Lessons Learned

• The Good:

  • Loyalty: Lee stood by Lenny in the boardroom, noting he "would do anything for Lenny; he is my friend." Loyalty is not something we often see on this show, and Trump has demonstrated he admires it. Leaders who are trusted by their co-workers inspire loyalty.

  • Give them what they want: Team Synergy won the Boys and Girls Club challenge because of its ability to deliver what the client said it wanted. The team asked the right questions, listened and then put together a plan that delivered.
     

• The Bad:

  • No plan: It was inexcusable that Lenny didn't have a plan for his executive meeting. The dead silence surely stunned the executives, and his language challenges were painful to watch. Even more surprising was his admission to Trump in the boardroom that he wasn't trying to "please the judges."

  • Paralyzing indecisiveness: As project manager for Synergy, Michael couldn't make a decision. He pondered paint samples for hours, resulting in his team having to pull an all-nighter to finish on time. When there are tight timelines, there is no room for indecision or micromanagement. Effective leaders know when they should collaborate and when a decision needs to be made. Trump isn't going to hire a leader who can't make a decision.
     

• The Ugly:  No respect. You can't get respect if you don't give it. Lenny was dismissive and rude to his teammates. Leaders need to model what they want in others.
   

• Plan for strategy sessions: In the Ace Hardware task, Gold Rush got off to a bad start by not adequately preparing for the initial strategy session with the Ace Hardware executives. Thus, there was a significant amount of "dead air" during the meeting, and it was eventually cut short. Synergy spent much more time with the executives and Michael asked many questions in order to nail down the objectives for the renovated space. Thus, Synergy had a much better handle on what the Ace Hardware people wanted to see in the finished room.
  
  The bottom line: Lenny needed to take a leadership role in running the meeting with the executives, but he missed an important opportunity, and the single-purpose space renovated by the Gold Rush team was off the mark. In addition, this was the second week in a row in which Gold Rush blew an initial strategy session with the people who would eventually judge the task - not a smart thing to do. No one likes to attend meetings. Everyone is busy. The smart businessperson will come to meetings with an organized agenda that is to the point.
   

• Thoughtful presentations count: Lenny didn't prepare for his team's presentation of its renovated space, either. His team had worked through the night to get it ready, and deserved a better presentation of its effort than Lenny provided. On the other hand, Michael was ready to lead the Ace Hardware executives around Synergy's space and he did a good job of highlighting its features.
  
  The bottom line: Perhaps someone else on the Gold Rush team should have volunteered to do the presentation, but the bigger problem was that Lenny just didn't give it any thought. These presentations matter, especially in a case like this one in which the eventual judging of the teams was based on qualitative assessment.

Endangered species list

Here are the people on this week's list, given the likelihood that they will incur Trump's wrath in the near future:

Commentary

By the halfway point in previous seasons of the show, it was pretty evident who the front-runners were. For example, Kelly in season 2 and Randal in season 4 had both put some distance between themselves and the other candidates by week 7 or 8.

This time, however, although it is possible to rank order the candidates, the differences between the front-running candidates are not that large. So, even though it would take a lot for Tarek, Tammy or Charmaine to become finalists, there is still a lot of potential for movement among the top six candidates because every one of them has been a winning project manager.

One more thing to keep in mind - we are due for another multiple firing before long. There are ten candidates left, and only seven weeks left in which to narrow the field.