The Apprentice Week 7 – Lord Sugar engineers a firing

June 16, 2011 6 Comments

The Apprentice Week 7 – Lord Sugar engineers a firing

This week’s Apprentice task involved the teams designing a new, free glossy magazine (called Fremiums) and selling advertising in it. Lord Sugar appointed Natasha to lead Team Logic, and moved Jim to lead Team Venture, with Leon moving in the opposite direction.

For once the task proved to be as bit of a red herring. Yes, it determined which team lost, and yes, there was a clear difference in Leadership style, but it had no direct bearing on who got fired.

Natasha has a very tell assertive, directing leadership style. She decided her team was going to do a lads mag, and over ruled or simply ignored the work and advice of her team. Had they lost, I’m in no doubt the team would have rounded on Natasha.

Jim’s style was a complete contrast, very consultative, ask assertive, ensuring that he was less exposed by making sure everyone was in agreement. Team Venture targeted the Over 60s market. And yet, Jim still made some key decisions that ultimately lost the task. Jim refused to negotiate in the first pitch, ignoring Susan’s concerns and then changed his approach with the next 2 media companies.

In the Borardroom, with Venture losing the task, Jim started to apportion blame, and looked vulnerable. As in previous weeks, Jim came out fighting rounding on Glen for not being willing to do the pitching, and Susan for claiming she was not behind all of the team’s decisions. In relation to negotiating, this was backed up by Nick.

Jim brought Susan and Glen back with him and found his style described as “passive aggressive” Karen and Nick. He was also described as “manipulative”.

Things were looking bad for Jim, but Lord Sugar had a card up his sleeve and fired Glen because he’s … an engineer! Yes, Lord Sugar informed us that he’s never met an engineer who can turn his hand to business and fired him. Lord Sugar hadn’t seen enough fron Glen, and amazingly Jim survived.

So, in the end the firing had nothing directly to do with this week’s task, and more an accumulation of observations against Glen and a prejudice against engineers.

Quite simply, this week the wrong person was fired. Early favourite Jim has been exposed and should have been fired.

Current favourite to win – Helen, who still hasn’t lost a task.

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The Apprentice Week 6 – Leading from the front.

June 9, 2011 Leave a comment

Edna finally made a reappearance in Week 6 of the Apprentice after hardly being seen for the last few weeks. It is clear to see why Executive Business Coach and Multiple Degree holder Edna has been missing, as she promptly got fired amidst claims of her taking credit for other people’s successes. Many people would say that this is exactly what an Executive Coach does!

Edna was part of team Venture, and had never lost a task. Venture was lead by Zoe, who assumed the role of leader as she wasn’t prepared to spend time discussing it. This proved to be indicative of Zoe’s approach to this task and her leadership was found wanting. Zoe misunderstood the strategy for securing the contracts on Day one, Consequently Venture failed to get either of the 2 contracts. It was noticable that Glen, not Zoe, gave the motivational talk to get the team focused for Day 2. Zoe had ended Day 1 in tears. Ultimately, Zoe survived despite admitting her mistakes, but its the last chance saloon for her.

Team Logic adopted a high risk strategy of paying nothing to remove the rubbish in the hope of maximising profit from the sale of recyclable items. Led by Helen, who also hadn’t lost a task, they secured both contracts. In the end they were lucky to win  (by only £6).  Jim, severely criticised by Lord Sugar last week, adopted a low key, low risk approach. He and Tom gave great impressions of Rag and Bone men as they scoured the streets of London in search of metal.

So, in summary, Helen’s team Logic had focus, took risks and apart from nearly overstretching themselves finally got Tom his first victory. Zoe’s team Venture lacked a cohesive strategy on Day 1 and Zoe’s leadership style was at best questionable, especially where Susan was concerned. Susan DID understand the strategy for securing the contracts, but was shouted down by Zoe. To lose by £6 from this setback ( the lowest gap in The Apprentice history) shows how well Venture did on Day 2, when the team pulled things back.

