"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.
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