The Apprentice Analysed

Let’s face it – there were only so many times that Noorul could be given a stay of execution and this week finally saw Noorul take his rightful place in the series – in a black cab going home. 

Noorul’s claim that he is “not all talk” is sadly misleading.  Instead, throughout this series, no-talk Noorul has taken the safe route by keeping his head down and his mouth shut, only emerging from his shell when he is prodded hard in the boardroom by Sir Alan’s pointy finger.

His growing reputation amongst his colleagues for ducking under the radar, combined with a lack of any significant contribution to the tasks, meant this week’s firing decision was made as soon as Ben (haltingly) decided to bring Noorul into the boardroom. 

Speaking of Ben, where was the “natural born leader” he claims to be?  Ben’s self-portrait of being able to bring a team together when explosions are going off around him is in direct contrast to James’ description of him as being “totally spineless”.

Ben might have been able to get away “biting people’s teeth out” in the boardroom (where does he get that expression from??) if he was good at delivering. However this task showed that he couldn’t set any direction for his team or manage the task, and when under pressure he was incapable of making a clear decision. All in all, I think Sandhurst have had a narrow escape. 

Both team leaders fell into the classic trap of becoming so focussed on the obvious task of selling that they forgot any other business nous they might once have had.

 Neither team leader had a clear strategy for the task and both failed to think about critical issues such as fully understanding their stock and identifying the right market. This lack of strategic thinking is indicative of short-term, quick-win business that leaves in its wake dissatisfied clients and unsustainable business agendas.

So, we have some interesting things to watch out for in the next few weeks: Lorraine can be very persistent, but she fails to persuade people to listen to her. If she works on this, she could be in a strong position for the final.

Phil claims to be open to feedback and is trying to control his reaction to others, particularly Lorraine, but when he’s in the heat of the task, we consistently see these intentions going out of the window and he reverts to being narrow-minded and convinced he is always right. It looks like he will continue to slide down the league table.

Nic Sale
Head of diversity
Pearn Kandola  
 

Several people (ok so only one person has asked, what's your problem?) have asked me what the scoring system is for our Apprentice League tables.

Candidates are rated against four characteristics: Thought Leadership; Task Leadership; People Leadership; Potential for Leadership. This is a much simplified version of the Leadership Radar model created by my colleagues Ceri Roderick and Stuart Duff.

Thought Leadership is essentially about having ideas, encouraging creativity in others, tolerance of amiguity, being conceptual, understanding issues from different perspectives, and being prepared to voice their opinions openly.

Task Leadership: taking responsibility, being planful. setting clear objectives, displaying persistence and focus, monitoring progress and, ultimately, achieving their goals.

People Leadership: motivating others, communicating clearly, displaying empathy, recognising performance of others, creating a sense of oneness in the team, handling diversity effectively.

Potential for Leadership: being self aware, regulating their behaviour, learning from experience, being driven to achieve, listening to and acting upon feedback.

The performance of each candidate is obeserved and scores out of three given for each element of the Radar, so a total of 12 points is available each week.

As things stand, and if there was any justice in the world, Kate, Yasmina and Lorraine would be certainties for the semi-final. The Apprentice is not about fairness though as Sir Alan said in Series One " Fair? Fair? I'll give you fair! The only 'fair' I'll be giving you is your fare home!' Lorraine Tighe was unfairly stimatised last week as morose and negative, and unfortunately labels like that, once attached, are difficult to get rid of. Having said that none of the men deserves to win even though one might reach the semi-final.

I am away next week so my colleague Nic Sale will once more be posting the results.

Professor Binna Kandola OBE
Pearn Kandola

New Yorker Kimberly Davis, who has propped up the Apprentice League Table since the beginning, finally departed the programme last night after a creating a disastrous campaign for a new breakfast cereal. Chosen as the Project Manager, about the only thing she did correctly was to count up the number of rows there had been in her team (eight if you are interested).

