The first and the pilot season of the intern show has come to an end with Afolabi Adetola becoming the intern. A deep reflection about the show and the outcomes for their various tasks has actually taught me some lessons which I am always willing to share with my ever-loyal readers. I may not have preferred Afolabi as the winner of the intern but I am glad the scripture was fulfilled. Let me start by applauding the organizers of the intern and their sole sponsor Bank PHB for organizing such a show; a show of this magnitude breathes a new wave into the youths of Nigeria and reframes their mindset from models engaged in 419, drop-outs that become football genius, musicians that attract fame and actors that act in our burgeoning Nollywood to a more educated and balanced business guru. Every youth would want to be the intern; every youth especially the unemployed graduates (who are close to my heart) would want to give a shot and thus would be forced to go through the road less traveled of studying.
The Intern show is almost a replica or a rendition of The Apprentice except with some minor alteration which was very evident in the show from the way the boss expresses himself to the execution of the task. I am a strong fan of Donald Trump’ Apprentice and I have collected all the DVD’s from season 1 to 5 to my classic Library so when the Intern Show came on, I was quite interested. Though the quality of filming and lessons gained are quite inferior to Trump’s Apprentice, the originality and structure was superb. I would also love to commend Tade Ogidan for the excellent directing and trying to make something out of the show (an excellent person would always produce excellence in all his/her undertaking). I watched the show from beginning to the end without missing any show; PHCN or not, I always make provision to watch the show; I was a die hard fan.
There were a lot of lessons I learnt from the show like fully comprehending a task before going through it, always make provision for crisis management, the power of small talk and gisting with fellow colleague (this was instrumental to Afolabi winning instead of Ayo) and the need for adequate research before going into business. There was also a vital question asked on the show that was very relevant to Nigerian youth today: If you are interested in going for a Water Business that would break even in a year and experts in Oil Business convinces you that you would break even in Oil business in three month, would you still venture into the Water Business? This was a wonderful question that none of the Interns in the show could give a good answer to. However, there are some reservations I have towards the show which I believe should be considered in their next edition.
- Lack of Consistency in Judgment: The show always tries to brand itself as being fair in its judgment but this is not so. The amount of inconsistency in their judgment always baffles me especially on who wins what task. There are times when the Es-Teem Team (the ladies) wins, that the MODE team (the guys) was declared the winner and vice versa.
- Lack of Focus: There are no criteria of what the Intern stood for. When I see the Intern, what should I associate with him/her? Is ir Leadership? Is it entrepreneurship or creative prowess? This lack of definition of who the intern should be lacks vision hence the person that comes up as the intern is predicated on subjective judgment. This simply means I can not associate the intern to any attribute (anything goes). For Trump’s Apprentice, the apprentice MUST have a strong leadership skill; this is (if not the only skill) that Trump emphasizes on from giving a lot responsibilities to the Project Manager and seeing how many times someone vied to be a project manager and how many times the person wins. This value is very clear through-out the show but for the intern despite the fact the Ayo was the team leader with the highest win, it did not matter; it was the last task that had a lot of wrong intonation to it (having an independent team with no reason to perform the task passionately) that prevails who the winner is.
- Â Â Rule Changes: There is actually no consistency in their rules; today no phones, tomorrow you can use your phones. Today the team becomes one team for a task; tomorrow the team becomes MODE and ES-TEEM. Imagine the last task with an absurd rule that ushered Afolabi to win; an independent team to donate sales proceeds to anybody they like; this rule breathes mediocrity and creates unrealistic circumstances. This can never happen in business. The issue with all this is that there is no strategy to winning, you are definitely not sure (if I am an intern) what I need to do to win. Since the Intern Show tries to proclaim good business practice; one of the practices of any industry is consistent and accurate regulation for thought-out strategic analysis and tactics.
- No rewards: When a team wins a task, they should be rewarded not just sent back to the house; this gives a feeling of discouragement to the interns who have worked all day and night to fulfill a task only to go back for a rest. A no-reward system is not a good business practice and the Intern Show should review this huge mistake that palpitated through out the show. Imagine the only reason why an employee goes to work is to earn wages/salary; this is the general practice in most of the Nigerian companies and it’s quite bizarre that the Intern Show that strive to proclaim good business practice missed this point.
- Having Exclusive Sponsorship: This is why the earlier tasks were very dull, dry and uninteresting. The earlier-task lacked substance. The task started getting interesting when they were asked to create a brand out of a generic product called water. If only the intern show could integrate sponsors like Coca-Cola to their tasks, they would create a business density were every body wins: companies would be able to promote their products, the intern show would make more money, one of the sponsors would reward the interns that win a task and the audience would learn more from the show. This value-creation is what the intern show should strive for in their next edition instead of running with one exclusive sponsor.
- Weak Selection Board: How can one explain the fact that the two (not one) of the people who were not even selected as one of the first 10 candidates came first and second. This shows that Selection Board did not get the true talent that would have provided excellent participation in the show. If Ayo and Afolabi were not in the show; how would the show have been? I believe the selection board be reviewed for selecting the first 10.
I can imagine the faces of everyone when Afolabi won; it was quite unpredictable which was good anyway but it was not consistent with who have sowed better. Apart form the issues surrounding the Intern show and the fact that I was a friend of Ayo Oguntubi and I wanted him to win; I am glad that Afolabi (who is also a friend) won because it aligned with the scripture that says the last shall be the first and the stone rejected shall be the chief of the cornerstone. We in the POeT Team align ourselves with God’s word that says every leader is from God and this day God has given Afolabi the throne and the POeT Team respects it and wish Afolabi the best as he goes for his MBA, enjoys his new car and makes the best with the 2.250 million in his hand. May God grant you (Afolabi) the wisdom to maximize your winnings…………
Oceans of Love,
Dipo Tepede
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