fishes at the bottom of the Thames may have been debatable in some quarters, it did seem inevitable, given the level playing field that projected his head above the parapet, willingly or no.

There's no real muppet of the week - it would be too cruel on people who have suffered a terrible ignominy - but we will allow Siralan a "plonker of the week": the bumbling and bungling James spouting the wrong price on live TV, in direct contradiction of the on-screen numbers. Ouch.

OPP

(You don't mess with the Don. But when Siralan declaimed to Lorraine that "It's not a game show," we felt like risking the loss of a finger or two by whispering: "er... yes it is.")

Episode 9 - Coal, zircon or diamond?

Not too much outrage to report on this week...must be getting towards final time when only the decent ones are left. Hmm - having said that, does that mean Debra would count as 'one of the decent ones'?! Siralan is seeing some sort of dim and distant glimour of potential in Debra - where on earth is his evidence for this? If a good part of potential means being able to learn and adapt your behaviour, then Debra has shown none of this - she's stuck in a rut (which may indeed make her a very successful sales person at a FTSE 250 company as she says) and the rut involves not listening to others, an aggressive tone, and thinking you're right all of the time. Siralan said zircon, Debra said diamond, we say coal.

So Ben bit the dust, despite his 'leadership qualities which got him a place at Sandhurst'. In the end, we had a 'mind the gap' situation - often found when the talk doesn't match the walk. The talk was all about confidence and an unerring self-belief (which can be good) but the walk - his abilities - were not matching up. He's definitely capable, but perhaps not experienced, as Siralan pointed out. He needs talk AND walk. In other words, belts AND braces. Which funnily he actually physically has...odd...who does that nowadays? All part of his slightly juvenile misconceptions about business where being ‘TOUGH’ is what it’s all about. He needs his competency expectations bringing up to date – he’d be surprised how little demand there is for Wall Street-stylie naked ambition nowadays. We can point you in the right direction with a 16PF Career Development Report any time you like, Ben, now that you are a free agent.

James seems to be getting more comfortable in the Boardroom, we loved his witty response about wanting to bring Debra back in…twice if he could. He's one of the few which appear to be listening to Siralan and developing professionally- protecting himself by answering questions well and giving evidence for this own behaviour. Moreover, he seemed to maintain an extremely good grasp of the pelvic mechanics of ladies having babies, though, touchingly, he did express a preference for X-Box over partner-breathing, giving back rubs and innovations in supportive labour. Perhaps he's on his way to being a diamond geezer? Although his 'niceness' probably won't get him to the final.

The way they approach and view work is important. For Debra, it appears to be about 'winning' in a very individual way. For James, it appears to be about working with people and creating harmony to get things done. It's a shame really that The Apprentice is about an individual being picked. Wouldn't it be fun if it was about picking an ideal team? In that case, might there be space for both Debra and James? Each having their own way of doing things that are SO different but potentially as a team, they could get stuff done. If they didn't kill each other first.

And muppet of the week goes to Lorraine for her efforts in putting up the buggy - nice demos Lorraine! Where do we get one? Can you give us a discount?

Episode 8 - Punch and Judy

Does Debra realise that the words ‘team leader’ actually include the word ‘leader’? For her, leadership seems to mean louder-ship: like speaking louder whilst on holiday, but still in English, to hope you can be understood. What happened to providing direction and planning for the team – isn’t this a core aspect of leadership? Of course, there’s more than one way of being a leader but increasing trust and communication is so central and Debra seemed to think this was more about increasing trouble and volume of communication.

It appears that Howard actually did most of the work on the task and had the most creativity. Creativity was so central to the task but it’s not just about coming up with the bright ideas – it’s also about how you execute them, something which the IPI looks at. Howard could also do with a booster in the influencing skills department – he could have led the task if he’d only influenced Mona and James to support his leadership bid, rather than solely concentrating on Debra and her robotic ‘I am the leader. I am the leader. I am….’

So Debra’s team misunderstood the task in hand. Did they think the brief was to create something that looked like “Marketing for 5 year olds”? Had Debra ever seen a leaflet before in her life? It’s not rocket science to plan the leaflet and work out what you want on each page: and isn’t time management the class-101 of managing yourself? To leave the leaflet blank was outrageous, and surely any client of hers would have sacked her immediately. Where was her customer focus? Did she even think about who her customers were – the Margate officials and residents and the branding agency – surely customer focus is a vital competency as business gets harder for us all right now.

