Career Success For Accountants

The Apprentice: Series 5: Week 5

Last night was week 5 of The Apprentice in the UK.  The task to create a brand identity for a new breakfast cereal.

Ignite were led by Marketing Consultant Kimberly with Empire being led by License Development Manager Kate.

Your immediate thought would be the team that won would be the team led by the expert Marketing Consultant.  Yet again we saw that being the expert is not always a guarantee of success.

So what did we learn from this week:

  1. It is easier to be an expert than lead and manage a team
  2. If you are leading a team you need to be willing to take decisions
  3. When time is short, there is no room for procrastination
  4. If you are the leader and are not convinced about an idea, you need to be willing to speak up and say so
  5. If you let people who throw tantrums if they don’t get their way continue to behave in this way, you are giving a message, sub-consciously that it is okay
  6. You need to sort out time utilsation and priorities and create a plan, otherwise you end up not having enough time to spend on things that really matter- the cereal box in the case of the losing team
  7. How you say things makes a difference.  Kate, the project manager of the winning team made great use of supportive language

At the end of the day, the finished product from the winning team was streets ahead of the losing team and is often the case being an expert does not always result in effective leadership.

You can watch The Apprentice at 9pm on BBC1 or on the BBCiplayer

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.

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3 comments
Janice Robertson says 23 April 2009

I think Kimberley was trying to be too nice…wanting to be seen to be a supportive leader when she said that all ideas are welcome. Maybe if she’d added “at this stage then we can choose later”? Unfortunately, as you point out Duncan you have to be willing to speak up if an idea is not convincing.

I’m finding the Apprentice very addictive!

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