Musician and marketeer Kimberly made a remark about herself in the first programme which has intrigued me ever since. She described herself as a “ rough, tough, cream puff”. What does that mean exactly? It sounds highly contradictory as a cream puff is made of small rounds of choux pastry filled with cream and dusted with caster sugar. If it was rough and tough you’d assume it had passed its sell by date. Kimberly was as contradictory as her pen portrait: she saw herself as a people person but lacked any awareness of her impact on others; as someone with zen like calm but who, under pressure, exploded; as a creative person but who couldn’t create. There was an underlying anxiety that she was trying to keep under control. Sometimes the effort was too great and her anger would reveal itself in quite unexpected and inappropriate ways ( remember last week and her challenge to Philip: “You wanna see balls? I’m gonna show you balls!”). No, she’s no cream puff; more a Daim bar- sweet on the outside but with a nutty brittleness inside.

Licensing Development Manager Kate Walsh was outstanding as Project Manager of the winning team. As  I mentioned last week, Kate was turning in excellent performances every week in subordinate roles. She is an excellent follower and I had little doubt she could step up successfully to be the  leader and she didn’t disappoint. Like many of the other candidates, she is focused and determined but she combines that with great people and communication skills. It helps a lot that she smiles easily and frequently. The team that she created worked well together and in the boardroom, surprisingly for this programme, everyone took responsibility for the end result. If there is a question mark  it is over her thought leadership, she doesn’t have ideas nor does she seem conceptual. On the other hand she harnesses the energies of those who are more creative and strategic. Her performance this week has now leapfrogged her into first place, leading Yasmina Siadatan by just one point.

Creativity isn’t just about having a group of people getting along with one another, you also need to have  critical voices, people who ask the awkward questions that force you to think through your ideas. Top sales person Lorraine Tighe adopted this role unwillingly and was severely and unfairly castigated and scapegoated as a result. By not listening to Lorraine, project manager Kimberly not only sidelined her but also helped to create the divisions that infected her team.

The other surprising result this week is the improvement of  football referee James McQuillan. His second good performance in two weeks sees him creeping up the table just as quietly as Mona and Howard are falling down it.

Apprentice League Table

Professor Binna Kandola OBE, Senior Partner, Pearn Kandola

You draw your eyelids in,

You push your elbows out,

Jab in, jab out,

Throw abuse about.

You go into the boardroom,

Cast blame around,

That's what it's all about,

Oh, the Psycho Clarkey

Oh, the Psycho Clarkey

etc..

There are a number of things that we know about dominance. Firstly, primates are organised by dominance hierarchies. Amongst chimpanzees, the closest to humans genetically, the alpha assumes dominance by behaviour (e.g.posture), attitude (e.g. aggression) and location (e.g. the top of the tree).  Interestingly challengers have defeated the alpha by forming alliances. 

Secondly, there are two main types of dominance: anti-social and pro-social. Amongst children, those with anti-social dominance would force other kids to hand over what they desired ('Give me your toys!'). Such children, not surprisingly, were very unpopular. The pro-social dominance children used their social skills and popularity to get what they wanted ('Let's play together with your toys'). In the latter case the children with the toys were happy to associate and to share what they had with them.

Thirdly, there is a genetic component to dominance as evidenced by psychologists successfully breeding rats to be more dominant and aggressive.

Which brings us nicely to the, self described, Gavin Henson lookalike Ben Clarke. He is clearly the anti-social dominant type. His swaggering, hectoring arrogance means that he won't be winning many friends, but that is not a concern that he has anyway. His elbows out, eyes narrowed, fingers jabbing non-verbals are all classic aggressive behaviours. Whilst he believes that his approach will bring him the rewards he craves he doesn't, maybe can't, see the trouble he is storing up for himself. We can expect to see others forming alliances to get him dispatched from the programme. Furthermore, I would not believe any comments from him that he has learned valuable lessons and he can see he needs to change-he won't be capable of it. He needs to be controlled and contained rather than changed.

It was interesting to hear HR manager Paula Jones saying that Ben was great fun in the apartment and that he was reasonably popular. This is because in that context they were not competing for resources and so he would be prepared to be sociable. But he appears to lack empathy and consequently I doubt that he feels much affection toward anyone. Paula also thinks he is a bully who has no outstanding compensatory qualities. This is of course is how some bullies get away with their bad behavoiur: they are seen as too talented not only to lose but also to be criticised.

Right person, wrong team. Poor Paula "Can't Add, Won't Add" Jones finally made her presence felt and in the process confirmed every stereotype people have about HR: nice people who have no clue about business.