And in chapter 2 of the rather large volume wending its way to airport bookshelves as we speak 'What IS it about Lorraine that is so darn irritating?' we wonder whether there has ever been a better living example of the word 'sanctimonious'. Off the hook this week for having somewhat coincidentally been in the winning team, she nonetheless managed to alienate her colleagues when, on returning from a seaside jolly with Ben 'David Bailey' Clarke, she pronounced: 'I don't like them!' on a second's sight of the posters. Being 'right' (they were far too full of words) doesn't always make you right, but somehow Lorraine's 'instincts' are a justification for every sanctimonious pronouncement she makes. Yasmina thinks she has her pegged - 'She's crazy! She has issues!' - and not a business psychologist in sight. Oh for some real insight of the kind a psychometric might give us (try the FIRO-B for starters if you want to work out what someone really needs from others to bring out the best in them - and please tell Lorraine!)

At last Siralan is now concentrating on picking ‘for the future of his organisation’ – a nice aspect to work into your selection criteria. Still, if he really had been selecting on this basis, surely he would have fired both Mona and Debra. He seemed somewhat non-plussed this week, struggling to decide between which would be more of a waste-of-salary in his organisation, a Mona (boom boom) without the assertiveness to articulate her own objections to the 'Margayte' plan, or little miss bossy Debra. What a missed opportunity - we’ve not had a double-firing yet this season and it at least would have spiced things up a little.

Finally, to borrow from The Guardian, this week may have been much more fun if the task brief had a typo and it was actually about re-branding Margaret! And is it true that Nick is a secret member of the 'Alternative Rodent's Gurning Society'? Do that vole-with-a-thistle-stuck up-its-nostril impersonation for us again, please Nick...

Oh, and our muppet of the week? It just has to be Ben for the constant photo framing using his hands –did he not realise that’s what the camera is for?!

Episode 7 - Empire Strikes Back!

Siralan says it every week: “pressure – that’s what business is all about” and it seems that Phillip cracked under it – losing his focus, his sense of urgency, and generally STILL (true to form) getting into a pickle over Lorraine and a tingle over golden girl Kate.

In the grubby café, Lorraine is aware that pressure is the key “it’s what we signed up for – a bit of pressure”…but Phillip had long since opted out – his suggestion when he couldn’t focus enough to make any more appointments “let’s go to the pub”. We all love the pub – but that’s when the work’s done, surely! Did Phillip derail due to his obsession with Kate? Was it lack of ‘privateness’ – the tendency to keep personal information to himself (or not, in the case of him and Kate)? Kate certainly knew the importance of ‘privateness’ and clearly stated it in the Boardroom – “I wouldn’t let my personal life interfere with business”. Privateness has certainly been found to be, amongst other things, a clear leadership derailer – perhaps Phillip would care to read our article on it now.

Anyway, the predictions of fellow housemates proved accurate. Kate did not let her attachment to the rambunctious Philip of The Pants stand in the way of the competition, unceremoniously dumping him right in the fire of Siralan’s wrath in the boardroom. A quick farewell peck on the cheek was all he got for his attempts to woo her with his Cat-House antics and she was dust….I don’t think we’ll be seeing a ‘Hello!’ wedding there then…clearly a girl capable of logic and detachment, key skills in business decision-making.

It all comes back to trust – so basic, but so often forgotten. Why is this so tough!? Mona takes the PM job on simply because she “can’t trust anyone to do a better job than me” – ohhh. Where’s the trust Mona? Let’s hope that’s just the context of the competition and not her usual business behaviour.

Instinct: sometimes it works in business…but surely it’s about knowing when to use it and not – Lorraine – just repeating over and over that that is the way you do things so it must be right. Instinct about products can sometimes work but if the customer quickly realised “it’s a cardboard box in the end” – why didn’t the team?! And being disparaging about your customers must be a business no-no: did I really hear someone say about the ‘northern’ pet shop “wages are a little bit lower up here” – just where did they think they were?!

