Snarling contestants on The Apprentice epitomise a growing celebrity culture in business where too many players talk a good game but fail to deliver

By the time you read this column the new series will be well underway, but I'm freshly indignant after watching the opening episodes of The Apprentice. If this bunch of dysfunctional, egotistical, mouthy, self-serving, nasty, hypocritical, backstabbing pretenders really are "15 of Britain's brightest business prospects", as Sir Alan Sugar described them, then God help British business.

Product and price are two of the famous "Four Ps" of marketing: the candidates failed miserably on both. The other two are place and promotion. The production team on The Apprentice usually chooses where contestants have to sell, so they don't have to worry about that one. But boy, do they know how to promote themselves, albeit in hyperbole ("I give it 150 per cent") and meaningless clichés ("I've got the rainbow of skills that no one else will have"). This arrogant focus on promotion—or, more accurately, self-promotion—is arguably to blame for many of the ills besetting business generally. It seems to be increasingly stuffed with people who talk a good game but don't deliver.

The problem is, it's the biggest egos that are the most willing to subject themselves to the media. So Joe Public's view of business is inevitably biased, and programmes such as The Apprentice reinforce their prejudices.

But talent isn't always in inverse proportion to media profile. Sir John Harvey-Jones was one of the first successful businessmen to be "famous", courtesy of the 1990s programme Troubleshooter. His mixture of flamboyance, honesty and integrity made him what one commentator called "the acceptable face of capitalism", and he helped stimulate a growing interest in business among the general public, who became increasingly knowledgeable about the link between their own and corporate success.

This public interest encouraged more transparency and accountability in business. But it developed a more insidious trend, too, whereby business decisions are made on the basis of how they will play out in the media rather than whether or not they are in the company's best interests.

The relationship has now reached the point where the public are responding in a simplistic way to a business sector that has become a caricature of itself. The banking industry may not be wholly to blame for the economic and financial plight we are all in, but the violent reactions to the fairy-tale proportions of former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred Goodwin's pension are surely to be expected when we've taught the public that business success is largely based on luck and chutzpah.

There's a consultancy-style, four-box matrix to be drawn based on the dimensions of talent and profile. Harvey-Jones would clearly be a "top right" man (high talent, high profile). It would be invidious of me to place people in the "low-talent, low-profile" and "low-talent, high-profile" boxes, but where might you put Allan Leighton today, or Sir Richard Branson, Michael O'Leary—or, for that matter, Sir Alan Sugar? A knighthood, it seems, provides little guide.

We'd be better off if we resisted the temptation to seek out business heroes and put them on pedestals. Or if we do, let's pick some "top left" examples (high talent, low profile) such as, say, Sir Terry Leahy of Tesco, or Lord Turner, who sorted out pensions and is now getting to grips with the Financial Services Authority, or Vince Cable, the voice of reason in the House of Commons.

We've been wont to "celebritise" business people to spice up what is an inherently boring activity. But what would we give now to put the genie back in the bottle?