Lessons Learned

• The Good:

  • Commitment and talent. Lee, using loyalty as his key criterion, chose Lenny (practical and hard-working but has difficulty playing well with others), Roxanne (steady and calm) and Pepe (Pepe who?). The most important decision a manager makes is who he or she hires. Putting the right team together was the biggest decision facing the two finalists for this task. Lee chose candidates who he believed cared about him and wanted him to win. Loyalty (and the trust it represents) is vital to team success.
     

  • Intelligence, a proven success record, and people who get along well together. All of those are important. Sean's selection criteria included love (Tammy), intelligence (Mensa candidate Tarek) and getting things done (Andrea). When hiring or choosing your team, pay close attention to the necessary skills set you will need to be successful. Choose people with a breadth of skills, experience and talent. Don't forget emotional intelligence; how these people get along with others is hugely important for team success and can save you a lot of grief in the long run.
     

  • Compassionate leadership. Kudos to Sean for his display of genuine compassion and empathy for Andrea's health concern (she had to leave the task to find a doctor after coughing up blood!). The best leaders truly care about their people and display genuine empathy and concern for their health and well-being. Empathy -- the ability to sense the feelings, needs and experience of others -- is a fundamental leadership competence. Sean provided us with a great model for this with Andrea during her time of stress and uncertainty. He acknowledged her fears and concerns in a kindhearted way. Empathy and compassion inspire trust, loyalty and often high performance.

    The real challenge for Sean now is how he responds to being one man down on a four-person team while trying to manage a huge event. Yet, one of the true tests of great leadership is the ability to adapt to changing conditions, circumstances and unforeseen challenges. Look for Sean to hear the words, "You're hired" if he can rise to this test and compensate for the loss of Andrea.
     

• The Bad:

  • Loyalty isn't enough. Lee may have a loyal team, but so far they have failed to generate ideas that are out of the box. The executive director of Lee's charity is extremely displeased with his team's lack of creativity, noting a get-together with a "keg of beer" wasn't going to cut it. She raised the bar and challenged Lee and his team to come up with a "big" idea beyond the typical auction. While loyalty is important, a team also needs intelligence, talent and creativity to succeed. We'll see how this team meets the challenge.
     

  • Missed opportunities. "You won't get it if you don't ask." Lee's team missed a golden opportunity by not following through with Pepi's request for Pontiac to match contribution funds. It appeared they got caught up in the excitement of getting a smaller concession and lost sight of the big goal. This was a major opportunity lost.
     

  • Setting priorities. Leaders need to delegate minor tasks and focus on the big picture (communicating and setting the vision, determining strategy and managing key stakeholder relationships). Sean is seen during this task picking out menu items (with his heartthrob Tammy) vs. handling the big sponsor meeting. He should save picking out menu items for their wedding. One of his critical responsibilities (among many) was handling the sponsor of this huge event -- not picking crab cakes vs. shrimp satay for appetizers.
     

• The Ugly: 

  • Leverage an adversary. Lee is faced with a very, very difficult customer (the executive director of the charitable foundation for his event). She is questioning his project leadership and openly voiced her concerns. Lee has thus far responded with, "I have other priorities," and stating, "She is one tough cookie." An option for Lee would be to leverage her experience and find a way to get her on board -- hopefully turning an adversary into an ally. He has yet to ask for her advice about what has worked in the past given her (self-proclaimed) wealth of experience managing this event.

    A typical human response to being uncomfortable is either ignoring it or trying to minimize the cause of the anxiety (this is called avoidance!). While it may sound crazy, walking toward the pain, trying to understand its cause and dealing with it often can yield tremendous insight and results. Many times, the greater the pain the greater the potential for gain -- based on what we saw in this episode, Lee has an opportunity for gain on a colossal scale.

Sizing Up the Finalists

In last week's commentary, it was noted that in this season the finalist who does the best job with his final task is the likely winner. In that respect, Lee and Sean needed to pick strong people for their respective teams. Looking at the choices they made, Sean picked a much stronger team than Lee did. Let's take a closer look:

Last week's commentary gave a list of six people who should have been seriously considered as team members for the final task. All three of the people Sean chose –Andrea, Tarek and Tammy – came from that list of six. None of Lee's choices was on that list.

