Lucinda for The Apprentice
Editor's Note: This is a public repeat of a friends-only posting. This is so that I can publish this post without revealing comments made in reply to the original (restricted readership) post.
I've been following The Apprentice on BBCi. About the only person I can level with is Lucinda, even though her opinions come across badly with the others, especially when they force her to despair. She tends to think objectively, and gets on with the job without trying to be at the top of the empire: a management style I like, and it's something I believe in myself. Extrapolating her personality further, her best objectivity is when she can identify a problem and bring it to the attention of people who need to know, and not bog seniors down with obstacles, and be willing to take on overcoming the obstacles. It's all about attitude, and knowing the business objectives. When she can be afforded respect, she would do very well.
Her downfall? My crystal ball says she wouldn't be strong enough for (Sir) Alan Sugar's environment. Intellectually, she has what it takes, but she seems very emotional, and such emotions (as much as I regret saying this) can interfere with good business decisions.
I have some concern about her knowledge-based creativity too. At that level, the thinking would be very 'outside the box' in creating one's own brief and using others to follow it through, rather than being mechanistic and applying winning formulae. She's poor on a technical level, and I expect this would carry through to understanding capabilities and developing products. To overcome this, she would need good relations with those who understand the products and their design.
Back to her downfall: it will be when she is in a subordinate position in a Task, when she is made a scapegoat for an operational failure.
Finally, on watching The Apprentice, I see countless cringe-worthy moments where cliche and rhetoric are favoured more than material substance. In the boardroom, in response to a direct question, I hear unrelated self-praise - I filter this out, and start scoring points against anyone who does it. During the Tasks, I can't sympathise with the emotional abstraction of motivational aspects of work, especially when the objectives seem unachievable. Loyalty should be assumed rather than asked for repeatedly. Self-congratulation should be reserved for rare occasions. Broadcast statements of committment should be kept private. Constructive ideas should be given 'freely'.
I've been following The Apprentice on BBCi. About the only person I can level with is Lucinda, even though her opinions come across badly with the others, especially when they force her to despair. She tends to think objectively, and gets on with the job without trying to be at the top of the empire: a management style I like, and it's something I believe in myself. Extrapolating her personality further, her best objectivity is when she can identify a problem and bring it to the attention of people who need to know, and not bog seniors down with obstacles, and be willing to take on overcoming the obstacles. It's all about attitude, and knowing the business objectives. When she can be afforded respect, she would do very well.
Her downfall? My crystal ball says she wouldn't be strong enough for (Sir) Alan Sugar's environment. Intellectually, she has what it takes, but she seems very emotional, and such emotions (as much as I regret saying this) can interfere with good business decisions.
I have some concern about her knowledge-based creativity too. At that level, the thinking would be very 'outside the box' in creating one's own brief and using others to follow it through, rather than being mechanistic and applying winning formulae. She's poor on a technical level, and I expect this would carry through to understanding capabilities and developing products. To overcome this, she would need good relations with those who understand the products and their design.
Back to her downfall: it will be when she is in a subordinate position in a Task, when she is made a scapegoat for an operational failure.
Finally, on watching The Apprentice, I see countless cringe-worthy moments where cliche and rhetoric are favoured more than material substance. In the boardroom, in response to a direct question, I hear unrelated self-praise - I filter this out, and start scoring points against anyone who does it. During the Tasks, I can't sympathise with the emotional abstraction of motivational aspects of work, especially when the objectives seem unachievable. Loyalty should be assumed rather than asked for repeatedly. Self-congratulation should be reserved for rare occasions. Broadcast statements of committment should be kept private. Constructive ideas should be given 'freely'.