Re: The Apprentice
Posted: Fri Mar 28, 2008 2:28 pm
Ace wrote:
"especially Margaret going out of her way to report the most trivial details to him in that playground gossip way gets right up my nose"
As I understand it their brief is to look at the minutia and report it back. If this seems overdone in the context of a 60 minute programme it is probably due to bad editing.
If senior management in a great number of British companies took the time to look at detail and put in place various levels of micro management there would be far fewer complaints, much greater customer satisfaction and fewer cock ups such as the current debacle at Terminal 5.
Early on in my career we were taught to pay attention to detail as failure to notice small errors inevitably leads to greater and more costly problems. Over the years many management structures decided detail was unimportant. How many times in my employed life did I hear "don't bother me with the detail, just give me the big picture" followed hours, or days, or weeks later by "why didn't you advise me about that?"
I'm sure Sugar doesn't micro manage every facet of his empire but I'm equally sure he has some very efficient management levels that do.
For the purposes of the programme, he has to make a decision to employ someone on a very high salary compared to their knowledge and experience. Nick and Margaret are his eyes and ears and he obviously wants to base his decisions on the greatest amount of information possible.
"especially Margaret going out of her way to report the most trivial details to him in that playground gossip way gets right up my nose"
As I understand it their brief is to look at the minutia and report it back. If this seems overdone in the context of a 60 minute programme it is probably due to bad editing.
If senior management in a great number of British companies took the time to look at detail and put in place various levels of micro management there would be far fewer complaints, much greater customer satisfaction and fewer cock ups such as the current debacle at Terminal 5.
Early on in my career we were taught to pay attention to detail as failure to notice small errors inevitably leads to greater and more costly problems. Over the years many management structures decided detail was unimportant. How many times in my employed life did I hear "don't bother me with the detail, just give me the big picture" followed hours, or days, or weeks later by "why didn't you advise me about that?"
I'm sure Sugar doesn't micro manage every facet of his empire but I'm equally sure he has some very efficient management levels that do.
For the purposes of the programme, he has to make a decision to employ someone on a very high salary compared to their knowledge and experience. Nick and Margaret are his eyes and ears and he obviously wants to base his decisions on the greatest amount of information possible.