Totally agree.

But what they have to do is sometimes very challenging, I think the pub tasks was particularly difficult, creating a menu, getting supplies, printing menus, organising cooking and costing and pricing all of that in two days is quite a challenge even for someone well versed in critical path analysis and project management.

I bet Lucinda knows that it's actually 'ineptitude'.

Nick also commented on how well she managed.

Well naturally I don't accept some of your points.

I particularly reject your analysis as Lucinda making valid Risk and QA points. She made her criticisms in the tissue task AFTER the decisions were made and QAing anything when there is no possibility of a remedial strategy is very silly and time wasting. What we in fact saw was Lucinda supposedly deploying QA type comments when in fact she was indulging in self-serving behaviour which was destructive to the task. Her comments were intended to be self-promoting, attention-seeking and providing her with a defendable position in the boardroom, this willingness to promote herself was a result of the newly gained confidence in the previous' weeks task when she was praised by the team and Sugar and her ego went mad.

You say that she is naive, and I agree, she doesn't seem to realise how the world works or how to distil the key objectives from the irrelevancies and her immature approach is confirmed in her attention-seeking, self-centred behaviour.

I get the impression that Lucinda has now discovered she is in a cut-throat competition and she is now trying to deploy the underhand tactics and subterfuge that others tried initially but have subsequently rejected; Lucinda is about 4 weeks behind the times!

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/ineptness

He did, but the tasks which she PMed didn't require much project management and perhaps Nick had not recognised that and simply took the lack of team turmoil as some sort of endorsement of her when in fact it reflected the task and that little project management was a successful strategy.

It really doesnt matter that she knew nothing about cars. The apprentice is supposed to be about future business leaders, who can turn their hands to anything suralan throws at them... Highly capable and useful.

Lucinda can't sell. Doesn't know what a car is. Can't use a computer.

She's a blindingly brilliant manager when things are going well, with good morale in her team. But that alone doesn't make a mini-tycoon!

And yes, she does pull things out of the hat after they have been done, and then wastes everybody's time making a big fuss about them. Not constructive.

But she is really good at rubbing people up the wrong way!

i dont think lee could take credit for anything on that task he was appaling

why did they not talk about the raffle ticket fiasco i was dying for one of them to claim it as their own if it had worked!

Lucinda is useless when it comes to cars, I really think it was stupid of Lee to send her out on her own, especially when she made it clear that she didn't want to be and that she was not confident enough to do it. I blame him almost completely for Lucinda's poor performance.

And I don't know why Lee was maoning later on when she shadowed him for a short while - wasn't that basically what Alex was doing for the better part of the entire day? The Weasel didn't sell anything on that part of the day so he might as well have been a shadow too, at least Lucinda was keen to learn.

Another reason why i was mad at Lee was because in the other tasks he and Lucinda have worked together in, I think she has managed him well and carried him. If Lee had been thrown in a team with the likes of Jenny C and Alex he'd have been long gone with a couple of knives in his back, so it is disappointing that he has sided with Alex over Lucinda.

I think they are about even, after tonight, in my mind - though I find Lucinda more watchable as TV. Lee took a big risk on the Zonda and I think he had to stay with that car. If the point of the task was to be fair to everyone, he should have sent Alex with the Astin Martin and kept Lucinda with him and I'd like him more now if he had - but though it's very moving to see someone cry on TV, that isn't really the point of the task. They clearly and definitely won so he can't be written off as a PM but he was unimpressively indecisive in the bits we saw with Lucinda (especially those stupid raffle tickets). I think he's going to get eaten alive by the interviewers.

I like Lucinda and I admired her for admitting she needed help. But saying you need help doesn't mean you don't use your own common sense. (She is capable of looking at a car and seeing what it's called.) Everyone knows that the Apprentice is always going to involve lots of tasks selling in the streets - if you don't like it, don't apply. I feel she's too quickly emotional, but they are very tired and stressed. She's got something really interesting about her, but she should be running her own small company - she's not suited to be an apprentice.

It's just a shame because before Alex was put with them Lee and Lucinda worked well together - if they both had a bit more backbone (which is judgemental of me but how it looks on this edit) they'd be a really interesting team.

Indeed. To sell something you need to at least have basic facts about the product at your disposal to be able to engage with potential customers (the most basic of course being the name of the product - does that really need stating?). My first move in Lucinda's place would be brief research to garner information about the product I was tasked with selling. We don't know what information was available to them but even if it was none, I'd have briefly quizzed Lee and Alex about the features of the cars to be able to communicate with potential customers.

Nick was absolutely right - these are expensive boys toys so you need interested 'boys' with the means to pay the rental charges. I'd have targetted city traders as well.

I find it incredible that Lucinda seemed to have difficulty in recognising potential customers and was asking Lee to point out the type of person to her. I thought she was someone with people skills - there are all sorts of verbal and non verbal cues that could indicate someone's interest.

But yes, she seems to have overlooked something obvious - that she needed to spend some time researching the product to a very basic level.

I agree...I said in another thread that Lee forgot "to manage" as well as "to sell".

More generally though… given the limitations of each task it should be possible to recognize other skills apart from sales a…well it has been in most previous series.

The team win does represent the bottom line …BUT the boardroom experience should be about helping to define which candidates offer the most all round potential from the “losers”.... other skills can be recognized in that process…if Sir Alan bothers to ask the right questions.

This time round that balance hasn’t been struck ….partly because so many candidates weren't very interested in teamwork/ positive engagement. Most preferred to do very little, cover arse and go into attack/BS mode once in the boardroom.

