Once again, reality television show, ‘The Apprentice’ is on our screens. For anyone who has spent the last few years living on another planet, the show’s premise is that entrepreneur Alan Sugar, the brains behind electronics firm, Amstrad, puts a number of hopefuls through various business tasks in competition with each other and eliminates the contenders one by one. The final person is given a job as Sugar’s apprentice and a six figure salary.

Obviously this is first and foremost an entertainment show. It is not difficult to imagine the producers sitting in a bar in Soho congratulating themselves on their finely mixed selection of contestants. First they make sure they have covered various ethnic groups. Then they need to make sure all sexual orientations are represented.

Perhaps most importantly they need to pick one or two contestants who have a high opinion of themselves together with a complete lack of common sense and business know-how who will not only fail but amuse the audience at the same time.

Can any serious business lessons be learned from The Apprentice? The most frequent that comes to mind is that people should not overlook soft skills training. Many of the contestants fail because they can’t work with their colleagues or communicate properly with them.