bythemethod.com blog

I have just finished watching the latest episode of the “Apprentice” on the BBC. It’s great entertainment and if you watch closely enough it can teach you a thing or two about business. For instance last night the person sacked made the big mistake of not checking your work. I think most business owners expect their employees to make the occasional mistake but they then expect the person to realise the mistake early on and correct it. Selling lobsters at £5 a go was an obvious mistake and even if someone was nieve enough to not know how much lobsters should be a quick check in the book would have told him. I think ultimately though he hung himself in the boardroom.

However what saddened me at the beginning of the programme was the short interviews with the candidates where they were mostly quoted as being prepared to do anything and sacrifice anyone on the way to the top. A competative nature is a good thing but this kind of dog eat dog attittude has no place in the modern business world.

I don’t know if Sir Alan Sugar would approve of the attitude or not and I know he has more business experience than I do (tip: it’s a wise person who knows a wiser person he can learn from). However there are some fundemental life issues that I’d like to point out.

1. Success is not just about money. History is full of stories of the people who made oodles of money but died alone and very sad. Relationships are important for EVERYONE and if you ignore this important truth you risk being a very rich failure.

2. Success is not just about promotion. Getting to the top of any organisation doesn’t make you a successful person. Granted it can be very exciting and its nice to have the power to control everything about your life but if you end up lonely with no one to share that experience with it soon becomes boring and unsatisfying. For a competative person being at the top can be a problem in itself.

3. We all need people for success. There will be a time in everyones career when they need the help and support of those who they manage. Indeed even with very good management skills it’s near to impossible to manage a group that is hostile to you. The people you might push out of the way on your journey to the top might end up the very people who can make or break your career. We see this every year on the Apprentice. Someone annoys a person in the group who they then need to rely on for help later only to find they have been stabbed in the back.

By all means be so determined to reach the top that you will fight any battle necessary to get there but remember that the people you sacrifice in the fight might be the very people you need later. Learn to build strong relationships and to get along with anyone. If you must put your career before a relationship then make sure the person you are in the relationship with understands what you are trying to achieve – you will probably discover that they are willing to help you anyway. Ultimately some relationships will matter more than business – be careful to know what these relationships are.

Success is not about money. Money can be a trapping of success but money should not be anyone’s god.