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I have just been watching the latest episode of the apprentice here in the UK. I always find it shows the worst in management practices. Any thoughts?

stephenbooth_uk's picture

Mark has often said that good management is boring.  It's slow.  There's no surprises.  I like to think of it being like being  the safety guy at a nuclear power plant.  A good day at work is soporifically boring because if it was on the toes exciting that that meant something went wrong, which makes for a bad day.

Good television, on the other hand, is exciting and fast.  It's things blowing up, people blowing up (hopefully only figuratively), running around and shouting.  It's take your breath away, on your toes or the edge of your seat exciting.

The Apprentice is good television, not good management.  Lord Sugar has said so himself.  The danger is that people might watch the show and think that is how managers are supposed to behave.  With any luck they will be disabused of that notion fairly quickly and before they can do lasting damage to anything but their own career.

 Stephen

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"Start with the customer and work backwards, not with the tools and work forwards" - James Womack