Lessons Learned

• The Good:

  • Defusing the loose cannon: Andrea, Synergy's project manager, executed a flawless strategy of assigning troublemaker Brent non-critical tasks. She put Brent on garbage detail and research while keeping him away from other team members. That was a smart strategy given Brent's history of infecting his team like a virus.

  • Problems are opportunities: A skeet-shooting activity over the park's lake fell through. The problem? The park ranger tells you it's against park rules to shoot a 12-gauge shotgun over little Jimmy's head while he's fishing with Grandpa. Synergy adapted with a creative alternative -- offering a golf cart race activity. What the team leader did not do was point fingers nor allow the problem to create strife.
     

• The Bad:

  • Giving authority and then taking it away: Theresa gets credit this week for providing us with the "how not to do it" leadership example. She initially gave Tarek responsibility for the creative focus of the event, saying she had faith in him, and then cut him off at the knees, taking back decision-making authority. When he tried to influence her, she interrupted and overrode him. She then failed to support him with needed resources when he wanted to buy AstroTurf for the golf green. That is a common leadership mistake: delegation in theory. They give responsibility away but fail to back their people, and then can't understand why their people are frustrated and ineffective. When you delegate, you also should empower, provide necessary resources and support their decisions. Offer yourself as a resource, but don't micromanage individuals who have proved they are truly capable and committed. It is a losing leadership strategy.

  • Unify, don't divide: An entertainment stage headed for disaster when the necessary power was forgotten. The simple solution was to bring in a generator. But it was accomplished at the expense of team camaraderie and respect. Leader Theresa allowed Bryce to personally attack and belittle workhorse Lenny, in charge of setting up the stage. Not surprisingly, that resulted in a major rift on the team and ultimately affected performance. A leader's responsibility is to unify a team, not divide it. A true leader needs to be capable of understanding the reasons for failure and to adapt.

  • Winners adapt vs. losers point fingers: How do you measure success? Teams need clarity about how success will be measured. Gold Rush did not put together a plan to effectively address Trump's success criteria. Activity does not necessarily equate to achieving desired results.
     

• The Ugly:  Failure to de-escalate emotions: Theresa did not manage her emotions well or the emotions of her teammates Bryce and Lenny. By definition, emotional intelligence is how well we handle our emotions and the emotions of others. Theresa gets a failing grade for forgetting the old adage -- praise in public, chastise in private. Her failure to resolve a minor problem and de-escalate upset teammates resulted in aggression and serious deterioration of team relationships and performance.
   

• Remember the objective: Gold Rush seemed to forget that part of the evaluation was based on demonstrating product knowledge that would be passed on to the dealers. Some of these details are pretty technical, but Gold Rush decided to entrust the delivery of the information to some eye-catching female models. They looked nice, but couldn't describe the features of the Chevy Tahoe. Even worse, Gold Rush stifled any enthusiasm that the dealers had by treating them to a comedian's off-color routine that laid a brontosaurus-sized egg. Unfortunately, it was pretty apparent that no one screened the comedian's material in advance. In addition, a bit of rehearsal would have shown that the models would have problems describing the attributes of the new vehicle.
  
  The bottom line: For any promotional effort, the objectives need to be specified at the outset and they must be kept at the forefront. All of Gold Rush's activities needed to be aimed at maximizing the positive impact on the dealers' evaluations. All they needed to do was ask, "What's the likely impact of these things on the dealers?" They might have even contacted some dealers independently to find out about some best practices from other retreats the dealers might have attended.
   

• Dress up the venue creatively: The park setting for the promotional events was not very attractive. In many places, there was no grass. Synergy did a better job of decorating the area and of incorporating more impressive events, such as rock-climbing, that weren't so dependent on the availability of lush grounds. Synergy even planned a skeet-shooting event, which was nixed due to park regulations. However, the team quickly regrouped and put on a race for golf carts.
  
  The bottom line: In many episodes of "The Apprentice", the teams have to stage events in places that are less than ideal. However, with some creativity and some elbow grease, the settings can be transformed. Creativity is facilitated if there is some sort of overall theme for the creative endeavor. That's where Synergy had a significant edge with its theme of "Nature Refined."
   

• Direct credit — and blame — where due: Theresa tried to make it seem as though Lenny was largely responsible for the team's failure because he had not made arrangements for a generator to supply electric power at the venue. Lenny countered by saying that getting a generator was never his job. Indeed, there was never any indication that Lenny had been asked to get a generator. In fact, Lenny had to do most of the set up for the event on his own.
  
  Thesesa's other whipping boy was Tarek, whom she accused of botching the mini-golf activity. However, it was Theresa who vetoed Tarek's idea to lay artificial turf and create a better putting/chipping surface.
  
  The two most disastrous aspects of Gold Rush's corporate retreat were the responsibility of Charmaine. It was she who brought in the models to do the product information sessions. It was also Charmaine who signed the comedian and paid her $1,700 for a comedy routine that completely alienated the dealers in attendance.
  
  The bottom line: Perhaps Theresa's desperation in the boardroom clouded her thinking, but her failure to bring Charmaine into the firing session was the last straw. A good manager has to be able to objectively assess the reasons for success and failure.

Endangered species list

Michael (Synergy) comes off the list, primarily because his team scored such a convincing victory. The following people are on this week's endangered species list, based upon the likelihood that they will incur Mr. Trump's wrath in the near future:

Charmaine (Gold Rush): She was clearly the weakest link this week, and was very fortunate that Theresa kept her out of the boardroom firing session.

Brent (Synergy): Although he has been treated unfairly by his teammates, he didn't provide much value to his team this week. Note that if his team continues to relegate him to trivial tasks, it will be that much easier for them to say that he didn't contribute anything if the team loses. Brent would be well advised to roll the dice and volunteer to be project manager — he has nothing to lose at this point.

Lenny (Gold Rush): He's tough, and it appears that he has struck a positive chord with Mr. Trump. But he can be abrasive and intolerant, and he may force his teammates into a "love him or hate him" dichotomy.

Commentary

Dan and Lee, two members of the Gold Rush team, announced prior to this week's task that they would have to miss it in order to observe a Jewish holiday. Lenny, who is also Jewish, accused Dan and Lee of making a decision that was "stupid" and of using the religious holiday as an excuse not to work. Given that Lee had volunteered to be the project manager in the previous task, and had led his team to a victory, it's hard to imagine that he was simply looking for a reason to take a break.

As it turned out, Mr. Trump's lieutenant, George Ross, also missed this task due to the Jewish holiday, which begged the question, "If Mr. Trump can allow his people to observe religious holidays, why can't Lenny?"

The truth is that it's not unusual for people from a variety of faiths to be absent from work in order to observe religious holidays. Modern corporations typically have personnel policies that accommodate these situations. Instead of criticizing employees who want to honor their religious traditions, managers should take a lesson from Mr. Trump, accept these occasional absences, and make adjustments to compensate for them.