You’re Fired – it’s The Apprentice time again!

And so begins another season of The Apprentice. Big Brother with brains. Car crash TV for the Millennials, the LinkedIn generation. Series thirteen introduces us to eighteen resolute hopefuls determined to prove themselves as doubtfuls during twelve decisive opportunities to demonstrate they’ve not got what it takes to be Lord Alan Sugar’s business partner.

Each year we see a consistent assortment of personality types fitting a familiar mould; and yet we still watch, mesmerised as the egos, braggers and, frankly, useless fast-track themselves towards a final taxi journey into obscurity. The annual stereotypes will undoubtedly be confirmed over the coming weeks. The wide-boy racketeer, for example, a self-made spiv and national icon; but putting lovable Lord Sugar aside, the tasks and boardroom allow each candidate to fit into one of the predetermined patterns: The Manipulator, The Micromanager, The Crybaby, The Old(er) one, The Determined one who’s both attractive and clever, The Nerd, The Nouveau Riche, The Stressed one in the kitchen who can’t stand the heat, The Wildcard, The Witch, The Rags-to-Riches success, The Alpha Male, more than a couple of Fools, and one or two who appear to have wondered into the wrong TV programme.

Over the coming weeks opinions will be polarised, criticisms will be vocalised and cliques will form – and that is just in our household.

Like any great soap opera, our favourites emerge from the bedlam and we anxiously await, spellbound, as our heroes argue themselves through the commotion of the boardroom to hear Lord Sugar ponder over their fate, contemplate their value in the process and publicly berate their inadequacies as businesspeople. Like it or not, we live in a voyeuristic world in which a fascination with the lives of others is ubiquitous, and for business-voyeurs like us, who would never dream of watching the irrelevance of some other reality TV programmes, seeing the businesspeople least-likely to succeed knocked off their perch is gold-dust.

The villains in the pack add the spice we like in a mid-week drama: control-freaks, emotional influencers and those with disengagement between mouth and brain. They’re amongst the first to be deservedly berated by Alan’s aspiring comedian sidekicks, Claude Littner and Karren Brady, before the inevitable and applauded “You’re fired!” Our heroes, alas, also depart gradually as they wake-up and succumb to the smell of coffee before throwing themselves off the cliff through brave acts of sheer idiocy.

The protagonists in any tale enjoy a roller-coaster ride of highs and lows, and The Apprentice is no different. Be successful in your task and receive an exclusive, luxurious reward that is ordinarily beyond the grasp of most wannabe businesspeople; fail, and earn yourselves a coffee and the opportunity to stab your fellow team-members (and yourself) in the back by apportioning undue blame based on often-flaky rationale.

As we see in real-life business on a day-to-day basis, the cutthroats claim credit where it is undeserved and unashamedly allow others to be held responsible for their own failures. None of us enjoy working with these people and their toxic behaviour, yet whilst provocative TV naturally attracts viewers in their millions, The Apprentice actively promotes this type of unsavoury conduct under the misleading guise of entrepreneurship and business merit. I think not; there is little embodiment, if any, of professional business methods or practices; it is simple entertainment, presumably produced and edited for maximum conflict. And still we watch, in spite of that, because as each week passes the wheat is thankfully separated from the chaff and the remnants of the self-destruction blossom into genuine businesspeople with promise, those we would consider working alongside.

The final handful of candidates are often the unassuming wallflowers deemed least-likeliest at the beginning of the process, and herein is a lesson in business for us all: it is perhaps not the loudest, brashest and most self-assured people who are the best potential employees and managers, but rather the subtle people smart enough to stop, look, listen and think before taking action in a sincere and genuine manner.

So, just another week to wait until the next instalment, seven days until we see who is next on the chopping-block, who arrived at the auditions armed with a Business Case and was shown the door labelled The Apprentice instead of the one marked Dragons’ Den.

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