Last night I watched The Apprentice for the first time. It was the episode where the contestants had to come up with a toy and the girls had to choose between two products. One of them had good feedback from the focus group, and team were really behind it. Apart from the leader. She favoured the other option and chose that, against all advice. Ultimately she had to leave the show for showing poor leadership and bad judgement by ignoring advice. Strangely, this pig-headedness can sometimes be a good thing. There must have been many occasions when people would have given up on a great business idea (or novel) if they had listened to others. Sadly, this was not one of those times.

Paula Gardner is the author of Get Noticed: Boost your small business profile in 30 days or less.