It was also mentioned that it would be difficult for Lee to avoid picking his friend Lenny to be part of his team, but Lenny really hadn't made much of a positive impact during his time on the show. Sure enough, Lee made a beeline for Lenny as soon as it was time to start choosing team members. Lee relied heavily on Lenny's recommendations for the remaining two choices, Pepi and Roxanne.

Roxanne, at least, had been a winning project manager twice, but those two victories were not because of any particular business or leadership skills that Roxanne had; they were based more on the strengths of other people who were her teammates.

The choice of Pepi is even more suspect. In one of the crueler moments shown in the five seasons of "The Apprentice," Kepcher delivered a major blow after the newly formed teams left the boardroom to begin the final task. She hadn't recognized Pepi, and asked Trump who "the other guy" was on the Gold Rush team. Trump couldn't remember Pepi, either, and asked if he had been the first one fired at the start of the season. In reality, Pepi was fired in week 2, but either way, it was clear that Pepi had not made much of an impression.

Sean's choices made a lot more sense than Lee's, and showed a more mature approach to staffing. Sean commented in the boardroom that his choices were based on the skills required, and that the people he chose possessed those skills. Sure, his choice of Tammy also had a hint of romance in it, because he was hoping to nurture a relationship with Tammy that would go on past the end of the season. At the same time, Tammy's selection is justifiable, because she has a substantial marketing background and because she had enough ability to make it all the way through week 12. So, Sean focused more on ability than on personal relationships, as he should have done.

Lee said that he was most interested in picking people based on loyalty and the degree of commitment they had to him personally. With that in mind, it's understandable that he picked Lenny due to their strong bond. However, it's hard to understand why he would have then picked Pepi and Roxanne - they never even served on the same team with Lee.

The team selections Lee and Sean made were also linked to the starts they made on their assigned tasks. Thanks to Andrea's work with the project scheduling, Synergy had a good idea of the enormity of the challenge at the very start. On the other hand, the Gold Rush team appeared lost and Lee, in particular, looked overwhelmed at the end of last night's episode. He even admitted that he had underestimated all of the things that needed to be done in order to pull off the celebrity hockey game he was supposed to run.

At first glance, Lee's team does not have the business talent that Sean's team has. As a result, if Gold Rush is to have a successful event, Lee is going to have to compensate by taking a more active role in leading the team. He looks rattled right now, and needs to regroup so that he can establish a direction for the effort.

Commentary

The final competition between Lee and Sean is probably the closest one since season 1. At this stage, heading into the finale, Sean has an edge in personnel, even if Andrea doesn't return due to health problems. At this point, the edge in staffing goes to Sean: it's better to work shorthanded with Tarek and Tammy than to be at full strength with Lenny, Pepi and Roxanne.

Regarding the tasks, it's hard to say if one is easier than the other. The fundraising approaches seem similar between the two teams, but there is an important distinction. Gold Rush is planning to auction off a couple of new cars. Synergy mentioned running a raffle using two cars as prizes. The vehicles mentioned most in last night's episode were a Pontiac G6 and a Pontiac Solstice. The Solstice has a base MSRP, excluding options, of just under $20,000. A Pontiac G6 GT coupe has a base MSRP of a little more than $21,000, excluding options.

Before locking in its auction strategy, Gold Rush needs to ask, "What is the likelihood that people will attend the event who are willing to part with enough money - on impulse - to buy a new car?" The minimum starting bid for a car auction must be high enough so that it can raise some significant money for the charity while not cheapening the vehicle's image. The minimum starting bid must also be low enough to give people some incentive to place a bid. Establishing a reasonable starting bid is tricky, but it will determine the ultimate success of the Gold Rush fundraising effort.

For Synergy, the task is a bit more straightforward. Raffles for cars are very common and the idea of a raffle fits well with the venue of the event, Atlantic City, the gambling capital of the Eastern U.S. The biggest variables are the number of tickets sold and the price per ticket. Increasing the odds of winning means holding down the number of tickets sold while increasing the price. If there is an edge in the task, it goes to Sean.

Finally, even though both teams have had problems, Synergy has gotten off to a smoother start than Gold Rush. There is already significant doubt about Lee's ability in the minds of major stakeholders. He will have to overcome these initial negative impressions, which places a greater burden on him. Another edge to Sean.

So, in total, Sean has a leg up at this juncture. Can he sustain his advantage and walk away as "The Apprentice?" We'll see how things turn out next week.