Originally Posted by Book_Junkie:
“I'm not saying I would want Howard in the final necessarily (although I wouldn't mind it). I just think that that is what will happen.
Above and beyond everything else, this is a television show, meant to entertain. It's not a serious job interview, no matter what guff SA or anyone else comes out with. It's an entirely unrealistic way of picking someone for a job, and as I probably said earlier, if he really just wanted a new apprentice, there was no need for it to be televised. So yes, they want the drama and the shock factor. And firing Kate or Yasmina would provide that.
I think Yasmina is a very strong, capable person. She got two good wins as PM and handles herself extremely well in the boardroom. I just don't think Kate is as good as everyone makes out. Granted, she has only had one really bad week, which can happen to everyone (and has done), but she doesn't stand out much for me on any of the other tasks. She did get the win as PM, but having watched that episode back, the team that she had was the best team of the series in terms of working together, and I don't put that down to Kate's skills. She is excellent at presenting and pitching, but no better at sales (which SA seems to rate so highly this year) than anybody else.
Howard is a lot quieter, or at least seems to be in the edit. But he is quite sensible and always seems willing to work hard, put ideas forward and attempt to get on with the job in hand. I would not be at all surprised if he gets to the final.”
But does Howard in the final defeat your argument. If this was about telly, why would SAS take in someone who has stayed in the background and barely been featured on the show? I'm trying to think more about what SAS and the interviewers are thinking. Ben wasn't that much of a surprise when you consider points SAS has raised. Kate over Howard would be. What would he argue his reasoning? He's criticised Howard before for staying in the background and sitting on the fence. His only criticism of Kate was shock at her not performing well in one task. You may not rate Kate's sales; but others in the group clearly do and we didn't see a lot of them selling yesterday. The soap task and the baby show; Margaret commended her selling. Phil, ben, Yasmina, Lorraine and Howard have all commended Kate's selling on different occasions. The only epsiode we didn't see her selling well was the upnorth one and I think we've all established that that was due to another reason. She's not top salesperson in the show, but its quite clear her sales skills are rated about Howard by the interviewers or he would have been commended in the review articles etc... Margaret has raved for 2 weeks in a row about Kate in tasks in her newspaper article and clearly has a soft spot for her as per her pm week. The fact SAS didn't criticise her and stated "hero" to "zero", suggesting he thought he great before, says a lot to me. As I said, Kate would need to muck up the task to go. Otherwise, I'd be struggling to see what he could raise in the boardroom as to his reasoning for firing her over 2 people he has slated in the past, 1 who has been severely caned in the boardroom. Especially in light of the fact Lorraine looks like she does poorly in this task given edits, but the edits might be making it look that way for the shock factor. I could see reasoning behind Kate going out in the interview round if she buckles under the interview, but still see her pyschology knowledge holding her in good stead there. But next week? Just could n't see her going unless some major bulls up happens which means SAS has to fire her. So far, there has at least been logic behind his firings. Unless Lorraine performs superbly (which we know she doesn't), Howard has the week of his life outperforming Kate and Lorraine (possibly, but hasn't so far) and Kate also performs badly; there is no other reasoning I can see for Kate leaving over Lorraine and Howard. If Yasmina was in the mix, I'd feel differently. But Kate is really rated by the interviewers.
In a lot of ways I do see Howard and Kate as very similar, which is why imo they get along together. she just has the greater experience in marketing and sales, which gives her a bit of added confidence. But Howard hasn't got that much experience in the real world. He runs pubs doesn't he?
I would have been interested in Kate vs Howard pming imo just to see if Kate's pming skills were a fluke and if she is good at managing people. 2 ex-candidates have left the show now saying she can manage/micromanage anyone and neither of these candidates were Phil. Clearly, there is a lot we don't see in the edits. I don't see her PM win as a poor one because to me, business is about working as a team and to me, that just showed me who the top candidates were and testiment to them that they all all worked together to get the best out of each other. I don't think them being a good team takes anything away from the fact they all performed well on that task. Teamwork is a major part of business. On the you're fired show, they certainly seemed to think she managed people well. A point made was about rather than show negativity; she said "I like that" rather than "I don't like that". This is directly opposite as to say how Lorraine communicates. When she didnt like something; she concentrates on what she doesn't like. Philip's a bit like that too. And this raises conflict or antagonises the other colleague. Kate's method just focusses attention on the good stuff and noone focusses on the negative, which keeps morale high and keeps the team thinking they are doing a good job. All of her team felt involved which meant they all felt they had contributed to the final product and it was all of them that made it happen. They also looked to be having fun, happy. This was in direct contrast to the other team who had one person's idea's railroaded through. And it is not like that wouldn't have necessarily happened/ The week before when James ran the same team Kate did; Ben's idea got a little railroaded through as there wasn't the same creativity. James didn't contribute much, but did with Kate. Debra also is not shy of taking over and she was calm and relaxed when Kate pm'd. I think Kate had a good team, but I disagree she didn't run that job well. She had two strong personalities in Ben and Debra in that team. The different with them under Kate as opposed to someone like Nooral is that they respect her, trust her judgement and were willing to follow her lead as they trusted that would do a good job. And that is, in part, a role of the PM. People have to trust you are making the right choices and do a good job. Without it, you have a situation like Lorraines pming on the up north trip. Ben, Kate and Phil clearly didn't have much faith in her and in part, it came across Yasmina didn't too. so Lorraine had to step up, be more forceful and try to command respect. Same this week with James. Debra and Ben lacked confidence in him which seemed that they tried to railroad through their choices. PMing isn't as easy as people make out.
