The OPPrentice: Double discount, double firing

With only five weeks left to go (and seven candidates left) on Lord Sugar’s search for a business partner, the would-be apprentices sourced and negotiated online deals on behalf of an internet discount company that specialised in luxury experiences. The aim was to get as many deals as possible that would be attractive to outgoing, bargain-hunting Londoners who enjoy the high life.

Last week, Stephen just about managed to save his own skin by persuading Lord Sugar to let him lead this week’s task. MBTI type dynamics may help us explain how his downfall in more recent weeks came about.

Reaching for your potential through type development

By Nancy Barger, MBTI trainer and author of Introduction to Type and Change

I first learned about Jung’s theory of midlife and some of its implications at the type conference I attended in 1985. Expanding and deepening that information about type development has served me well in my personal and work lives, and has equipped me to understand myself and to share that knowledge with clients. Now, in what Jung called “the second half of life”, I want to share some of the approaches that have been helpful to me and to the people I work with in organisational development and coaching sessions.

We know that Jung’s theory is a rich storehouse of ideas, many of them quite complex, and that Myers’ gift was to make type theory more usable through developing the type indicator. Myers’ work has led to multiple organisational applications to improve communication, decision-making, leadership, and so on. Due to time and financial constraints, most type practitioners’ use of psychological type has stayed at that very valuable, but limited, level of use.

But Jung’s theory of personality has more to offer – to us and to our clients! In particular, Jung’s picture of life-long development, with the applications and explanations provided by Briggs and Myers, is a rich lode for applying type to support our own and our clients’ developmental perspectives and work.

The OPPrentice: No cheese please, we’re British

According to OPP research, 85% of people experience workplace conflict. The Apprentice, hotbed of engineered interpersonal strife, gives us multiple examples of how people deal with conflict differently. Based on categories defined by Thomas and Kilmann, let’s examine the candidates’ preferred ways of dealing with conflict in this week’s task.

This week, the candidates’ job was to raise awareness of underrated English sparkling wine by designing a website and creating an ad campaign.

Jade and Adam were paired up once again to direct an advertising campaign for Team Phoenix. Jade, frustrated with Adam’s self-promoting approach to “choreographing” the task, took a compromising stance, letting him posture embarrassingly about how to hold a wine glass but ultimately retaining control over the quality of the output. By creating a win-win situation, she was able to satisfy Adam’s need for influence, whilst she retained the final say on what video would look like.

The OPPrentice: Horror show for Team Phoenix

In the eighth episode of The Apprentice, both teams had one day to meet with a number of up-and-coming urban artists. They then had to select two artists to present their work in a one-off exhibition. In addition, both teams were assigned a corporate buyer each, who they needed to flatter, woo and fawn over to get them to part with some big bucks. Part of succeeding in this part of the task meant establishing what art work would be suitable to the corporate buyers, and on that basis selecting an artist’s work that might appeal to them in the exhibition.

Let’s assume that this week’s task was a simulation exercise as part of an assessment centre. What competencies would we be looking for candidates to demonstrate?

When it comes to soft skills, every little helps

It is very encouraging to hear that Tesco’s group personnel director Alison Homer has been appointed to the board. Engaging a workforce is an art, a science and a skill, and if it’s not the leading concern of the executive board, it certainly should be one of the key areas of focus.

For a company of its size and stature, it is very surprising that Tesco, by its own admission, has overlooked the fundamental importance of soft skills. Peta Hay, head of the Tesco Academy who led the supermarket's strategy on leadership and development before recently becoming group resource director said: “up to now, because of the concentration on growth, the main questions had been ‘how can we do this faster or go further’. Empathy and warmth probably has been missed."

The OPPrentice: The only way is tan

In this week’s Apprentice, the candidates were told to ‘smell what sells’ (which also sometimes meant they had to sell what smells). Both teams were given a budget of £150 to buy wholesale products and sell to Essex customers. The main point of this task was to work out what sold well, and to reinvest the profits in those goods in order to sell more.

The two team leaders adopted different approaches to achieve the task. Nick, leader of Stirling, focused on two product areas: beauty and household items. At the wholesaler’s, his team spent time selecting products that would appeal to Essex customers. They reaped healthy profit margins, particularly on their best selling item – “ghastly fake tan”, which the Essex crowd devoured. Didn’t they even manage to sell a razor to a man who thought he had a beard, but actually didn’t?!

The OPPrentice: what a load of old meatballs

In this week’s task, candidates were instructed to cook up high-quality, gourmet street food to sell to customers in Edinburgh. The Sterling team made a traditional Scottish beef casserole, using high-quality ingredients. In contrast, Phoenix churned out a vat of tiny dry meatballs at a low cost and tried to flog them at an inflated price. Team Stirling won the task by a small margin.

Phoenix were felled by their lack of attention to the ‘four Ps’ of good marketing: product, price, place and promotion. Project manager Adam firstly failed to realise the importance of a good product, in terms of its appropriateness to the market as well as its inherent quality and brand.