Lessons Learned

FIT

• Inspire and motivate your team. Effective leaders find ways to acknowledge their team members and stimulate performance. Dawna got off to the right foot with her team by greeting them warmly and telling them she was pleased and proud to have them on her team, moving Amanda to say she was behind Dawna "100 percent." This kind of encouragement motivates people to go the extra mile for their leader. In sharp contrast, Bethenny began with her team on the wrong foot. She allowed herself to be whisked away in a fancy car leaving them to wonder where they were going and what their task was. She failed to welcome them, acknowledge why she had chosen them or establish any kind of expectations or new team norms for their work together. This is the non-example of how to start a new team! Newly formed teams go through a normal stage of "norming." Savvy leaders help teams develop healthy ways of working together during this tentative stage. The next stage of team development is "storming" -- a stage that Bethenny's team now appears to be stuck in, largely because Bethenny did such a poor job of helping her team bond, setting clear expectations or resolving conflict.
   

• Select effective team members. Dawna wisely chose players she believed would be effective, get along and be loyal. Selecting the right people for the team or job is one of the most important management responsibilities. In contrast, Bethenny made team selections that have presented her with conflict and challenge. Hiring good people is difficult. Take the time to carefully choose your employees because nothing matters more to success in business.

UNFIT

• Prepare for job interviews. Bethenny knew she lacked corporate interviewing experience yet there was no evidence that she had prepared for her interviews. As an executive and career coach, I frequently role-play with job seekers to help them prepare for tough interview questions. This kind of preparation lessens the potential for the "deer-in-the-headlights look." Bethenny had that look when asked about Stewart's brand. Hint: "I don't know" is not the answer they are looking for.  Here are some great interview questions to either ask or prepare for from the show:

  • Why do I want to hire you?
  • Where would you put your expertise here?
  • How would you describe our brand?
  • Anything you regret?
  • How do you work with people?
  • Why do you want to work here?
  • What have you learned from your experiences?
     
• Communicate clearly. In interviews, it is critically important that you are able to communicate your points clearly and concisely. This is not the time to invent elaborate analogies. Jim answered one interview question with, "I used my concepts to pull truth out." Huh? Keep it simple.
   
• Sponsor handholding. Neither team has handled their event sponsors well. The Liz Claiborne sponsors were no doubt unimpressed by Amanda's inability to articulate a clear vision for the event nor adequately explain decisions. She added insult to injury calling one of their outfits, "frumpy." Anyone who has ever managed a corporate-sponsored event knows the most important people to keep happy are the sponsors. Without the sponsors, there is no event. You had better work hard to exceed their expectations and keep them in the loop every step of the way.
   
• Leaders can't get sidetracked. Leaders cannot lose site of the big picture and must be the ones providing direction, structure and order for the project. Bethenny spent way too much time trying to track down donations for the charity and far too little time managing the event details and attending to her sponsors. She now has huge labor resources standing around with no direction and angry sponsors who want more than their juice cartons put out on tables. Bethenny should have delegated someone else to chase after donations.
   
• Acknowledge someone with an ax to grind. Still harboring resentment, Carrie directly challenged Bethanny for previously decimating her in the conference room. Bethenny's response was to tell her to get over it. Bethenny needs Carrie on her side to win. She should have acknowledged Carrie's position, adding how grateful she was for her skills on her team. By blowing off Carrie's legitimate complaint, she gave Carrie another reason not to go the extra mile for her.
   

• Try not to be hung over on game day. What gives with these candidates drinking to excess during one of the biggest opportunities of their professional lives? This is the second week in a row that a candidate has engaged in excessive consumption of alcohol when there was work to be done. Why would you sabotage your big opportunity to showcase your professional executive potential in front of millions of people? Howie said the morning of the big event he felt like a "truck ran over my head and back over it six times." This kind of immature behavior isn't going to play well with senior executives. The candidates just don't seem to get it.
   

• Deal quickly with someone who engages in questionable behavior:  Howie is not of much use to the team if he is under the influence of alcohol and distracts everyone else, nor is he going to be able to function effectively if he is suffering from a hangover. Dawna needed to confront him and tell him to cut back on the drinking. If he refused, then she would have been justified in dismissing him from the team.
   

• Don't give away the store: In setting up the teams for the final task, Bethenny didn't challenge any of Dawna's picks and made no effort to negotiate over any of them. She merely chose her team from the people who were left after Dawna made her choices. So, in effect, Bethenny gave Dawna the freedom to pick from the other 14 candidates, but only had 11 from which to choose her own team. Therefore, Bethenny gave Dawna an immediate advantage for no good reason.
  
  The bottom line? Bethenny should have negotiated a more equitable means of choosing up sides. At the very least, they could have flipped a coin for the right to have the first pick and then alternated choices after that.

Handicapping the Survivors: