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BBC2’s The Apprentice is now in the middle of its fourth series and the ratings keep on climbing. 7.4 million watched episode five in which the contestants competed to win orders for strange new flavours of ice cream. The show soars over the success of personality driven vehicles such as Big Brother because of the need for contestants to demonstrate skills in the real world.

Having said that, there are still plenty of personalities at work. At the heart of the programme lies the ruthless character of Sir Alan Sugar. The 61-year-old offers young wannabe tycoons the enticing prize of working with him and over 20,000 applied to take part in the show. His hardnosed business approach has made him the 92nd richest person in the UK with a personal fortune of £830m. Most young people today want that. Yet many GCSE Business Studies teachers are using clips from the series to show classes how not to do business in the real world.

Testing the candidate’s skills

Perhaps this is because Sir Alan believes that, in sales, ‘presentation is everything’. His own business history shows that style tends to be more important than content and the quality of the service comes second to how much you can get for it. Sir Alan Sugar’s Amstrad business provided computers that served undemanding PC users in the 80s, but they were built using cheap components.

His TV tasks in The Apprentice reflect his business approach. They test the skills of the candidates, demanding hard work, sales bravado and ingenuity from them in order to gain maximum sales in the shortest amount of time. Bad service may lose points but the highest profit always wins in the final assessment, whatever errors have been made along the way.

Brusque and scathing

Sir Alan seems only to care about business. He treats the contestants like dirt if he wants to and they let him. He is brusque with them, sarcastic, scathing and blunt to the extreme, yet they insist on their suitability for the job.

‘You haven’t seen what I can do, I won’t let you down’ is the common song of the sinking contestant. ‘I have seen what you do and you’ve just lost me money!’ comes the put-down.

To Jenny, who had called herself ‘the most successful saleswoman in Europe’, he said: ‘You said in your application that you don’t give idiots a second chance. Well I’m going to do that now’. To Nicholas de Lacy Brown: ‘It says here that your bar exam was outstanding, does that mean you haven’t got it yet?’

If being fabulously wealthy, and therefore ‘successful’, means that you don’t have to value people beyond their ability to make you money, then the contestants often show that they are ready for that type of success. They make what seem to be exaggerated claims about themselves in order to intimidate others. They act as friends on the task and dig the knife in during the boardroom meetings. They gang up on weak members of the teams, attempting to push blame onto them, despite lack of evidence.

Uglier reality

In an early interview before the series had started, one of the contestants, Kevin Shaw, said, ‘I’m going to smash people out of the park. I’m going to nail them to the floor’. He later called the competition ‘a fight to the death’. When he was made project manager of the greetings card task in episode six, he insisted on doing the sales pitch to the potential clients, because, he said, ‘I’m 150% confident that I can go in and win this pitch’. When he was fired, his fellow-contestants weren’t surprised. ‘His arrogance lost him his place’, fellow-contestant Claire said afterwards. Even the client, Clinton’s Cards, said that he was ‘cocky…preaching…with a smell of arrogance about him’. The world of business is reflected in the immaculate appearances of the contestants, but the sharp suits and pressed shirts cover up an uglier reality of disdain and aggression that is apparently even toned down in the editing.

Best characters

The best characters have been those who have been honest about their failings, great team-workers and who have supported others when they are down. These characteristics do not necessarily make money, but they win respect. Simon, who left in the fourth episode, reflected that if it took stabbing people in the back and being manipulative to win the job, then he didn't want it anyway.

In his letter to the Romans, Paul told the Christians not to view themselves more highly than they ought to. This was to work out predominantly in the way they treated one another. Put others first, urges Paul in chapter 12. Honour them, respect them. Join with them as they laugh or cry. When they become your enemies, do not curse them, but bless them. This approach is centuries old, yet it is a sure-fire measure of success in the business of the Christian life.

Loving others rather than ourselves helps us to understand that we stand on a very level playing field in the sight of God, since everyone needs his forgiveness in Christ. Knowing Jesus will help us to see many painful truths about ourselves, but his response isn’t to fire us. It is to show mercy and to restore us.

'You're fired!' - the successes and failures of BBC2's The Apprentice

Testing the candidate’s skills

Brusque and scathing

Uglier reality

Best characters

Eleanor Margesson

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