The Apprentice - look at tomorrow's capitalists and laugh

Lord Sugar’s theatre of cruelty known as “The Apprentice” has returned to the screens in another series. In the third episode the teams were set up to fail by being given the task of creating doughnuts for a high class market when none of them knew a doughnut from their elbow. They had to learn to produce doughnuts without any training. The results reflected this lack of expertise.

On display also were two styles of management. One has a Project Manager who gives orders and the sole contribution of the team is to fulfil the PM’s dream. This is Lord Sugar’s preferred method and only works if the project manager is infallible. The flaw is obvious. When Lord Sugar was appointed “Enterprise Czar” by Tony Blair his fallibility was all too clear. Questioned about the banking crisis his famous on-screen response was “Oh Gawd”.

Tom Bunday, on the other hand, had a style of management which involved getting his team onside and consulting them about the task. He praised people who achieved instead of denouncing them as “a bloody disgrace” if they made a mistake.

Since the premise of the show is that team members stab each other in the back this attracted criticism from his own team members who insisted he was “not taking decisions.” And Lord Sugar made it perfectly clear that capitalism does not work like that.

 

So although the premise of the show is nonsensical it does provide some interesting insights into the capitalists of yesterday and tomorrow.

As a lesson in making doughnuts however it falls down somewhat. 


Death Agony of Capitalism