Lessons Learned

• The Good:

  • Stand your ground professionally: Andrea tried to assume leadership by circumventing Roxanne's authority and directing the actors to do something differently than Roxanne had told them to do. Despite being challenged by Andrea, Roxanne refused to let her take over. In contrast to many of her competitors this season, Roxanne was able to stand her ground when challenged without hurling personal insults or getting highly reactive. As the project manager (and team leader), she wisely understood the final design for the commercial was her call and communicated this decision as hers without being condescending or irate.

  • Trump's lesson for the week was "listen to your people." This is essential: if you have hired smart people, listen to them. As the leader, it's your responsibility to ask your team the right questions and make the time to listen -- then make the hard decisions managers need to make.
     

• The Bad:

  • Utilize your resources wisely: When time is critical, all resources on a team are usually needed. Dan should have taken the time to assess and match his resources with appropriate tasks and delegate accordingly. Instead, he chose to run the whole show himself -- resulting in four of his team members literally standing around with nothing to do while he ran around like a crazy man. One of his team members (Leslie) had a broadcast journalism major yet he didn't use her. My guess: Had he put her in charge of the commercial shoot, he wouldn't have ended up with a silent, and losing, commercial.

  • Group think: This is what happens when a team doesn't stop to ask if the idea it is charging off with is truly the best one. This is exactly what we witnessed on this episode. Someone comes up with an idea, another person says it is a good one and suddenly everyone is off and running with it. Gold Rush never stopped to ask if it was wise to use a shipwrecked concept in a cruise ship commercial. At the very least, they should have stopped to consider the cons.

  • Don't shoot the idea person: Trump repeatedly targets the person with the idea for firing; this is a bad example. This kind of leader behavior creates a culture in which people will be reticent or fearful of offering creative ideas. Leaders need to create an environment that welcomes all ideas to the table -- particularly during a brainstorming session. It's then up to the leader, or the entire team if it is using consensus, to weigh the pros and cons and decide which idea to implement.

  • Keep it simple: Creating an effective TV commercial is no easy task. Commercials have to grab people's attention and sell a concept simply and clearly in seconds. I knew Gold Rush was in trouble with its ad when Tarek (the Mensa member) said the ad concept was "difficult to explain." If someone on your team is judging the team's ad idea as difficult to convey or explain, consider this a red flag.
     

• The Ugly:  We look to our leaders to provide order and assurance in times of distress, and remain cool under fire. In leadership, order is about familiarizing people to their roles, establishing and maintaining healthy team norms and providing enough structure, direction and protection to alleviate the internal conflict and stress of your team; Dan failed miserably at that task. Yes, he was under the gun for time, but he should have taken the time to set up some structure and direction for his team. Instead he was manic and frazzled, barking out orders rapid fire to the point that one candidate was concerned he would have a heart attack. Nothing spreads anxiety and team dysfunction faster than a leader who is running around like a chicken with its head cut off. As a leader, you must recognize when you are overly stressed, take a timeout and get yourself together before you interact with your team.
   

• Take full advantage of TV: The Gold Rush ad featured visual images of the cruise ship accompanied by text that appeared at the bottom of the screen, but there was no corresponding audio voiceover. Thus, the commercial appeared to be similar to a slide show in which the individual scenes were not on the screen long enough for the viewer to process. The responsibility for the total reliance on text without narration was shared by Tarek and Dan.
  
  The bottom line: Television is a visual medium, but it also provides the opportunity for verbal explanation or embellishment of what is on the screen. Synergy's narration wasn't great, but at least it was there. The failure of Gold Rush to incorporate narration was a key factor in causing the commercial to fall flat
   

• R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Even though Synergy won this week's task, Roxanne was not a strong leader of her team, and let Andrea dominate the development of the commercial. It should be noted that in the previous week's task, Andrea played a major role in the design of Synergy's failed billboard for Post Grape Nuts Trail Mix cereal, so her track record in developing advertising was a bit suspect. As Roxanne realized that she was losing control of her team, she had a meeting, during which she complained about Andrea. Roxanne also accused her team of not showing her the necessary respect as project manager.
  
  The bottom line: "Respect" has become one of the most abused terms in the English language. It's often the case that people who complain about others not showing them the proper amount of respect are people who haven't earned the respect in the first place. Make no mistake about it - respect is not a birthright. Respect must be earned through performance. That's especially true in situations like "The Apprentice," in which the candidates are basically peers and the project manager position is temporary.

Endangered species list

All three targets on last week's list come off this week's list. Bryce (Gold Rush) had a quiet week and was a minor player in this week's task. Sean and Tammy (Synergy) were on the winning team. This week's list features the reappearance of Tarek and Lenny, based upon the likelihood that they will incur Trump's wrath in the near future:

Tarek (Gold Rush): He's wearing out his welcome in the boardroom, and almost got his pink slip this week. Again, Trump recalled the gap between Tarek's high intelligence and his poor performance.

Lenny (Gold Rush): He came up with the idea for the losing TV commercial, and was lucky that Dan didn't bring him into the firing session. On the plus side, Lenny argued in favor of including voice narration in the commercial, only to be overruled by Tarek and Dan. What's interesting about Lenny is that unlike the other candidates, he gives the impression that it won't bother him very much if he gets fired.

Commentary

Trump made his regular weekly appearance on Don Imus' nationally syndicated morning radio show, and plugged this "Apprentice" episode. Trump mentioned that he had been out of town and had just returned moments before speaking with Imus. When Imus asked what task would be featured in that night's episode, Trump responded that (a) he couldn't remember; and (b) it was irrelevant anyway.

Perhaps Trump can be forgiven for not recalling the topic of the upcoming episode, in light of his hectic travel schedule. Then again, what if he had assigned the "Apprentice" candidates the job of taking his place on the Imus show? If a candidate had not been able to remember the upcoming task, what would Trump's reaction have been in the subsequent boardroom? After all, the Imus show attracts several million listeners every day. It would seem that not being able to provide details about the show would squander a promotional opportunity.

Trump's point that the tasks are irrelevant reflects his view that most viewers are much more interested in watching the boardroom scenes than they are in watching the performance of the assigned tasks. That's understandable, but the tasks aren't irrelevant. The tasks provide the setup for the boardroom, and they provide a chance for learning about business that may not be immediately obvious because the show is promoted as entertainment. Having made several presentations about the lessons learned from the show, a common reaction from businesspeople is "I never thought of the show in that way," or "Maybe I should start watching so I can learn something." That learning opportunity is the main reason why the show is a valuable learning tool for future business leaders.