Helga Henry: Apprentices – but no drama

Oct 15 2010 By Helga Henry

The new series of The Apprentice is continuing to entertain the nation with the antics of a telegenic breed of ego-maniacs.

We’ve already had bullying, breath-taking claims of business acumen and high-stress situations.

As the weeks go on, the candidates will be presented with a series of challenges that will require ingenuity, team working, good planning and great communication.

Every week, nine million people will tune in to see just how spectacularly someone will fail at that challenge.

In the real world of Birmingham rather than the unreal world of reality TV, a similar process takes place with Creative Apprenticeships, but without the same level of drama.

I felt sure a team of would-be apprentices from the creative industries would succeed where Lord Sugar’s candidates fall short.

Working in the creative industries requires great team-work and stacks of stamina.

Lower resource levels mean that you rely on a high level of planning and innovation.

And most importantly, the entire industry relies on great communication. A whole section of the industry creates communication.

Surely a creative apprentice would run rings round their TV counterparts? I spoke to Noel Dunne of Creative Alliance which runs the Creative Apprenticeships programme.

It would seem that Birmingham’s scheme has more similarities to its TV counterpart than I imagined.

The creative apprentices, like Lord Sugar’s, work on a live project over six weeks. The experiential learning – doing something and reflecting on performance – is a really powerful way to learn.

The six-week project can be stressful and, as in the programme, people can resort to a range of behaviour and clashes of egos.

It is under stress, Noel observed, that you see how resilient and resourceful the apprentices can be. Employers will choose an employee not on the basis of how they behave when things are going well, but by their reactions to challenges and failure.

The main difference, Noel added, between the television programme and the creative apprentices is that most of them do not enjoy the formers’ level of self-esteem and confidence.

“The purpose of the scheme is to give our apprentices the self-belief that they have the right to work in this industry.”

For some, that self-belief is a bigger asset than fleeting fame.

* Helga Henry is a consultant at Fierce Earth and board member of Creative Republic