• Keep it simple, stupid! If you have very little time to prepare for a high-stakes event, stick with topics that you know inside and out. Even if your topic lacks pizzazz, your mastery of it gives you a huge advantage. When they picked their course topics, Randal and his team opted for a subject they knew intimately, "Stand Out!" In contrast, Adam and Capital Edge picked a flashier topic that took them into unfamiliar territory.
   

• Step down. If another member of your team brings more enthusiasm and smarts to a topic, turn over the reins. You'll be doing your team and yourself a big favor. When Adam said that the "Sex in the Workplace" topic made him personally uncomfortable, he could have delegated his role to another team member. But he taught the class anyway, leading his team to a big loss.
   

• Always have a plan. Without an underlying structure to fall back on when you're before the public, you're dead. When the teams taught their classes, Excel used a compelling structure they had developed for the class: an intro by Randal, a questionnaire, a lecture by team members, and then break-out sessions in which participants did well-planned exercises with other participants. In contrast, Capital Edge winged it. First Adam rambled on about being "a nice Jewish boy." Then Clay offered overly long observations about what it is like to be gay on the job. After those misfires, Alla could only look ridiculous when she tried to discuss the serious side of sex at work.
   

• It's not personal, it's business. There is no place in business for discrimination, but the scrap between Adam and Clay had a lot more to do with their thin skins than with success or failure. Going into the boardroom for the final reckoning, Adam and Clay quarreled over personal issues. Adam accused Clay of calling him a "tight-assed Jew" in front of the class. Clay denied it. (Clay had actually called Adam a "shy, tight Jewish boy," which is not a lot better.) From his side of the fight, Clay became furious when his sexual orientation was discussed in the boardroom even though he had talked about it openly in front of the Learning Annex audience. Although Adam believed that Clay was not anti-Semitic, Clay's faux pas probably lowered the team' ratings from the students.
  
  The bottom line: The best advice is to leave references to religion, ethnic background, and gender out of public presentations, even when they are self-deprecating. There are simply too many opportunities for people to be offended by these types of comments, even if they are not meant to be derogatory.
   

• Nothing is hidden. Apparently Markus thought he could fool Mr. Trump and his advisors, but he was wrong. Even though they had only glimpsed him in action with his team, his faults were glaring. In business these days, it's pretty hard to fool people. When Markus was unable to explain his team's loss, he showed his habitual inability to organize his thoughts. George noted his inability to focus and Carolyn commented on his "cover your ass" tactic of contributing nothing and then blaming his teammates after losses. 
   

• Learn to communicate: Listening to Markus talk makes one recall the famous line from the classic movie, "Cool Hand Luke," starring Paul Newman: "What we have here is failure to communicate." This failure on Markus' part caused him more problems than his relatively poor performance on several tasks. Trump simply concluded that he just didn't have time to listen to Markus babble on continuously.
  
  The bottom line: Communication skills are absolutely essential in today's business environment. People who can't speak and write are at a tremendous disadvantage. The more practice aspiring business leaders can get in expressing themselves clearly, the better off they will be.

The Handicapping the Survivors

For the remainder of the season, instead of the endangered species list, the surviving candidates will be ranked in order of the probability that they will eventually be chosen as Trump's apprentice.

• Randal (Excel): At this point in the season, the competition appears to be his to lose. He has two victories as project manager, and no one else can make that claim. He also still seems to be well-liked and respected by the candidates on both teams.
   

• Rebecca (Excel): She has several marks against her, including the fact that she has been a losing project manager. She also suffered because of some misplaced loyalty to Toral, a terrible candidate who was fired a few weeks ago. However, she deserves some credit for hanging in there after breaking her ankle in a freak accident early in the season. She's also very feisty and has no problem going toe-to-toe with anyone - including Trump - in the boardroom.
   

• Marshawn (Excel): She is a solid performer, but quiet - possibly too quiet to be the ultimate winner.
   

• Brian (Excel): He has been a winning project manager, but it's hard to identify any characteristic that really distinguishes him from the rest of the group.
   

• Felisha (Capital Edge): She was the losing project manager in the disastrous Dairy Queen promotional task a few weeks ago. Felisha also carries a big albatross in that Kristi, this season's most annoying candidate, said she hoped Felisha would win this season's competition.
   

• Alla (Capital Edge): She was last week's winning project manager, but is very coarse and is prone to liberally sprinkle her language with profanity. Look for her to draw fire from Trump's colleague Carolyn Kepcher.
   

• Adam (Capital Edge): As Trump said in this week's episode, Adam seems to be very soft. He will have a tough time defending himself one-on-one against the top-ranked candidates.
   

• Clay (Capital Edge): He's actually been a winning project manager, but even then, he alienated people because of his "my way or the highway" style. In recent weeks, he has performed poorly. Trump could have easily fired him and Markus this week.