I have experience of the luxury car-hire market (don't ask!) and it does take some selling to get people to part with the sums concerned and to manage the risks. we did help out with disputes concerning both Aston Martins and Ferrari's and there were times when the clients had absolutely no rentals.

the Zonda? I hadn't heard of it either, nor the Spyker - even though I sometimes catch Top Gear. if you are not 'into' cars (I'm not) then it is easy to feel a chump. Lucinda genuinely was 'at sea' and the PM cast her adrift, so they could have some boys-only fun.

there was no management of Lucinda and Lee ignored the need to involve her. indeed when Alex claimed the raffle idea and was contradicted, once Lee realised it was Lucinda's idea, he pretty much dropped it and had her wasting her time.

Lee and Alex were in their element, but they should have found a way not to waste Lucinda's time.

I don't think this task says much about Lucinda either way, but her management style is based on cooperation, not competition, so it does not suit the tasks very well.

I agree...Lucinda made me wince several times last night.. and for Christs sake surely "The Apprentice" should be able to look logically at a task and make the best of it?? Ok she had no car knowledge...make main points on a card and refer to them..Simple!
Yes,she may have been thrown in at the deep end..but shouldnt she have used it as her chance to shine??
She does my head in!!

1. She was asked at the beginning if she would be all right on her own, she said yes but didn't sound too sure. One of the men asked if she would rather someone with her and she said yes, she would but she didn't mind being on her own. They then agreed that one of them would pair with Lucinda.
I don't know when they decided not to, but they didn't tell her.

2. I have worked in the motor trade many years with a lot of different franchises and I had never heard of the Zonda. I presume it's some bored out and chipped Honda.

3. That is just not true.

4. There is nothing wrong with her dress sense. She is clean and smart. The bright colours she wears are much more uplifting, stamp her individuality and she is nothing like as dull and sombre looking as those black suited clones.

An MD of a very large concern here was interviewing for a very responsible job, quite high up in his company. One interviewee turned up in casual clothes. This was commented on rather snootily by someone, who was sharply told, 'I am interviewing the person, not his clothes.'

Lucinda is not good at sales. We know that since task 2 when she informed Jenny C. Even SAS knew about it and I didn't like the way he spoke to her in the boardroom.

I understand that Lee wanted to win the task and he had no time for Lucinda. But I think he could have utilised her better. Alex wasn't able to sell anything during the first part of the task. So in hindsight, Lee's decision of leaving Lucinda with the Aston Martin was wrong. He was one car down and one team member down as well!!!

Alex should have been sent with the Aston Martin and Lucinda should have stayed with Lee.

It is not all about sales, it is also about management and Lee clearly failed the task as a PM.

I totally agree with this response to Vivid's post, and would like to add that it's utter rubbish to say that Lucinda demonstrated she has no strengths. She certainly does, as a manager! I can honestly say that she's one of the few on that show who would have a cat's chance in hell of managing me appropriately! Trust me, I'm someone that if managed correctly is completly worth it, but I need to feel valued. So does Lucinda, and she treats people as she would like to be treated and it works too!

She is intensely logical and clearly very much more intelligent than her male colleagues, if not as good at sales! This was clear from her call to Lee where she was enquiring how many tickets she should sell. She can be a little obstructive if badly treated and if she doesn't feel valued. And just like me, she is not too good at being managed by people who are incompetant managers.

She asked to shadow Lee - she was keen to learn. This was exactly the right approach, in fact if you work in any decent sales environment and are not doing well your manager should tell you to do this.

Perhaps you need to work on your listening skills and start taking on board the comments of other people. How else can you hope to improve?

From what I saw, Alex was largely to blame again, and yet again Lee demonstrated weakness in following suit. It was VERY obvious that Lucinda should not have been on her own, but equally obvious that Alex did not feel competant to sell the Aston Martin on his own so he made that out to be Lucinda's weakness.

Lucinda shows both strength and self-awareness in her honesty about her own weaknesses. Isn't it better to have someone on your team who says "I am not good at that" than somone like Michael who says "I can do that" and yet quite obviously can't?

No offence to other posters, but this is by far and away the most intelligent post I have seen on the subject of Lucinda and the guys.

I'm not project manager, but I have a degree which incorporates management science and I say spot on, Spoon!

No offence to other posters, but this is by far and away the most intelligent post I have seen on the subject of Lucinda and the guys.

I'm not project manager, but I have a degree which incorporates management science and I say spot on, Spoon!

She never called the Aston the wrong name. She called the Zonda the wrong name. She called it the Zona

Yes she did. She called the Aston a Zonda, and called the Zonda a Zona. Both were wrong.

I think Lucinda will be gone soon, she doesn't seem to defend herself well now and this isn't good for the interview stages.

What really, really irritated me this week was the hypocrite that was Lee. Last week he made a big point in the boardroom that Lucinda shouldn't have 'volunteered' to go then, yet this week she makes it as clear as possible where she wanted to be and he still doesn't listen. So what exactly is Lucinda supposed to do to do something right by the boys? Apart from be quiet and get fired that is.

It clearly is a strategy for the boardroom otherwise there would be no need for these contradictions.

thank you! (normally only rants get a response)

I think she is an empathetic manager and it is as a manager rather than as a sales-person that you would expect SAS to make an appointment. if the person is to work on his property interests, you would expect the person to have a team of specialists in place already, not be charging round Paternoster Square revving engines to give 'city-boys' a hard-on.
thus, Lucinda is potentially a better candidate, but hasn't yet proved it. furthermore, it will depend on the kind of people she would be expected to manage.