The decision to fire Paula may have been right but, when you look at overall performance, her team was the better one and there were far worse candidates than her. Unfortunately, as last week, they were on the winning team.

On the surface Paula demonstrated self awareness by recognising her weaknesses, i.e. adding up (they called it budgeting but I think that rather glorifies this routine task) but this was in the end revealed to be a not very clever defensive ploy: "I said I wasn't good at this and so can't be blamed."

One administrative mistake was her undoing but her team demonstrated a genuine willingness to make the best of a bad job and operated as a collective for the whole of the task. For this Paula has to take credit.

The other project manager, Noorul Choudhury, was truly shocking. He lacked not only ideas but also energy and enthusiasm. He prevaricated over the most straightforward decision but then, under pressure, was panicky and hasty.

Worse than all of that though is his complete lack of self awareness in confusing winning the task with being a good project manager. Luck plays its part in every business but boy, he has to be the jammiest person around.

Kate put in another good performance in a subordinate role and closed the gap on leader Yasmina who made the horrible mistake. Being a good number two or team player is no guarantee that someone can be a good leader but it is a very important quality to possess. I would be disappointed if Kate couldn't step up to the project manager role.

Despite the stinker of a mistake, there were some positive signs for Yasmina. She not only held up her hands, taking her share of the responsibilty for the error, but also acknowledged that she needs to learn.

Lorraine Tighe put in another creditable performance and in the last two programmes has lifted her position from the Chop Zone to the top half. She is a good all rounder, a hard worker, a team player, with an openness and honesty that is refreshing in a show full of egos.

Talking of which, Ben must be the biggest ego of them all. There is an underlying menace and aggression about him that is not only unappealing but downright dangerous.

His view of the worrld appears warped where he sees everyone as a potential threat, even his team mates. His docility and obedience in front of Sir Alan shows this is probably someone who manages upwards well whilst being swaggering, arrogant and domineering to his peers and direct reports.

One thing about this week's task- at least Philip had an excuse for continually looking like he has swallowed a wasp (or bee in this case).

WIth the top four places held by women we could have the first all female semi-final... if it wasn't for the fact that Sir Alan doesn't particularly like loud women.

Football league tables used to be produced only after each team had played three or four matches because up until then they were pretty meaningless. (Today they are available after the very first games leaving us with the excitement of speculating whether Manchester United will escape relegation and if Hull City can maintain their form to win the Premiership).

The Apprentice Analysed is proud to revive the tradition of delaying the publication of the tables until there is something to show. So, after three programmes, we unveil the first Overall Apprentice League Table.

Topping the table are restauranteur Yasmina Siadatan and Licensing Development Manager Kate Walsh. Yasmina is determined, task focused and has business acumen, all things which Sir Alan, in various books, has said he values. If her people skills were better she'd be further ahead.

Kate on the other hand has done well by being an able second in command. She gets involved, remains supportive and stays focused on the job that needs to be done. A poorer performance last week saw her fall back slightly.

The noisy trio of Ben Clarke, Philip Taylor and Debra Barr occupy the mid-upper section along with Mona Lewis. The threesome generate a lot of heat and action but the real question mark is over their potential: can they listen to and act upon feedback? Despite their mid-table berths, Mona and Howard Ebbison are in fact dropping down following a reasonable start.

Lorraine Tighe's excellent effort last week marks her out as a dark horse despite her current low standing. That performance may give her greater confidence to step forward and to speak out more.

The more prominent people in the show are doing better,naturally, as they are the only ones we can observe. The exception is James McQuillan who, despite having been featured heavily to date, is in the Chop Zone.

Noorul Choudhury, Paula Jones and Kimberly Davis have barely figured at all. They are presumably good team players as none has been taken into the boardroom. To stay in the contest though they are going to have to put their heads above the parapet pretty soon.

Professor Binna Kandola OBE
Pearn Kandola

National Accounts Manager Lorraine Tighe emerged as the best performing candidate from week 3 of The Apprentice. After a quiet start on the first two programmes the single mum was much more prominent here. It was a good all round performance and team contribution: she took responsibility; showed resilience and determination to succeed despite the apparent disapproval of her project manager Debra Barr; she put forward ideas and challenged others without becoming stubborn; she was conscientious and diligent about the tasks that she undertook. She displayed a degree of emotional stability which should make her a real contender.