In the boardroom, Zoe appeared to align herself with Glen.  Zoe chose to bring Edna and Susan back in front of Lord Sugar. Zoe came out fighting, and in the end Edna’s bandwagon-jumping approach and MBA speech (Lord Sugar seems threatened by highly educated candidates who try to use their qualifications as a reason to stay) rescued Zoe. As leader, Zoe  probably should have been fired, but at least she owned up to getting it wrong on Day 1. Lord Sugar gave her credit for this, but warned Zoe he would not be so forgiving again. Edna dug herself into a hole, when she tried to justify her part in the task with “coach speak”. What Lord Sugar is looking for is a business partner, a do-er, not a coach or consultant. Edna never looked like the right type of person for this task.

From an Action-Centred Leadership Approach we can see that Helen scored highest on the three parameters of Task, Team & Individual:

Task – Helen was clear and focused, Zoe was not.

Team – Neither leader did particularly well, but both were strong in the face of challenge. Unfortunately, whichever leader lost was likely to find the team turn against them.

Individual – Zoe should have listened more to Susan, as she was the only one who understood what was needed to secure the contracts. Helen allowed Melody to challenge both herself and Natasha, but remained strong throughout.

So poor leadership from Zoe should have resulted in her being fired. She survived because everyone in the team agreed that Edna had a tendency to claim glory from other people’s successes. This had already been pointed out by Nick and Karen. Lord Sugar said he couldn’t see how he could work with someone like Edna. In the end this probably counted most. What Edna failed to realise is that it may be ok for a coach to sit in the back seat, but a leader has to lead from the front.

Favourite to win : Natasha, but Susan’s stock has risen this week.

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The Apprentice Week 5 – Double Jeopardy

June 2, 2011 Leave a comment

The Apprentice Week 5 – Double Jeopardy 

A double firing this week with 2 candidates leaving The Apprentice. Yet again, the leadership of the teams came under scrutiny, as well as the tactics used to progress in the competition. 

This week’s task involved creating a new brand of pet food and a TV commercial to promote it. Each team had to present their campaign and advert to a panel of leading advertising executives.

 Once again, the two Project Managers / Team Leaders were appointed by Lord Sugar. Vincent led Team Logic, and Glen took the helm of Team Venture. It seemed that Lord Sugar wanted to test the mettle of the lads, Two of whom, Vincent and Tom, had lost all 4 of the previous tasks. This point was to be borne out later in the boardroom.

 The 2 teams were targeting different pet markets. Vincent’s team went to the dogs, and Glen’s team were more catty in nature. Immediately, the pattern was set for what would be the inevitable outcome:

In Team Logic, Tom was a lone voice concerned that the brand “Every-dog” was not niche enough.

 In Team Venture, Glen upset his sub-team by completely disregarding the feedback from their focus group research and going with Cat Size ( a play on cats eyes) and targeting the “healthy” eating part of the cat food market. Leon in particular was unhappy here. It was also noted that Vincent was leaning on Jim a lot, according to Nick. And so Team Venture became increasingly dysfunctional. This all came to a head when Leon put together a poor presentation (?deliberately), despite having 5 hours to prepare. It didn’t look good for Glen.

 Increasingly, Jim looked to be the leader of Team Logic, with Vincent melting into the background. Logic’s pitch was a polished display by Melody. Things were looking good for Logic.

 So, to the boardroom and the opinion of the experts was that Venture had identified a unique selling point (USP,) but put together a poor advert. Logic had poor marketing, but a good advert. In the end it came down to Lord Sugar, who decided that “The Every-dog name is wrong” . This meant Tom and Vince were on the losing team for 5 weeks in a row. Had Venture lost, it is difficult to see how Glen could have survived, but they didn’t lose and neither did he.

 Tom was immediately vindicated by LS for challenging the branding, but Jim was targeted for having taken responsibility for the name “Every-dog. The mood in the boardroom suggested that Jim was looking weak, but, amazingly Vincent decided NOT to bring him back, but went for Natasha and Ellie (who was anonymous for the second task running) instead. This proved to be a tactical error. Firstly, Natasha had directed the successful ad and was prepared to fight her corner. However, it looked like Vincent had miraculously survived when LS elected to fire Ellie, only to be fired himself as a warning to the rest of the candidates. His loyalty to Jim, described as a “bromance” cost him dear. If Jim had come into the boardroom it is likely that Vincent would have survived. As it is, Vincent has gone and Jim’s card is now marked by LS. Woe betide him if he loses another task.

