The Apprentice Series 5 – Episode 1

I didn’t watch The Apprentice last year – It had turned into Eastenders in business suits and a “who could be the most annoying” competition.

However, this year I have – partly because Suralan had said he didn’t want it turning into any more of a circus than it was.

So the candidates were one short to start off and I would be interested in why the makers didn’t have a ready made sub to just slot in.

Anyway, the task was straight forward enough – to clean things – anything, cars,shoes, houses, windows. Starting with a kitty of up to £200 and a white van.

It is very difficult to work out what actually happens when 10 hours is condensed into 20 minutes but it did seem that as usual, there was a lot of shouting and macho posturing (even from the ladies team) and not a lot of doing.

The breath taking cheek of these people staggers me sometimes. (no, it’s not business acumen when somebody points out a number of problems with your work and you can’t have the rest of the deal – and you instantly reply “so just pay us for what we have done then.”)

Both sides saw cleaning cars (badly) as the main business function but neither seemed to have ANY sort of quality control or checks and measures to keep the client happy (and as a side effect keep the cash rolling in…)

And not having a clue WHY you were spending money on things (or how they actually worked) seemed equally dumb.

Hindsight is seldom wrong but the task would to me appear, really simple.

1. WHAT are you going to clean?

2. How MANY are you going to clean in the time limit?

3. How LONG will it take to do ONE?

4. What tools & equipment are needed to do item 2 multiplied by item 3?

The poor girl who did get fired seemed to be the one who just got on with what she was asked and not question anything. One thing is for certain though Suralan does get rid of the non sales people one by one – he seems to have started earlier this year though..

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Business Management versus Entrepreneurial Management

Last weekend I went to the fabulous UK Entrepreneurial Summit 2009 at Sheffield University. Not being a student, I was slightly apprehensive at being slightly (a lot) older than most of the attendees.

I won’t bore you with a “what I did” monologue but a couple of things struck me as very interesting.

Around 20 years ago, I was studying Organisation & Management Science at Bradford College. At that time, innovation and entrepreneurial thinking wasn’t really encouraged and actively frowned upon. (Yes kids, this was before the days of google and facebook…)

Fast forward 20 years and it’s true what was quoted in the brochure

“it’s not singers and footballers that are going to get the country out of the current financial climate”.

It’s smart young people like I met last weekend.

However, I am pleased that my degree did give me a grounding in classical management techniques, decision making theory and the like.

It’s just that none of this is really of much relevance to people who were only just born when the Berlin wall came down. (Although, if you have read Marx or Harry Braverman’s “Labour & Monopoly Capital”, you will realise that they were right – that the workforce do actually own the means of production – it’s just in the form of laptops and passwords to websites.)

But then the penny dropped…

Entrepreneurial management is not the same as business management.

HOWEVER – for a business to be sustainable – managers do need to understand decision making theory, high level fault finding techniques like six sigma, how to deal with problem staff & legislation issues.

It’s not just about getting an idea, making a pitch, developing a brand and retiring at 35 – despite what popular TV like The Apprentice & Dragons Den make out.

But what has caused this shift?

Talking to one young man, he was very surprised to hear about the old grant system and shocked that

a) Students had nothing to pay and more importantly

b) They actually received money from the government in the form of a grant.

As a result, the Universities almost treat students as customers and the sales and marketing of the course has become almost as important as the content.

So, yes, the world has moved on and fortunately, the few people I spoke to at the weekend seemed to appreciate that and won’t have a problem with that.

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Decision Making Tips & Help

If you read our recent blog post on the sacking of Chelsea football manager, Luis Felipe Scolari, we give you some of our views on the Chelsea owner Roman Abramovitch. Clearly Mr Abramovitch is in command. It’s his club and he does what he likes…

One management thinker who was required reading on my management science degree was Victor Vroom. Vroom is a very high level thinker and to be honest, much of his stuff is so high level academia that it is not practical.

Anyway, bearing the football story in mind, Vroom’s models of decision making are useful to know.

The following is taken from his book “Leadership and decision making” and shows the levels of decision making.

Authority decision

A1 decision – Made by the manager alone. Without involving others using information available at that time.

A2 decision – Made by the manager but with information available from subordinates and workers

Consultative Decisions

C1 decision – Made by the manager after obtaining advice from others (subtle difference from A2 above)

C2 decision – Decision made by the manager after inviting suggestions from selected others.

C3 decision – Decisions made by group consensus.

All decisions welcome

Obviously, there is a place for all categories of decisions. For example, A1 would be most likely used in cases on imminent and severe
breaches of health & safety procedure and sinking down to C3 would be something non descript, like who can leave 10 minutes early on Friday afternoon.

The point is that good management will select where on the decision scale, the decision needs to be taken. Clearly Mr Abramovitch takes most decisions at A1 level.

How does this help us?

To take authority decisions, the decision taker must have… authority. Trying to take decisions on an A level without authority (either real or perceived) is a good way to get peoples back up…

Be aware of the decisions that you take in a day and rate them on the A1/2 or C1/3 scale and ask yourself if this was the right place for them…

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Training Policies?

Training Policies – Do you have them? Do you stick to them?

What is a training policy anyway?

Well, a good training policy is like a road map. Any member of staff should be able to pick up and within a couple of moments, work out where they are and where they will be going next.

“OK, so I am here and in 6 months, I will be here”

OK granted, most training policies aren’t the most exciting of reads – But what if you don’t have them.

Imagine going on a journey with no road map. Worse than that – imagine taking somebody else (your staff) for a ride and saying “I am not quite sure how you are going to get there”

Googling around, I came across a site for a large UK hospital/health trust.

The website is obviously a content management system where some IT boffins set up the categories and then individual departments just “pour” in the contents.

But on the section “training policies” – there was nothing.

In these difficult economic times, staff are the greatest asset a business can have. Computers & infrastructure don’t get you out of trouble – people do.

So imagine, if you looked there and saw there was no obvious way of seeing what training was available to you, when & why.

How motivated would you be?

Probably not very…

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