And then there were four. Harvard MBA Kwame, copier salesman Nick, real estate agent Amy, and cigar store entrepreneur Bill. Out of 215,000 people who applied, these four made the cut, survived the Board Room and rose to the top of the Trump heap. They endured selling lemonade in Manhattan, running a restaurant, renting apartments, running a pedicab business, and another bundle of other intramural sports. This week, the TV-reality became an audience-reality when each candidate was faced with a series of interviews conducted by the current Trump executive team. Ouch!
Episode Fourteen Update
And, the double Trump-A-Dump goes to…Nick and Amy. The Donad’s six most trusted advisors pegged the romantic couple as both lacking the depth, intellectual capacity, experience, and ability to hold a team’s respect. Trump, a great leader himself, proved that he respects and listens to his advisors by acting on their recommendations.
Survivors Kwame and Bill shared positive ratings by being rated as solid, likeable, easy to relate to, and while they both display their energy differently, each is energetic. While the losers were painted as short on intellect, too slick, and unknowable with Amy receiving the additional descriptor of a “stepford wife.” In the Board Room, Trump also showed his disappointment when Amy fingered her prospective paramour Nick as the one who should be fired first. Double ouch!
Bill and Kwame had to face off in the ultimate task of being the boss of their own enterprise. Bill was assigned to be boss of the Chrysler Trump Golf Tournament. Kwame was responsible for the Jessica Simpson rock concert at the Trump Taj Mahal. Trump gave them a tast of the good, the bad and the ugly. The good was when they were being driven all day in a chauffered limousine. The bad was having to hire and manage their own team and choosing from “fired” Apprentice candidates. And, the ugly, was the all too familiar stance of Omarosa not wanting to mix business with pleasure and refused to act on an assignment because it interrupted her dinner. As a result, she lost touch with the celebrity and lied to cover up her management negligence. Kwame admitted that “if this were the real world, I never would have hired Omarosa” but neglected to use his current power to straighten things out. Bill’s team also had challenges but nothing as glaring. We will find out how the contest plays out in next week’s episode.
Episode Fourteen: Lessons Learned
Lesson One.
The entire $7 billion recruiting industry has developed because they know how to help employers find good people. From head-hunters to resume banks to applicant tracking software to job fairs, background checking systems to coursework, employers will do virtually anything to find the right people. Even Trump is outsourcing the recruitment of his next company President through this reality TV show. Yet all these expensive tools have their flaws. Advice: If you want to pick talent, nothing is better than an old-fashioned interview. Trump’s people know what he wants, and know what it takes to lead. One interview is worth dozens of other games in picking people.
Lesson Two.
In their interviews, the one common attribute that helped both Kwame and Bill rise to the top and Amy and Nick fall to the bottom was respect. Kwame and Bill were rated as likeable and worthy of respect. For lack of top-notch leadership based on respect, Nick and Amy were deemed unworthy. Advice: Being the boss is all about respect of your teammates. Trump has his team’s respect. And he shows his respect to his team by following their advice to fire those who cannot gain the respect of others.
Lesson Three.
Throughout the The Apprentice, we have seen how a weak team player can sabotage a team’s performance. Omarosa’s attitude caused her team to stumble and perhaps fail (we’ll find out). Picking the right people for your team is a boss’s most important choice. And, if it is too late to change the people, change the task. Advice: No one person can do it all and picking a bad team can lead to the bosses failure. Know you’re the strengths and weaknesses of your people and maintain your power from beginning to end.
Interviews are the best people-picking practice, respect is coin of the boss’s realm, and building the right team makes all the difference. Quite a set of lessons. Only one more episode of The Apprentice left—and it is two hours long. Stay tuned.
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