The Apprentice Series 4 - Alpha left needing a Renaissance

It had all started well for girls team Alpha. Under project manager Claire the girls secured an easy first victory over a divided boys team who were left grasping at fish heads and tails.

Two weeks in though and it was a completely different story. A different task, a different project manager and a different style of leadership together with a different agenda and approach.

In a bizarre episode, Alpha project manger Jenny Celerier started off by some self-promotion and became a seminar presenter to her team of high flyers. An attempt to dazzle for the cameras? An attempt to emerge from the backdrop as a strong candidate?

It started badly and became worse. Essentially the girls failed to beat the boys at every level. They pitched badly; they had no marketing awareness or strategy. They went with their project manager’s gut instincts, which proved to be disastrous. The pricing was completely wrong. The teams within the teams appeared fragmented and several of the girls appeared to be very self focussed and driven.

Lucinda was brow beaten in no uncertain fashion and any hope of her achieving anywhere near her potential evaporated with every chilling put down. Later Shazia has stated that Jenny’s tirade against Lucinda was for a full 45 minutes! No wonder the woman took to her bed afterwards!

Shazia’s mistake was to leave her post. In leaving she provided others with the means of making her a scapegoat. She left having ensured that she had clearly explained her method of labelling and organising.

But when it came to the crux, Jenny didn’t listen. She failed spectacularly on every count. She went along with disastrous decisions, had no grasp of the different key components of the task. She failed to draw on her team’s strengths, instead aggressively nit picking over inconsequential details.

Under her management she took a team of high achievers and they were televised reduced to essentially begging on the streets for tips.

Jenny's team lost, not by a huge margin financially, but as a team they lost a good deal more. She dragged the team under, demoralised them, demotivated them, led her team to provide inefficient laundry services and then encouraged her team to essentially beg in the streets of London for tips after losing washing.

Alpha became Omega in one day. Now they need a Renaissance of their own.

The Apprentice forum