Be honorable. When you twist projects into political weapons, everybody loses - especially you. When Clay revealed that his real goal this week was to destroy his former teammates at Capital Edge ("It sure will suck to be them when they lose..."), he stopped working toward his team's success.
 As I observed just before firing Clay, his negativism only dragged down his current teammates, Rebecca and Randal, both stellar leaders in the past.
 

Don't get bitter, get better. Your idea got shot down? Tough. What other people want must then become what you want. The team comes first, or you lose. When Clay's idea for Jidé's song got shot down by the rest of his team, he withdrew and belittled his other teammates' ideas. At one low point, he pouted and played "air violin" to ridicule Rebecca when she explained her vision of what their song should be.
 

Your reputation is your greatest asset. Cultivate it and protect it. Your reputation can save you when nothing else can. Randal's colossal mistake - getting the radio station's name wrong on a poster he took into his team's presentation - should have destroyed him. But his excellent record, coupled with his ethical courage to take personal blame for the gaffe, let him live to see another episode.
 

Be ready to go to the mat. When your team is about to get rolled over by "experts," fight hard what you know is right. Don't accept that "Don't worry your pretty head about this" attitude, because it will destroy you. In the recording studio as they were laying down Levi's track, Felisha declared "this is too jazzy" and nearly pulled the plug on the session. She saw that a jazz-like approach to Levi's song was dead wrong for XM Café. She confronted the studio musicians and recording engineer until they got it right.  Felisha is a hero.
 

Make the offering fit the target market. XM Radio has 67 music channels - each one tailored to the needs of a specific audience. The Excel team members made the mistake of thinking it was their job to "push the envelope" when it came to the format used on the XM Café channel. What they didn't understand is that the people who listen to the XM Café are looking for a certain blend of music. If the music they hear doesn't fit with their expectations, they will switch channels.

The bottom line: It was more important for Excel to fit the artist and song to the format, instead of trying to force something on the audience that was not in line with the format.
 

Pay attention to details. Randal was responsible for designing the promotional poster for the new singer and song, but he labeled the poster with the wrong XM channel number.

The bottom line: Randal's miscue was small, but the XM executives noticed it immediately. If the poster had gone into mass production, it could have been disastrous. Attention to detail is absolutely essential in advertising.