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In the boardroom
The
next day, the men returned to face their firing.
Donald asked the group if they felt it was
Sam's fault that they failed the negotiation task.
Kwame spoke-up first and said, "Yes." He felt that the golf club and the
leg wax should have been the easiest to negotiate down.
Kwame also reiterated that it was
Sam's fault that they aborted their Chinatown mission and went chasing
for gold that wasn't easily negotiated.
When
asked if he thought
Sam was a leader,
Nick replied that while
Sam possessed leadership qualities he's not sure he'd have made the same
decisions.
Bowie didn't agree and flatly said, "No." In his defense,
Sam felt that he didn't get the full respect of his team, which hindered
his leadership abilities. Next,
Sam chose
Kwame and
Bowie to
face
the firing with him.
Nick,
Bill and
Troy were sent back up to the suite. George and Carolyn both told
Donald that
Sam was a distracting factor and that it would be interesting to see how
the men performed without him. When the guys reentered the boardroom,
Donald asked them all to defend themselves. Once again,
Sam tried to say it was lack of team respect that led to team failure;
however,
Donald interrupted to ask "Isn't it over,
Sam?" And then
Donald told
Sam the two words nobody wants to hear, "You're fired."
Sam was stunned into silence and sulked out of the boardroom. |
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Commentary
-
Sex is Not a
Substitute.
-
Trump is the master of the art of negotiation, but
you can be sure that his toolkit does not include the virtual pole
dance that Heidi and Katrina performed to win a discount on a gold
bar in this episode. Successful though it was, their
performance was better suited to a bachelor party than to a place of
business. The same could be said for Amy's ploy to win a break on
ten pounds of squid: "Kristi, would you show him your stomach?"
These were the sorts of skills that Carolyn referred to when she
advised "Things like that aren't going to get you the job here."
-
Finish What You
Start.
-
"My game plan really was to treat this
like a football game," said project manager Sam at the start of this
episode. From the Versacorp ranks he named a cheerleader,
kicker, quarterback, and coach, ordered them onto the playing field,
then went upstairs to start calling plays. It soon became
clear that Sam was no business-world Vince Lombardi. When Nick
gave him the incorrect information that gold is best purchased early
in the day, Sam ordered his team to drop everything and go buy
bullion. Unfortunately, that command came with Bill, Kwame,
and Bowie poised to buy several items from the team's shopping list
at rock-bottom prices in Chinatown. An entire morning's work
was lost and the team wound up paying top dollar for those same
items as time ran out, and Protege consequently kicked Versacorps
through the uprights for the third straight task.
Lessons Learned
Step Up
"Necessity is the mother of taking chances." - Mark Twain
- Know that failure comes with the territory.
- Pick the right risks--the ones that present a good possibility of
a high payoff, have manageable downsides, take advantage of your
demonstrated strengths and resources, and neutralize your competition.
- Take responsibility for your failure.
- Remember that companies need intelligent, accountable
risk-takers.
- Don't pass on blame to others--it just makes you look bad.
- Risk is not a dirty word, don't be afraid to use it.
- Take chances because they are an essential prerequisite for
success.
Gold Stars:
***
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| The Report Card |
Protege:
- Effort --
- Performance --
- Creativity --
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Versacorp:
- Effort --
- Performance --
- Creativity --
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