Project manager Debra Barr again showed us why she was voted 'Mouth of the Year' at her office's Christmas party by turning in another domineering performance. Despite appearances there is a lot of good material to work with here but some of it is very raw indeed. She is good at providing direction, challenging and being prepared to speak up as evidenced by her willingness to address the 'race' issue head on. But she is unable to motivate and inspire which in any aspiring leader, let's face it, is a considerable drawback. She has fantastic drive and energy; if she can learn to trust, delegate and to control her emotions, particularly when she is feeling negative, she could do well..

Ben Clarke may be a trainee stockbroker but he is a fully fledged scrapper. An extremely confident man, he can drown others out. He appears to lack empathy and any concern for others. His total and utter self belief combined with a steely eyed, cold determination to attack others when challenged make him a potentially dangerous if exciting person to be around. If he ever got into a senior position he would take a lot of watching from those above him.

Whatever happened to the belligerent James of last week? Well he showed himself as someone who doesn't like direct conflict, avoids acting on his own feelings and has difficulty giving feedback. His style of working when faced with confrontation appears to be that of passive aggression,ie avoiding it until he has to do something, in this case in the boardroom. Of course by then it is too late. As a former chess champion his thought processes become incredibly jumbled under the pressure of the boardroom, his responses become very emotional and his tactics are extremely unclear. The predatory Ben Clarke picked him off quite easily in front Sir Alan's critical gaze because he knew what he was going to do and stuck to his guns brilliantly.

Majid Nagra was the first contestant to go for sins of omission rather than commission but he hadn't done anything at any point to justify his continued participation in the show. There were others marginally worse than him- but they were in the winning team.

Sir Alan describes The Apprentice as “the job interview from hell”. Is that why he is becoming the recruiter from hell? 

Of course it’s right that Sir Alan expects shining performances from people who are all too happy to sing their own praises. It’s right that contestants are pushed to, and beyond, their limits.

The decision to dismiss Rocky Andrews last night, however, was wrong and shows two clear failings of Sir Alan in this recruitment process.

Firstly, his decision demonstrated a flaw all too common in recruiters – an inability, or unwillingness, to assess for potential rather than immediate capability.

Secondly, it looks as though Sir Alan has allowed a (probably subconscious) ageism to cloud his judgement.

Supported by comments from Margaret such as “He looks very young, Rocky, doesn’t he?”, Sir Alan’s later descriptions of Rocky’s “immature” mistakes are indicative of viewing the candidates through an ageist lens. 

Sir Alan is completely on the money, though, when he says “Expressing yourself amongst people is part of business” – and that is something that the person who should have been fired this week, James McQuillan, needs to learn fast if he is going to have any chance of survival.

James has clearly had feedback in the past about his “foot-in-mouth syndrome” and there are occasional glimpses that he is trying to do something about it.  But the moment he is under pressure, he reverts to type and out come his size thirteens.

When asked by Sir Alan in the final boardroom meeting which one of his two colleagues should be fired, James’s response demonstrates a failure to engage brain before mouth: “I think you should fire the pair of them”.

He also found himself apologising to Sir Alan for indicating that he found it difficult to sit in the boardroom and have to look at Sir Alan’s face. No friends made there, then. 

Other contestants were also flaunting their personality dark sides with gay abandon. As a team leader, Yasmina Siadatan has a good focus on achieving the task. But her inability to listen to challenges from others, and her determination that everything will be alright if the punters are plied with enough wine, is indicative of what psychologists call a highly elevated confident-arrogant approach.

It is only a matter of time before her inability to take on board constructive criticism – or even suggestions from others – will be her downfall. 

Another personality dark side to watch out for belongs to Lorraine Tighe. Her passive-aggressive style means that she is willing to criticise the decisions of others without taking any action to improve the situation.   

All in all, the contestants are shaping up to be accurate replicas of the people that I (and, I am guessing, you too?) meet in day to day working life. I’m already counting down to next week’s instalment!

Nic Sale
Head of diversity, Pearn Kandola.