 So, the poor leadership of Glen survives because his team won the task, But Vincent paid the price of misplaced loyalty. In the end, there are no friends in this process, just a common need to be successful in the task.

 Natasha has emerged as the new favourite. Jim could now be a dead man walking.

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The Apprentice Week 4 – Effective and ineffective leadership

May 26, 2011 Leave a comment

So, this week one of the girls was finally fired from The Apprentice. We say goodbye to Felicity, but as usual there is a lot that would-be leaders can learn.

Interestingly, both PMs were appointed by Lord Sugar this week. Zoe was given the job of leading team Venture, and Felicity led team Logic. The choice of Zoe was particularly interesting as she survived the Boardroom last week with a plea to be given a chance to lead. Lord Sugar was happy to oblige.

There was also some movement of individuals between the teams. So, new dynamics and new challenges.

In the end, the success of this task came down to how effective each PM was as a leader. I am a big fan of the Action Centred Leadership model of leadership originated by John Adair (see earlier posts) which says success needs the Leader to get the balance right between the needs of the Task, the Team and the Individual. In this challenge, Zoe did better than Felicity.

In terms of Task, both teams were clear about what would win – selling beauty treatments rather than products – but one leader, Zoe, was far better at keeping her team focused on the strategy that had been agreed. Felicity got embroiled in the detail of the Task, when she would have been better looking in fom the outside. She displayed a lack of urgency when things were clearly going wrong, and abdicated rather than delegated to team members.  Her team, Logic, did not get the products they wanted as they showed less enthusiasm than Venture. They also chose a poor location in the shopping centre, with the treament room 3 floors away from the selling area. In the end they made a financial loss on the task,  and so lost the challenge.

Felicity also hid behind the Team. On the surface she had a very happy ship; supportive and together; until they lost the task, when it was everyone for themselves. In truth, Felicity probably put too much effort into being democratic. She came across as indecisive and unsure. This was most apparent when she couldn’t even decide who to bring into the Boardroom with her. However, perhaps her biggest mistake was to believe that somehow the team would support her in the Boardroom. Felicity chose to take no boys into the boardroom, despite the fact that they were already damaged from previous visits. This was another tactical error.

However, it is in misjudging individuals that ultimately Felicity came a cropper.   She took Natasha and Ellie into the Boardroom ( after much dithering) and saw them gang up on her. She looked completely lost, and couldn’t bring herself to fight her corner. The failure of leadership was seized upon by Lord Sugar and she was fired.

It is interesting that in an interview after the programme, Felicity did not seem to be bothered about losing. Perhaps this lack of drive or urgency was also crucial to her downfall?

Other highlights this week were Natasha’s sales pitch where she lied to a customer about her product, and Susan setting herself up as a  “skincare expert” and failing dismally. Had her team lost, surely she would have gone?

Jim’s  halo slipped just a bit this week, but no other candidate has emerged as better than him, so he is still my favourite to win.

I also find it amazing how certain people are almost completely absent or anonymous is each episode. Is this editing or a true reflection of their contribution?

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The Apprentice Week 3 – why planning is the most important part of negotiation

May 19, 2011 Leave a comment

The Apprentice Week 3 – why planning is the most important part of negotiation.

So, the current score is Girls 0- 3 Boys, but this is not a score the Boys will be pleased with. Last night the third Boy left The Apprentice.  This is particularly disappointing for the lads, as Sir Alan mixed the 2 teams up for the first time.

Team Logic was eventually led by Gavin, though Vincent wanted the PM job as well. You just knew this would come back to haunt Gavin. Team Venture was led by Susan, the youngest contestant. It is rare to be able to see who was going to get fired so early in the process, but from the earliest shots of Gavin’s leadership he was a dead man walking. His only hope was to win the task. He didn’t so he had to go.

The task involved negotiating for 10 items needed by the newly refurbished Savoy Hotel. The team that got the items for the least money would win. As you can imagine, the items ranged from the comon place (light bulbs) to the niche – a Top Hat.  Both teams started the task with some planning. Gavin’s leadership style had no urgency and he looked out of his depth in handling some of the egos in the room. Gradually, Vincent started to take over and he was eventually rewarded by Gavin with leading a “sub team”. Three hours later (!) they set off with no real purpose and few leads.

Team Venture did better in the planning stage and set off in shorter time with clear focus and good leads to follow up. Just one little mistake. They ignored PM Susan’s instruction to head East for real bargains, and ended up shopping in Mayfair. Venure’s weakness was in targeting the wrong leads and this came back to bite them several times when they found negotiation difficult. Luckily they had the redoubtable Jim, who saved the day on 1 or 2 occasions.

So in the end, the task was a battle of poor planning on both teams versus organisation. Venture won because they were better organised. In the end they only won by £8, but they found 9/10 items. Logic only got 6/10. Logic were the better negotiators, but in the end they lost the task because they found fewer items and got penalties. In fact, item by item Logic generally got a better deal than Venture. But still they lost. The team became increasingly dysfunctional as Gavin’s leadership was non existent and Sales Manager Vincent bullied his sub team of girls and left them demotivated and frustrated. This probably worked in their favour as yet again the girls were generally not on Sir Alan’s radar.

In the boardroom, it was really between nice guy but inept Gavin and bully boy Vincent. The latter came out of the process weakened as “his” girls rallied against him. But he survived. Gavin was mortally wounded by his inability to organise the team in the planning session. 

The take home message here is that most succesful negotiations are built upon excellent planning and research. This and a sense of urgency as the clock is always ticking. Venture came out marginally better on this, but targeted the wrong areas. Logic took too long, had no organisation, and ended up with no real plan. With such inept leadership, Gavin had to go.

Current Favourite: Jim’s stock raised even more htis week as he proved to be a suave negotiatior. When will the girls find themselves in the line of fire?

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The Apprentice Week 2 – poor decisions and poorer tactics

May 13, 2011 Leave a comment

So, now we know the second person to be fired from The Apprentice, but it was a strange set of circumstances which resulted in Alex Britez Cabral leaving the competition. The Project Manager (PM) was Leon Doyle, and he deserves credit for a relaxed Leadership style. He certainly seemed to have the support of the whole of his team. But still the Boy’s team lost for the second week running. Why?

It really comes down to poor decision making within the Boy’s team. The Girl’s team, led by the redoubtable Edna Agbarha showed many signs of being dysfunctional, and Edna herself did not come out of this week’s episode very well. Crucially, though, they got their product spot on and their App had Global appeal. The Boy’s App did not, and so they failed the first part of the Action Centred Leadership Model (Task) and the Boys ended up in the Boardroom again. To be a successful Leader, it is important that everyone is clear on the Task. 

In the Boardroom, it was all about decision making and tactics. In terms of the former, PM Leon looked weak and indecisive when he first chose Jim Eastwood to come back into the Boardroom, and allowed Jim to persuade him he was wrong! Amazing. Watch this space as that inevitably comes back to haunt Leon. Especially as he replaced Jim with Glenn Ward who survived. Glenn will now be out to get Leon. The other person to come back into the Boardroom was Alex.

Tactically, early favourite Jim got it spot on, whereas Alex didn’t and paid the ultimate price. Alex had stated (oh, those quotes) that he was against people who hid in the background. And yet he did just that for the first two weeks.  He was just about the only member of the Boy’s team not to volunteer for the role of PM in week 2. This was spotted by Sir Alan & team and Alex was fired.

So, Jim’s position as my early favourite to win the competition has been consolidated, but I think he could do with a quiet week to avoid over exposure.

Favourite to win: Jim

Quote of the week: Edna “I’ve looked at all of your strengths and I’ve decided that the person to do the 3 minute presentation at the Trade Fair will be… myself”

More next week.

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What The Apprentice teaches us about Leadership

May 11, 2011 3 Comments

*Spolier Alert* Do NOT read this if you don’t know who left The Apprentice last night (10/5/11).

I love the Apprentice. I think we can learn a lot about what makes businesses, and the people who run them, succesful. In theory it is not difficult to come up with a strategy to win The Apprentice. Here’s mine:

  1. Win every task , that way you can’t end up in the boardroom and be fired.
  2. Choose carefully when you decide to be a Project Manager (PM). Try to choose a project that meets your skill set.
  3. Try to avoid making ludicrous claims about yourself. They make good sound bites and excellent TV, but boy are they waiting to bite you on the backside!

