Fired for ‘coasting along’: Something unacceptable on the Junior Apprentice AND at Reckitt Benckiser

I’ve been following the fortunes of the Junior Apprentices on the new BBC show featuring Lord Alan Sugar and his search for the brightest business minds in the UK.

Last week’s show saw the end of Hannah Cherry, a 17 year old who scored 100% in her business AS level.
So why was she fired? And would she have what it takes to work in RB?

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Hannah claims to be an inventor, with a fantastic invention which she is keeping top secret.
She used her expertise to lead the task in week 2, a product design task. Unfortunately she lacked all creative steam and was very much dragged along by her team, something that wouldn’t be accepted within Reckitt Benckiser.
Here at RB, we have a driving atmosphere that keeps work moving forward, but no one member of the team can just be dragged along. Hannah managed to survive week 2 thanks to her team’s creativity.
Come week 4, and Hannah is part of a three-man team trying to sell art. Throughout the whole task Hannah took on the role of following her team mates around. Meeting artists, setting up the exhibition, and selling to customers, Hannah managed to coast along through the whole task making almost no little impact.

Coasting along in work is always noticed by your team members, and Hannah paid for it. And when faced with Lord Sugar in the boardroom, he admitted that although she had potential, she lacked ‘practical application’ and so became the fourth candidate to be fired.

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RB’s core values provide us with an atmosphere that encourages teamwork; this is one of the reasons why the company is so successful.
One of our core values is Team Spirit which is defined as: “We drive success by pulling together. As individuals we like to win and are high achievers. We rapidly bring our international strengths together when needed to work as one, united by common principles and attitudes. We treat each other and our differences with a high degree of respect, sharing ideas, failures and successes”.

So are you a team player, a leader or a coaster?
There are places within RB for the first two, and those who can motivate. What we can learn from Hannah is to keep participating and have an impact in the work we do.

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This week’s show looks like an interesting one: The candidates are heading to Amsterdam, to design a new product to break into the UK market. The teams must select which products they think they can sell, then take them to two department stores set up by Lord Sugar, as well as selling to as many retailers as possible.