The Apprentice- I’ve had enough.

The Apprentice started a new season on BBC Wednesday night.  Along with it will come lunch-time conversations and news updates on firings.  I’ve always been a big fan.  I really enjoyed watching it last year.

This year, with all that’s going on in the economy, I don’t want to watch it.

I don’t want to see project managers argue with each other and posture and demonstrate how their leadership skills are better than the others.  I don’t want to watch Alan Sugar on his big boat or the winning teams who get pampered because they won a task. 

Every day, there are more stories in the news about people who are losing their jobs and their homes.  There are people struggling, and the rest of us are wondering how long until it gets us.  Some people are questioning whether our society is living beyond its means.  Others are waiting for the good old days to come back.

I’m all for business, but I don’t want to go back to 5 years ago when everyone was starting their own consulting businesses.  I’ve gotten swept up in this too.

I used to go to networking events for ECademy, which turned out to be giant orgies of people trying to promote themselves.  I was there to talk to people about Overpass, and they were there to talk about their own companies.  Everyone was trying to sell to each other.  I met people who promised they could get my site to the top of Google (without knowing what keywords I wanted or what my business actually is).  I met so many people who decided one day to be a life coach without having any skills to support it (except for the fluff "people person who cares” skills”). 

It has gotten to the point that no one has any skills any more.

There have always been managers and executors.  In the Army, the enlisted men were managers and the officers were delegators.  Officers had a skill of telling people to do things they couldn’t do themselves.  Officers were pampered as strategic thinkers.  Enlisted men couldn’t stand them.  40 year-old First Sergeants would have to salute 20 year-old lieutenants.  It never seemed right.

If you visit a garage, it is easy to see the division between skill and management.  Managers are customer-facing and tell the others what to do, but they may not be able to do it themselves.  They may have been very good at fixing cars one day a long time ago, but have fallen out of practice.  If there are lay-offs, the manager will probably stay.  The skilled labour will go.

I see this a lot in my current profession.  At various jobs, I meet project managers or business analysts who don’t understand what I do.  They consider me their resource.  I can’t tell you how many times a project manager has said, “I started out as a programmer, so . . . “ and tell me about how they coded VB4 back in 95 but couldn’t do it today.  I had one PM tell me, “I could write that sql, but I’m a project manager now, so that would be taking a step back for me.”  How could you not be insulted by that?  Since when did Project Manager become the next promotion step for developer?  I’ve turned down Business Analyst opportunities before. 

Everyone wants to be a manager.  Everyone wants to be a consultant.  Everyone wants to call themselves a leader.  We are running out of people who can”do”.  We are losing those who can execute.

Tom Peters, one of my favourite management gurus, has a great quotes “You don’t promote your most talented violinist to conductor”.  The Peter Principle (different Peter here) states that, “You are promoted to your level of incompetency.” 

From where I sit, however cynical it may be, I see the massive layoffs as a big hit to our ability to execute.  While the mass skilled staff who don’t sit at board room tables or in meetings are being layed off, the managers are trying to make the case for why they should stay.  We don’t need more managers, we need more do-ers.

This is why I can’t stomach the Apprentice this year.  I’m not up for it.  Too many people are losing everything, and I don’t want to see a bunch of un-skilled managers (I don’t think management is a skill) argue with each other so they can get their dream job. 

I guess this is MY populist rant.

Thursday, I went to lunch with a bunch of friends where conversation turned to the Apprentice.  I sat quietly.  Apparently, so-and-so deserved it and so-and-so was very rude.  I can’t be bothered.

Maybe next year.