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?