The Apprentice Week 9: Bubble is burst for Jenna

Selective amnesia doesn’t just affect media moguls – returning to the Apprentice after a four-week break I found that I’d forgotten all but a few of this less than vintage bunch.

One pleasant surprise was the way Ricky has developed. As project leader, to market English sparkling wine, he was very unlucky to find himself on the losing side. He quickly grasped the nature of the task which immediately gave his team clarity of purpose. Despite producing a better website, logo and strapline his team were deemed to have failed because of a poor advertisement.  

The last item was the responsibility of Stephen and Jenna who justified their lowly positions in our table by creating an ad of striking ineptitude. Ricky maintained that he’d given them a clear brief about what he wanted. In fact, and this was his biggest failing, he had told them what he didn’t want (not cheesy, not gimmicky, etc) which is not the same thing at all. 

Wine connoisseur Tom somehow led his team to an undeserved victory. His lack of understanding about the objective of the project meant that much effort was misdirected and nor was he supportive of his team mates when they asked for help. He showed few of the qualities required of a leader.

The task was most notable for showing how selection should not be done. To create the perception that a process is unfair you need subjective criteria, lack of transparency and senior people making known the outcome they want. These were all present last night: the judging was very personal and so subjective; we were not told the team the professionals preferred, creating a lack of transparency; and, Lord Sugar directed Ricky to pick Stephen and Jenna to return to the boardroom, making his preferences clear. 

In this case, the process was engineered so that Jenna could be fired. It is difficult to argue about her departure as she resides at the foot of our table, except that she shouldn’t have been on the losing side in the first place. Stephen flailed around and tried to blame others for the team’s defeat. He survived but the charmless, artless and at times rather mindless (looking for a sommelier at Tescos?) individual shouldn’t last too much longer.