Season 6 - The Apprentice - Week 6
Week 6: Priceline.com Sweepstakes
Recap: The teams were given the challenge this week to promote Priceline.com at a shopping mall. Their task was to get customers to sign-up to the Name Your Own Price Sweepstakes. The team that generated the most sign-ups for the Priceline.com sweepstakes wins. The task was relatively easy because the Priceline.com event was held in a shopping mall. On a bad day in most malls you will always have foot traffic, so this came down to selling and execution of a plan. Both teams seem to be struggling relationally. Aimee was the project manager for Kinetic this week. The problem: she was a poor project manager last week
and the team was subjected to her poor leadership skills again this week. As a result Kinetic lost the task. Arrow on the other hand had a decent project manager in Surya, but the team was/is not happy with him. Frank drew a picture of Surya and passed it around to the various team members and they laughed. That was absolutely inappropriate for a person aspiring to be the next Apprentice. Arrow won despite the antics of the Arrow team. Kinetic got 326 people to signup and Arrow got 359. Overall the show was uninteresting to me this week. The poor leadership skills Aimee displayed made it painful to watch her team this week. The fact that Derrick and Jenn did not share the demographic information with Aimee was poor teamwork on their part. And eventually it will catch up with them. I believe the universal principle, that you will reap what you sow. For Aimee, the lack of demographic information on the Hispanic population in that mall was a miss and resulted in her termination from this hiring process. I agree with the termination, but I do not agree with the tactics of the team members.
Lessons You Can Use:
1. Leadership Matters! "How important is your ability to lead others? How do you know if you are a leader?” Here’s a thought… Turn around and see who is following you. If there is no one following you, you are probably not a leader. To represent yourself to an organization as a leader, and yet people don’t follow you will be a painfil situation for you and ultimately to those who have to follow your leadership or lack thereof. In this episode of the Apprentice, Aimee’s inability to lead her team was enough to remove her from the process.
2. Integrity is Critical to your success in business. I don’t care what level you are in an organization. If you are an hourly employee, the president and CEO or anywhere in between, your integrity matters. Today, in America we tolerate so much. There are lots of slippery slopes and gray areas in the world we live in today. People have deceived themselves into believing that it doesn’t matter how they treat others, or how they behave or respond in any given situation. I completely disagree.Our integrity today, in our daily interactions is critical if we are going to be successful. Both teams, all players on both teams, need to reassess how they are playing the game.
Personal Note:
Here’s what I like about games: They are competitive, challenging, and ultimately someone will win and someone will lose. I love that about games. The Apprentice is a game. ABSOLUTELY, it is a game. Fair play matters to me when I play games. Character matters when I play games. Does it matter to everyone? Nope! And it may not matter to you, but I believe that in the game of life, in the game of business, in the game of hiring the best candidate for the job, the rules of engagement still matter. Remember that the next time you are on your way to interview for a job.
On a lower note:
Tim and Nicole’s inability to control themselves took the show to an all time low for me. I think it is great that they are attracted to one another, but it should absolutely be transparent to your business associates and colleagues. Take it home. It is not appropriate for the show, nor would it be appropriate in business. People meet and build relationships, lasting relationships, one night stands and everything in between, but for the purposes of this show and the ultimate prize, they are a distraction and I would fire them both and move on to others who have a higher level of integrity and professionalism.
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1 opinion for Season 6 - The Apprentice - Week 6
Jennifer
Mar 7, 2007 at 12:03 pm
Very interesting take on Tim and Nicole’s relationship. I agree that it may be very distracting, but to fire them both may be a stretch. I’m not sure how it relates to their integrity.
Of course it is certainly not professional, but I don’t think it contains and basis of termination.
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