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Business and Leadership Lessons from The Apprentice UK 2011: Week 5
Last night was week 5 of The Apprentice UK 2011. The teams were set the task of developing and marketing a new pet food. As always there were business and leadership lessons to be learned. Here are my favourites from this week.
You Cannot Prepare Enough For A Presentation
One of the team members Leon complained about having to spend 5 hours working on a presentation lasting 20 minutes. Whether he did or did not spend all of this time we will never know but the presentation he delivered to a group of industry experts was diabolical. The truth is he was delivering a presentation to an audience he did not know on a topic where he was no expert and as a result the success or otherwise was always going to come down to preparation.
Don’t Ask For Views If You Are Not Interested In Listening
Both of the Project Managers asked for input and feedback from the team. They then totally dismissed what they had to say without explaining their rationale. All this does is de-motivate and disengage people.
Hold People To Account
It was obvious that Jim should have been brought back into the boardroom as he pushed the Every Dog concept for the pet food. Vincent decided for whatever reason not to hold him to account which had serious consequences for him in the end.
Split Up Tasks But Maintain Team Working
It is always going to be necessary to split up the big team into smaller teams to get everything done. At the same time it is important not to create divisions between the teams. Everyone needs to be focused on the common purpose and be allowed to contribute to success.
Duncan Brodie of Goals and Achievements helps professional people to become highly effective leaders and managers. He invites you to sign up for his free audio e-course Leadership Success.
About the Author Duncan Brodie
Since 2006 I’ve worked with in excess of 8,000 accountants and professionals in workshops, seminars and one to one helping them land their next jobs and become better leaders, presenters and business partners. Before that I spent 25 years in accountancy climbing the career ladder from Payments Clerk to FD. I’m a CIMA Fellow, Certified Professional Coach and Team Coach Facilitator.