The Apprentice

After watching The Apprentice for years in different countries and at different ages, I can see a lot of difference in cultures, period of time and myself. This is what this short analysis is all about.

I have been watching this show since I was sixteen, seventeen. First, it's interesting how my analysis has changed throughout these five years and then, it's interesting how the show has changed. When I left to England, I started watching the British version and now I'm back to the American one.

When I first watched it, it was more entertainment, it was about people doing interesting things. When I got to England, it was about me understading how they do things, I think it was more the learning of different techniques, rather than anything else. Now? Now I analyse. I analyse behaviours, people, strategies. That is not to say that it's not entertainment anymore or that I don't find some ideas really innovative. It's just about the way my inner motivation to watch it has changed.

From my perspective, what Donald Trump is looking for has changed a lot, and so have the candidates. If now a more autocratic style is appreciated, in the first seasons, the participative one was more appreciated. This is very interesting. The autocrative style of leadership was the popular one before the participative style and now it seems like the employers and people are going back to the autocrative one. In the last season at least, this phrase has come out quite a lot: "You're the project manager so you tell me what to do". In my opinion, it's not the right approach. You are a team member, you should know what needs to be done as well. This is actually a surprising thing for me, because as China is becoming more and more powerful, i would expect a more delegative style to be popular. It is known that this is how Chinese work, they don't really digest the notion of leadership.

I would also like to talk about the personality that usually wins The Apprentice. Contrary to how a lot of participants are acting, it's never the agressive ones that win. It's the composed candidates, that do their job right, talk when they need to and express their opinions in a very substantiated way. Thus, Brandy in the last season.

As a final observation, I would also like to make a comparison between the same show in the UK and in the US. I prefer the British version. It is more businessy, people know how to behave themselves, it's not a continous circus and the candidates are supposed to make money on a lot smaller budgets, which is definitely harder than with a big one. On the other hand, The Trump Organisation does deal with a lot of money, so maybe Donald Trump is going for the kind of premium products strategy, rather than cost leader product one.

Finally, I would like to conclude with a little reflection about leadership. It's supposed to be focused on two aspects: task and people. The right balance of skills between the two is what makes a leader great. If a person is too much people-focused and is not a serious worker that can offer a direction and a structure, it will never be a good leader. On the other hand, if one is task-oriented, too autonomous, cannot take other people's opinion into account, cannot manage conflicts and cannot influence people, one won't be able to control the team. Where am I? Now, what would be the fun of that, if I'd tell you already?