Why is it that some people are just so hard to like, and by association, work with? There’s nothing really WRONG with poor Lorraine, a grafter if ever there was one, and doubtless a marvellous mother and partner to someone, although she derides herself as being ‘a slow burner’ on the intellectual front. She describes herself as ‘very instinctive’. She talks about her ‘business instincts. She defends herself as ‘the victim’…wait, am I spotting a trend here? Of course, we think psychology has a huge amount to offer business, but the endless and self-obsessed self-analysis-thinking-out-loud is precisely what makes her so DARNED IRRITATING!!!! Stop telling us who you are and just be! Letting people take you or leave you as they find you, and then just Being, is a great lesson from true self-awareness that, for example, a psychometric feedback gives you.

Ben gets this week’s award for top marks on aptitude with the glorious deduction that “Gateway suggests it’s the gate to somewhere” – 110% for that observation Ben! I’m not sure how he’d stack up in our ability tests! Again we wish we’d be able to assess the candidates on their way into the competition – such geeky fun to be had!

Whilst trying to work out who is muppet of the week, we started to think that Lorraine should get this award – just for the open-mouth jaw-dropped pose she so fondly loves. A bit like a guppy fish- does that make her gup-pet of the week?!

Episode 6 - A skeleton walks into a bar...

...with an Afghan rug and a first edition James Bond novel.*

Make no bones about it, this was no magic carpet ride, and Ben is no Miss Moneypenny.

Another hilariously woeful episode for our hapless contestants, ending up with Ben speaking for the rest: "we didn't read the dossier very carefully". A schoolchild's mistake that one is meant to overcome during mock GCSE exams, and certainly not the behaviour of someone destined to lead you into battle.

We don't expect these random punters to be antiques experts, but instantaneous declarations without any evidence is not the way to make business decisions. And they did it a lot. Giving each team member time to express themselves in the manner in which they feel most comfortable would not only have benefited cross-communication, but may allow the quieter and more thoughtful team members to come up with some gems.

It is becoming increasingly obvious that Margaret's "Cassandra" Lorraine is right. Consistently. Pants Man? Disaster. We knew it, she knew it, but nobody paid the blindest bit of attention. And now the value of a rug that she spotted (showing that there's no substitue for life experience: most of the candidates are reasonably young – but anyone who has met a carpet vendor anywhere from Turkey to Tunisia will appreciate the asking price for these things) was ignored.

What is going on here?

On the face of it, the problem seems to be werewolf vs zombie personal animosity between Philip and Lorraine. This is the root of the issue and would take a lot of fixing, but the symptom could be addressed: and that symptom is total lack of information exchange. It seems to be somewhat one-sided, too. Philip's rock-sure conviction of his unwavering "pin-you-to-the-wall" rectitude, however wrong he may be, is threatened by Lorraine's quiet dissent, and therefore he puts her down at every opportunity.

Their animus and mutual lack of comprehension is something that could be overcome with the use of the "Team ReBuilder" from OPP – an MBTI-based course that is tailored to the current economic situation, that takes shattered and traumatised teams, and re-bonds them.

What both of these candidates actually lack is charisma. With Lorraine, a smart cookie, it is obvious: despite being consistently correct, she talks quietly, bitterly and angrily with a scowl akin to a bulldog licking vinegar from a nettle. And in this episode, she was so intimidated by the results of last week's task, that she nearly gave up talking altogether. Whereas Philip may be brimming with (woefully misguided) confidence, and is usually the most successful person in the room in getting his ideas pushed through, we should not mistake this for genuinely persuasive people skills. His methods of persuasion are to dig his heels in and shout the loudest – and thus he misses countless glaring truths passing before his eyes.

This all comes down to communications that tailor one's message to one's audience. Whether it's the bizarrely incompetent "would you like to buy a rug?" while doorstepping startled pensioners, or Ben's similar "would you like to buy a bike?" which made him look more like a heroin addict trying to get money for a fix than an officer inductee (by the way, in case anyone missed it, Ben got a scholarship to Sandhurst). Not the best means of persuading one's target of the validity of oneself or one's products.

