I’m late with commentary on Week 3’s Apprentice challenge (available on iPlayer) but I’m posting this for the sake of completeness.

Week 3 was the design task. The teams were mixed up and the challenge was to create an original piece of personal exercise equipment and flog it to retailers. Debra led Ignite which designed a version of a traditional exercise ball. James led Empire which developed a gym-in-a-box. Here’s what we learnt.

Delegation
James delegated the design of Empire’s product to Ben and had no input in the project until a prototype arrived from the product design company. Delegation is fine, but for a team leader to have no involvement in the key activity of the task is poor. Ignite won the task despite fiddling and meddling from team leader Debora. She’s a strong assertive leader who delegates tasks, but not authority or responsibility.

Team motivation
When James was given the opportunity in the boardroom he voiced reservations about the design claiming that he kept quiet during the task as he didn’t want to demotivate the team. There’s never a good time to share bad news and human nature is to focus on the positive, but good communication is key to motivation and a good leader would have been able to rally a team despite misgivings.

Demonstrating value
Majid was fired because he wasn’t visible enough. In a team task make sure you’ve got a clearly defined role, that you complete what’s expected of you and that you make sure your boss recognises your work. This is applies in almost all aspects of business and is an excellent lesson for anyone in a client service business.

Product design
Maybe it was harsh editing or maybe the teams really did fail to take full advantage of insights provided by retail stores and personal trainers. Both teams arrived at their chosen product routes by luck rather than rational judgment. Research must lie at the core of the design process. Its why Loewy’s product design gurus Seymour Powell have a team dedicated to ethnographic research.

Selling
Lorraine stepped right outside her comfort zone in a bid to sell and did an okay job once she ditched the script and told a story. Debra would almost certainly have had her in the boardroom had Ignite failed the task. Instead she should have been congratulated for her efforts. Selling is a tough skill to learn if it doesn’t come naturally.