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Brewdog boss regrets ‘disaster’ TV appearance
The co-founder of craft beer brand Brewdog, James Watt, has admitted his recent appearance on BBC show Who’s the Boss was a “disaster”.
Brewdog founders James Watt (right) and Martin Dickie (Photo: Brewdog)
Some viewers have even pledged to never buy Brewdog products again after Watt was accused of hijacking the show.
Who’s the Boss sees British companies opening up the task of senior recruitment to their entire workforce rather than just management-level staff.
The final episode of the three-part series, which aired last week and was repeated on Sunday evening (13 March), saw craft brewer Brewdog take part in the novel process to hire a new area manager.
Three candidates were independently selected by recruitment experts for their suitability to the role. They were then put through a series of challenges that were secretly assessed by sub-senior Brewdog staff.
However, towards the end of the process, Watt intervened and changed the job role entirely because he didn’t think any of the three candidates were suitable for the area manager post.
After Watt’s intervention, two of the three candidates dropped out of the contest, meaning staff were left without a vote as there could be only one winner. The winner later decided he didn’t want the new job.
Viewers expressed their anger at the apparent hijacking of the show by the Brewdog boss on social media.
Gareth Snow said: “Because of the arrogance of the boss at Brewdog I would genuinely consider a different beer in the future if I had the choice”.
Twitter user @ThatRunningGurl said: “Wow. Brewdog owner is the definition of arrogance. What a d1ck.”
Johanna Anderson said: “Brewdog are totally putting me off buying anything from them. Too cool for school, eh?”
Watt himself admitted that the programme was “a bit of a disaster”.
“Being completely uncompromising when it comes to recruiting is great for a business. But bad for TV”, he said.
James conducted himself with dignity throughout & has nothing to regret regarding the ineptitude of recruitment consultants, combined with a TV crew seeking to promote a bonkers way of recruiting personnel, yes bring them on for experience within the work place, despite the tasks set them the candidates had no real exposure to the role they were possibly being hired for.
The shame of the programme is on its makers not James.
Would be nice to have a typeface that one could see when composing a reply!
I also watched this programme and whilst I felt that James probably didn’t do himself any favours (hence the backlash since!) I nevertheless found it a very interesting programme and it introduced me to Brew Dog which I had never heard of before – sorry guys! You may be interested to know that I am going to use the programme for my organisational culture lecture with my students at University – I particularly liked the piece about trying to convey the culture through artefacts!! Don’t beat yourself up about it James -you have principles and you should be commended for them, even if it is at the expense of a TV programme who need you to ‘toe the line’. Be individual and be creative!
To be fair to James he did come across in the programme as arrogant and a control freak, but you cannot take away from him what he has achieved good on him, quite like the bloke long may he be successful, at least he’s sending out a positive signal to all the youngsters out there that with hard work you can be successful. Be Lucky…
What a load of rubbish this programme was. I heard all the criticism and watched it on Sunday and it was clear, within 30 seconds that none of the candidates were suitable. James Watts stepped in because none of them would have got the job, it was an attempt to salvage the programme with a job spec change. I hope not a penny was paid to the recruitment consultants, job being Area Manager for brewery pub chain, none had any a) brewery experience, b) floor experience in a pub, c) passion for beer (BrewDogs no. 1 requirement) and none understood the craft beer market. If you go for a job in a brewery, no matter what position, how can you be unprepared for the question “Whats your favourite beer?”. Did these people even know what job they were going for? Daft.
“James was a control freak” – I’d expect nothing less from a company owner, I consider this a must-have trait to be successful. I think he did all he could to save the programme and was very restrained.
I agree with Tom, the bad guys here are the recruitment consultants. It’s such a shady industry which regularly performs badly and almost always wastes huge amounts of time. In my view the recruitment consultants are entirely to blame for the farce this good idea turned out to be.
Cant really blame the guy for being protective of a business he has nurtured from small beginnings. It is his baby. Personally, I admired the guy for making a conscious decision that he knew would be to the detriment of his image,but ultimately,best for the business.
Ahem: “How would you empty a 747 full of jelly beans?”
How is that a relevant, decent, respectful, insightful or anything-other-than-a-joke interview question??
It was pretty naive of James Watt to engage in a collaborative process when he is clearly not collaborative. The real disaster here (the PR stuff will blow over) is the impact on his workforce, or more specifically, upon his relationship with them. If the candidates were that unsuitable then a manager with better people skills would have probably achieved the same outcome through seeking the input of the employees, who after all seemed to be showing some reservations themselves. James clearly has talents but he dropped the ball here.
I admired the James for being gutsy and honest. He’s the boss, the book stops with him.
After undergoing a recent recruitment around the same time in my own glass printing business, I have first hand experience of recruitment agencies just putting forward anyone and not listening to your brief.
Who ever shortlisted the 3 candidates to appear on the program and be put forward was wrong and solely to blame, James should have been involved in this shortlist decision, and the staff the final decision.