Again, a comprehension of business psychology would have helped greatly. In OPP's article "Dealing with change: the new business as usual", we indicate the MBTI extravert's preferences are indicated to be "communication, communication, communication", but people like Deborah and Philip need to realise that communication is a two-way street. Philip needs to make time and space to draw out the opinions of the introverts, however much he dislikes them. If he were to take some time out and listen to the team's less cocksure members, he would have avoided so many mistakes.

And mistakes there were. Both teams indulged in similar degrees of muppetry in not considering more thoroughly the intrinsic value of the items presented - and the error of trying to sell the lot, rather than consider the top line. While Ben showed much more thoughtful firmness than one would have expected in slapping the vampire Deborah down when her negativity threatened to disrupt the team's efforts, creating time for open discussion and reflection would surely have given better chance for opinion on the cash-from-the-attic provisions than "these shoes are old". Yes. They're antiques. You muppet.

It is with regret that we note Philip's team won, or rather didn't lose so badly. But thus it was that three more disastrous communication errors were trotted out.

First, was Ben's wavering on who he would bring back to the boardroom a cleverly strategic manoeuvre, or a disastrous tactical error? He knew James would be in the clear, thus forcing Suralan to a decision between himself and the taciturn Noorul. But as the bombs and bullets of James's outrage exploded around him, beat a hasty retreat to the safety of a one-in-three chance rather than a 50/50, and brought Deborah back into the firing line.

Of course, the muppet of the week this time is Deborah. Again, tailor your communication to your audience. Do NOT insult Suralan's right-hand man. Especially in front of the Big Man himself! There are ways of "managing up" that OPP can teach – respectful disagreement with a superior that persuades but doesn't get anyone's back up. Deborah's error was gratuitous and unforgiveable, and will no doubt not be forgotten. What a muppet.

Sadly, Noorul became the Frankenstein's monster who became reanimated at the wrong time, in the wrong context, on the wrong subject. Bzzt bzzt. You're out. No surprise there.

Noorul's clearly a nice guy. That doesn't mean he'd be any good at business. But on the flipside you don't have to be an aggressive, shouty maniac either – something Phil and Deborah should consider very carefully.

*Actually, he asks the barman for a pint of beer - and a mop.

Week 5 - Crap tackle and flop

"This isn't a psychiatric ward!" exclaimed Suralan in the Boardroom. Despite what you may have first thought, he wasn't referring to the madness embodied in the idea that it's a good idea to sell breakfast cereal to children using an anatomically-challenged superhero wearing Y-fronts.

He was relating that the shouting and snapping highlights the dangers of attempting to analyse your colleagues based on very little information. How much easier to understand one another, and give feedback, when you have the transparent information provided by a psychometric tool.

The task kicked off with the chilling, Orwellian vision of Suralan's 50-foot head towering over the contestants, barking at them in surround sound. Anyone would have been intimidated by that, so perhaps this is why one team lost the plot entirely.

Kimberly has worked with creative types, and coordinates brainstorms on a regular basis. Her initial handling and openness to ideas appeared right on the money: "Nobody's ideas get shot down," she said. This is a very good approach in the early stages of brainstorming.

However, the coordinator should gently and positively guide and collate the flow of ideas, and once a number of concepts has been established, a review should commence – with an accepted level of negativity, in an Edward de Bono-style "black hat" method, for which Lorraine could have been a key proponent. Because the sad truth is, Kimberly’s next comment: "Everyone’s idea is good!" is but a utopian vision, so teams need to find a way of fostering a spirit of acceptable and constructive challenge.

Unfortunately, where Kimberly fell down was that, despite her background, she wouldn't know a decent creative concept if it bit her in the pants. From Noorul's impression of a dormouse, to the tumbleweed-strewn wasteland that was Lorraine's sulking, came nothing of any worth. Instead, the only idea presented with any strength of conviction came from the blunderbuss that was Philip, and his ghastly Pants Man.

Let's face it, despite Lorraine's attitude issues, she was right all along. Pants Man was a dreadful, shifting idea, retrofitted to an incoherent brand concept. She may not have had an alternative, but it is a brave team member who can be the voice in the wilderness and call shenanigans on a bad idea that is already in progress. And she did, but was ignored by Kimberly and shouted down by Philip.

