Can The Apprentice teach us anything about business and leadership skills or is it just car crash telly?
Now in its fifth series, the BAFTA award-winning TV programme The Apprentice has captured the public’s imagination by showing young, ambitious candidates trying to prove their business acumen, in gruelling tasks, to land a £100,000 job. It’s a great source of office conversation and debate. From kooky brainstorming ideas to dodgy selling techniques it prompts a sense amongst most of us that, put in the same situation, we could do better. So is the show just a chance for us to sit back, confident in our superior business skills, or have we got something to learn from the Phils, Kimberleys, and Bens of this world? I’d argue the latter. Good or bad, there’s something to be learnt from the budding apprentices for two reasons. Firstly, by the definition of reality TV, it’s real. Whatever the challenge, from soap to cereal, the teams really do need to deliver hard cash to Sir Alan to win the task – and, that takes more than good sales skills. The individuals that stand out in the current ser