So, that’s it. Easy, eh? Well of course it isn’t, and I haven’t been stupid / brave (delete as appropriate) enough to have a go. What makes it such a challenge is the people you have to work with. In this respect we can learn a lot about leadership and communication. So, let’s focus on last night’s episode of The Apprentice . Why did Edward fail with his task, and Melody succeed? It’s probably easier to focus on Edward, who was PM, lost the task and got fired for his troubles. A few small adjustments and he should have won. So, lets look at his performance against my suggested strategy (above):

  1. FAIL – He lost the task, so was guaranteed to be in the Boardroom.
  2. FAIL – It’s not just that he was rash in volunteering for this task (he was) it’s that he never ran it as a proper project, and failed to draw on his own experience as an Accountant (he was in denial) and was a poor leader as well (see below).
  3. FAIL – great quotes, terrible PR, the best of the crop was claiming he had more to overcome than the rest of his team because he is “short”. Brilliant and ludicrous in equal measures.

So, what can we learn about Leadership from Edward? I go back to my favourite leadership model- the Action Centred Leadership Model of John Adair. 

Adair breaks Leadership down to getting the balance right between Task, Team and Individual. Unfortunately, Edward proved what a poor leader he is on all 3 counts.

  1. TASK – Although the overall objective was clear from the brief, Edward failed to scope out HOW the objective was to be achieved and kept a lot of stuff in his head. 
  2. TEAM – This is a challenge on The Apprentice as everyone is competing, but on any given Task, most would prefer to win and avoid the Boardroom, unless they have a particularly Machiavellian strategy! Edward failed to build up team spirit, and though everyone was pulling in the same direction (win the task), because the TASK was not scoped out clearly, roles were not clearly defined. The TASK was lost because of poor planning (if they had used all of their oranges for juice they would have won).
  3. INDIVIDAL – Edward was quite confrontational in style and hid behind telling everyone to remain positive. A case of re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic, which led to resentment.

So, there you have it! If Edward had read Adair, maybe he would have survived the first Task. Possibly, but maybe the fact that he was the apparently (one of ?) the youngest contestants suggests he will learn a lot fom this experience when he (inevitably) goes back to Accounting!

My early favourite for the winner is Jim Westwood from Northern Ireland, who has a good temperament and crucially, life skills and experience.

Watch this space!

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Influential communication – does body language matter?

March 31, 2011 7 Comments

The fundamental purpose of influential communication is to persuade others to behave the way you want them to. This has numerous applications in sales, marketing, leadership and management. A key question in trying to do this is “does body language matter?” The simple answer is “yes it does!”

The Social Styles model was developed over 40 years ago and has been refined and expanded since that time. Social Styles can be used to influence the behaviour of others, and at the heart of this model is the reading and adaptation of behaviour; first our own, then that of other people. But where does the evidence come from that adapting body language is important?

Back in the 1970s, a researcher at the University of California in Los Angeles identified the importance of body language to verbal communication. Now, the work of Professor Albert Mehrabian has often been misquoted and used to explain / justify much beyond his original work, but the gist of what he found is as follows: getting our message across to other people is about much more than just choosing the right words.

In fact, Mehrabian showed that words only contribute about 7% to the effectiveness of communication, with tone of voice (38%) and body language (55%) being much more important. In particular, it seems that we need more than just the words to decide whether we believe the speaker (or even to decide if they believe what they are saying ).

That is not to say that the words are unimportant. Change the words and you change the meaning. However, the words are not enough on their own.

Still not convinced? Well, just think about how the intent behind the words becomes more ambiguous as we move from face-to- face communication, to telephone, to e-mail and txt!

Notice that according to Mehrabian, over half of the message we take from verbal communication comes from reading body language. Now, most of this is going on at a subconscious level, but it does make sense. For instance, we are able to discern possible danger to ourselves by interpreting body language, and this has been a vital survival mechanism throughout human evolution. You disagree? Well, next time you see someone coming towards you with a bloody knife and a deranged expression on their face what will you do; take precautions, or wait to confirm your worst fears with a simple verbal, “do you intend me some harm?”

So, body language does matter and Social Styles allows us to maximise the 93% of communication that Mehrabian says is vital to understanding and influencing other people. Clearly this is key to successful sales, marketing, leadership and management.

Learn more about Albert Mehrabian

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