The results were a vomit-green box with a scant and disjointed graphic, an ad dredged from the mind of Hieronymous Bosch on speed, and a pitch badly presented by the wrong person, with nothing to back it up in way of a campaign.

Contrast this with the successful and cheerful working of Kate's team.

It is no coincidence that the team with the best cohesion won out in the end - despite an even worse TV ad, featuring an Oliver Twist-esque stage school moppet being coerced into eating the cereal by a creepy anthropomorphic parrot wielding a weaponised spoon. The ad may have been dreadful, but overall, the campaign was thorough and coherent.

And it is also absolutely no coincidence that the leader of the most cohesive team has a degree in Psychology. She wouldn't have been able to formalise a team build, but you can guarantee she was observing people's communication preferences and ways of working. She emphasised the positive in ways that subtly sidelined those things she felt were negative – and she was decisive when all ideas had been considered and the best chosen.

Teams who perform an MBTI Step I teambuild can plot the character types of members on an MBTI Type Table, and it can be very revealing. Here at OPP Towers, we have these on the departmental walls, and they tell an interesting story. According to OPP Psychologist Rob Bailey, writing in 'Computing Business', "Research has found that the two most common personality types in IT are the ISTJ and ESTJ type combinations" (sensing, thinking and judging being dominant). Whereas our "creative" marketing team is clustered to the bottom right (extraversion and thinking dominating).

However, in each of these teams there are usually outliers. And this is a good thing. Knowing and harnessing the differing perspectives of individuals' allows the team harness to the strengths of individual members. Identifying these differences, and utilising them for good purpose is both calming to the team's interpersonal relationships, and is a vastly effective method of reining in excess.

Of course, pretty much anyone who puts themselves forward for The Apprentice will be a bit more extraverted than many, and managing a team of very similar personalities but we can still identify those with traits that differ: Lorraine's negativity could have been so much better used, had Kimberly identified it.

We do wonder how Kate may have handled Philip, had he been on her team. Regardless of what appears to be a budding flirtation between them – or a cynical utilisation of each other's sexuality – Philip would be a handful for anyone. As OPP consultant Gareth English explained to The Times in a feature about handling difficult people: "...the truth is that they're your problem and if you want it fixed, the most effective way is to take responsibility for the change yourself...

"Often, the answer is to change something about yourself first."

OPP

Oh, and OPP's muppet of the week? The contestants escape this time: it has to be Pants Man.

Week 4 – Soap task gets Sugar in a lather

"I'm not here to be managed by people" If decisiveness in leadership were the major criterion for success in The Apprentice, then poor old Noorul would have been out on his ear within seconds. Sugar appeared deliberately to select the quietest wallflower of the series, to see if this Quiet Man was really a John Wayne in the waiting.

Alas, no...

The indecisive Noorul gave himself an uphill battle from the start when his team looked to him for direction and he delivered absolutely nothing. Yet rather than Philip's method of going shouty-crackers down the phone, team members could gently have "managed up" and supported him - something OPP has addressed in the white paper How to keep your leaders on track in tough times.

Contrast this with the decisive Paula - her clear steer in selecting the cosmetic products showed a firm hand on the tiller. The products were indeed impressive, and something we at OPP would have no problem giving our mothers in a presentation basket on Mother's Day. They were certainly 'head and shoulders' above the road accident-esque monstrosities produced by the beekeepers!

Cedarwood or sandalwood? Paula's delegation of the teams initially appeared thoughtful - the team leader herself, a restaurateur and a stockbroker working on the raw materials and their costs. Now, we know good leadership means playing to the strengths of individual team members, but there is no excuse whatsoever for total abrogation of responsibility when it came to a skill set she didn't feel comfortable with. We're talking business here. Of course, the leader doesn't need to know the intricate details of double-column ledger accounting. But the person in charge should know enough to read a profit-and-loss statement. Saying "I'm from HR, I don't do numbers and we all make mistakes" was the undoing of something that could have been a roaring success. This is exactly the kind of attitude that gives HR practitioners a bad name because EVERYONE has to be able to 'do numbers' in this new world of living within our means.

