Reality TV: toxic business

Is reality tv getting more extreme? I watched a bit of the new Celebrity Bear Hunt show on Netflix. It involves celebrities running around Costa Rica being chased by outdoorsy bloke (my description) Bear Grylls, who wants to teach them survival skills. It’s all very high octane. I did have to laugh when actor Joe Thompson said “the biggest thing I’ve ever had to survive is a stressful meeting”. Well, meetings can be very stressful!

Then we’ve also got a new season of the Apprentice. The formula of this show proves oddly addictive, but it seems to show the business world in such an old-fashioned way. In Alan Sugar’s world it’s all about power suits, executives sitting in big chairs and raising their eyebrows in a mean way at younger people trying to get a job. The candidates selected for TV are often portrayed as ruthlessly competitive but then exposed for having little to back up their confidence. They are clearly coached to say ridiculous things like ‘What others can earn in a month takes me one hour’.  Then they are set up to fail by being made to compete rather than collaborate. It all seems borderline exploitative and in need of a lot more empathy for jobseekers!

In the first task, the candidates split into two teams to sell a holiday package to the general public. It’s a day trip kind of experience where the ticket sales need to be higher than the cost of activities. Watching the sales process is interesting and often alarming - one candidate wanted to close each sale so much that she’d interrupt conversations any of the others were having to say ‘60 euros then, let’s shake on it, do we have a deal?’ Putting people under pressure, undermining colleagues, all so you yourself can claim to be the best? It’s the playbook that seems to come from an older era, one we’ve hopefully moved on from.

The teams get followed by Alan Sugar’s assistants Tim and Karen, both successful business people. Far from being mentors however, they seem to mostly be watching for mistakes and making wry observations, before a plan goes disastrously wrong. In the boardroom the task is debriefed, one team loses and it all descends into finger-pointing. At some point Alan Sugar will say ‘right I’ve heard enough! X - you’re fired!’ The rejected candidate has to immediately depart. If it was real, it’s what we might call a toxic working environment.

Yet in reality, modern working in different ways (flexible, remote, hybrid) shows us that you don’t need suits and shiny boardrooms to have authority. I’d argue that you get to see what someone’s real credentials are by stripping this away. During the pandemic we all got used to even the most senior people working in a jumper from their spare rooms or kitchens. You can still lead very effectively without the stereotypical corporate trappings. You use your experience, your voice, your skills, your personality. That’s why you were hired.

I remember my own experience of getting that first graduate job. I can still feel the tight black suit I’d bought in the sale, the blue shirt which showed sweat patches so I had to keep my jacket on, the uncomfortable shoes. I was so nervous, so scared of getting it wrong. Yet what I didn’t realise was I had everything going for me. Youth, a fresh mind, recent education and perhaps not an innate sense of style, but the ability to learn! Would it really have mattered if I’d worn trainers?

I’m pleased that the reality of working with interns and new graduates is so rewarding. As people leaders, we have lots of opportunity to learn from them. I’ve been lucky to work on setting up a graduate scheme in the past, through which some fantastic UX designers and researchers were hired. Several of these are heads of UX now! I also think often of two graduates we had in the marketing department who went on to found their own successful agency. It shows that traditional hierarchy isn’t the only way - you can start your own business, and you can also be successful as yourself rather than a corporate cliche.

The modern workplace is kind, empathetic and open-minded. Perhaps The Apprentice should be too!