An epic fail and a well-deserved sacking, as one of our OPP psychologists pointed out: "numerical reasoning is about more than just being able to perform calculations; it's also about having a real understanding of numbers and what they actually mean in applied terms. Surely it should have set alarm bells ringing as soon as they calculated that the total cost of fragrance for a large batch of beauty products was only 'around five pounds'. They should have gone back and double-checked, especially as Sir Alan had been drumming into them the importance of tracking costs!!"

While the girls may have been unable to tell a sandal from a cedar (remind us never to ask them to build us a dog kennel, or kit us out for the beach), it is in Ben that we may have found the furriest, floppiest muppet of the entire series!

Ben 'Sandhurst' Clarke, while clearly not stupid, showed an unwillingness to get involved in the choice of scent and costing - and thus excluded himself from rescuing the team from the subsequent fiscal disaster - because "I'm a bloke and they're girls". It makes us think he wouldn't seem out of place doing a little song-and-dance number with Kermit. But it was his subsequent failed attempt to don a Teflon uniform - as Sugar says, in a harsh corporate environment, it often doesn't matter who made the decisions within the team, because the team bears collective responsibility - that makes him, in our opinion, skate straight into the arms of Miss Piggy to perform the Bolero - on very thin ice.

If he makes it through the next round and is appointed Team Leader, will he hack it? Not if he continually tries to dodge the blame for things that ultimately he is responsible for. While Paula made the error of blaming her inexperience, Ben claims superhero status, and must therefore deliver in spades.

OPP

P.S. We have little confidence that his leadership qualities will shine at the moment - though perhaps OPP's course in Advanced coaching and leadership development using the MBTI® would help. Then again, he might learn a few things with some officer training - did you know that he has a scholarship to Sandhurst!?!

week 3 - managing your own personality

Debra oh Debra. How would you feel about having Debra as your boss? On the one hand, you might know where you’re headed to as a team (which can only be a 'good thing') and on the other hand, you might feel like resigning today/tomorrow due to the abrasive, loud, and meddlesomeness which is embodied in this contender. Being dominating can be an advantage in certain circumstances, but surely it's about knowing when this is needed and when to let your team have a say (yellow or blue floats anyone?). Perhaps an MBTI Team Report would help Debra understand a bit more. As Paula said to Debra on another occasion "You can manage other personalities but it’s your own personality you’ve got to try and manage as well!’. Perhaps my favourite quote of the show yet!

One of our resident business psychologists noticed that Philip stuck up for Lorraine in the boardroom after Debra berated her pitching style. MBTI enthusiasts might be pleased to see that there is in fact room for ‘feeling’ in the boardroom, and it is not all about criticising your colleagues!

Also isn't timing crucial for any leader - to know when to say something as well as how? This takes a certain combination of intellect and personality - which takes me to the Boardroom. On going into the Boardroom, Ben knew very well that this was the place to fight for himself. It's in the boardroom where it counts. And Ben was very clear, concise, and made sure he got his point across. In contrast to James, who under pressure, can't seem to string a coherent sentence together nor stand up for himself. Margaret noted that James is a 'jekyll and hyde' character: he could be a good manager but just not under pressure. Should managers always be under a certain amount of pressure? Certainly if they're going to climb to the other side of that Boardroom table, so to speak.

Our business psychologist also felt that James also seemed to trust people a lot, which implies that he would perhaps have a low ‘vigilance’ (read: trusting, unsuspecting, or accepting) score on the 16PF. This low ‘vigilance’ meant that he didn’t micro-manage his team, and let them get on with the product development. Question is, did this lead to the failure of their task?

Like or dislike him, Sir Alan again seems to have cut to the chase with the line to James about not challenging the hideous product they came up with. Being 'afraid to upset the kids' could be the inklings of some sort of weakness or development point - call it what you will - the failure to execute when faced with rocking the boat. Don't we need more brave and decisive leaders right now who have the strength to upset the kids...but then know how to pull the family back into the fold and get the business working?


OPP

P.S. I can't believe Sir Alan has put a stop to the 110% bingo fun - the scorecard was all ready to go with the copious mentions of ever increasing percentages!!!

Tasting success in your spit...

Did you have success for breakfast too?

How could Sir Alan deny us the chance to have someone called Rocky on the show for just a little bit longer. If you were hiring, wouldn't the name Rocky add a couple more points onto the selection criteria? Would you want a Rocky on your senior management team?

Although making a loss is unforgiveable, should Rocky really have gone? Margaret made a valid point in the Board Room about potential to learn - Rocky may have it but James?! Really?! If Sir Alan is really looking for future leaders for his organisation, isn't the ability to learn somewhere in at least the top 3 of his 'wanted' list? But I guess the ABLE assessment never made it into The Apprentice selection process - shame.

The Olympic theme was either a stroke of genius or a case of major 'groupthink'. Making decisions under pressure has to be a core skill for any budding leader but you have to wonder about the team dynamics at play if they all end up wearing togas and no one actually puts their head above the parapet to mention that this could be bad for business - isn't there something needed in all leaders about knowing your customer? Still, toga parties will now inevitably experience a surge in popularity - so thank you Rocky.

So to James (the one without leadership potential?) - why did he believe that it was relevant to liken his feelings of hurt about the task to how he felt when his cat died?! Not that we're unsympathetic to him and his cat but we're not entirely clear (and neither was Margaret) about how this relates to business and to getting things done...which is surely the point after all. Sir Alan said that expressing yourself is an essential part of business - and of course we'd agree to that. But expressing yourself clearly and within professional confines (that doesn't extend to how you feel about your dead cat!).

OPP

P.S. For the MBTI geeks out there, anyone else believe that James has a preference for Feeling?

Week 1 - the exasperation begins

Where to start?! Already such fodder for analysis - The Apprentice does it again and manages to give us at least 110% worth of material to cogitate and cast our business psychologist eyes over. Where to start when there's already such so much to say?!

Let's start with conflict. I loved the part with the girls in the grimy cafe. All talking over each other. What would Ken Thomas, author of the TKI Conflict Mode tool, say? I'd hazard a guess at a few too many 'competing' styles playing out over those builders brews. Our recent study found that the average employee spends 2.1 hours per week dealing with conflict – I wonder what the average would be if we surveyed the latest batch of hopefuls in their new flash pad? If you're thinking 'I'd do a better job' and not shout the house down in 'Competing' stylie, then try our mini conflict handling quiz http://www.opp.eu.com/conflict_quiz.aspx

I asked one of our resident occupational psychologists at OPP, Paul Deakin, what he thought: “I was struck by the complete absence of trust and communication. The contestants failed to value the different contributions made by each team member. Yes, Anita could have spotted that the £200 was not a ‘budget’ but the total allowance for the task. But remember, she was the only one with a clear task to perform – totting up the expenditure. What were the others doing at this time? It’s all too easy to be scapegoated when everyone is working to achieve different objectives and teamworking is always undermined by personal agendas. Without trust and communication it’s incredibly hard to move to collaborating in a team: instead you just see people competing and avoiding the issue."

Moving swiftly onto leadership I wish the candidates would actually display some inkling of knowing what this might mean. Those spurious things called 'leadership goals' - did Mona stop to consider what success might look like? At least Howard mentioned the word 'objective' (lip service at least) when taking on the responsibility of being in a leadership position. But to think that neither considered mentioning the words 'margin', 'profit', or 'costs' in this climate is scary - this is a time when our leaders need to get back to these basic fundamentals.

In the words of Gillian commentating in the after show, 'sell, do, or bean-count' is what companies need to focus on now - with their leaders getting the fundamentals right. You'd hope that 'Commercial Awareness' would make it onto every organisation's list of core leadership competencies, eh?

Self-awareness if this is a key to developing into an authentic leader (as we believe it is) the Apprentices seem to be brutally lacking - preferring instead to fit into what their perceived model of what Sir Alan is looking for. We found recently that a third of employees said that they acted a part at interview to fit in with the company. If we surveyed the Apprentices, I'd expect that stat to rocket. Let's hope next week the true selves start coming out - that's got to be more fascinating than the current mis-mash.

Eagerly awaiting next Wednesday,
OPP

P.S. I’ve just thought of a new scale for a psychometric (perhaps we'll add it to the next edition of the 16PF?) - the scale would measure someone's ‘diamondness’. At one end 'sparkling' at the other 'rough' - perhaps that's the scale that Sir Alan should recruit against?