The Apprentice Season Premier: "Toying With Disaster"

www.MarkTAW.com/reviews/TheApprenticeS2E1a.html (printable version)

The Apprentice Season Premier: "Toying With Disaster"
The episode that proves that The Apprentice is child's play. ;-)

This was like a Seinfeld episode without the comedy - nothing actually happened. Nobody was tasked with doing anything, nobody had to produce results. All they had to do was come up with ideas, and make a decision. If you watched season 1, this episode will probably remind you of the ad campaign episode, which was the second episode of the first season. Each team has to come up with an idea, a concept, and like the first season, they had seasoned veterans at their disposal - the ad agency in the first season, and Mattel in this season.

The Rules

I think making the winning project manager exempt from the next week's firing rounds is a brilliant change to the rules. People perform one way when they're under pressure to perform - perform or be fired, but act a completely different way when there is no pressure.

This way, The Donald gets to see the winning project manager and how they perform on a team when there's no pressure. It's really a great way to highlight someone who had one success, and see how they carry the ball in a different situation. And, of course, there will be plenty of opportunity to see how they work on a team when their neck is on the line.

A lot is being made about how important it is to step forward early on. How this will show Donald that you have courage or something, but over the course of 15 television weeks, I really don't see how first impressions are that important. Anyone who claimed to be sizing up the competition would be able to do a much better job of it from the sidelines than the spotlight.

Brainstorming

Coming up with solid, valid ideas is hard enough when you're on a team you know and trust. It's extremely difficult in a backstabbing environment where everyone is strangers and at the end someone is absolutely going to be answerable for the results and will be fired.

A few years ago I read a book about the design firm Ideo called The Art of Innovation. They designed the first mouse for Apple, and the immensely popular Palm V. ¹ One really great chapter in this book dealt with brainstorming. How to do it, or at least how they do it, what to do and what not to do. My views of brainstorming come straight from this book, and I held brainstorming meetings using these techniques, translated for the culture I was working in. They work, and I like them.

In a nutshell, you set up whiteboards all around the room. Or at the very least, when you fill up one of those big white sheets of paper, you tear it off and hang it on the wall - not just flip it. This way there's no physical limit to the number of ideas you can generate, and you can see all of them at once. You also establish a rule that you don't criticize ideas. Sometimes you need to get the dumb ideas out of the way before you can clear your mind to think about something else, or maybe something good can come out of it.

If you lay down these rules to start, everyone should feel freer to participate. You can also use it to abbreviate someone who's filibustering by writing their idea down on the white board, signaling it's time to move on.

In a situation like this one where 9 strangers are thrown together in a high pressure situation, tasked with something creative and with no real measurable goals, creating an environment of trust is essential. By following this formula (or a variation of it) everyone will feel that their idea was given a fair shake, no matter who makes the decision or how at the end.

The Bradford

There was an ad for Smirnoff Triple Black Ice called "The Brad." It was created by the ad agency Diageo and run during the Super Bowl a few years ago.

A woman named Alex meeting a blind date at a bar. She accidentally introduces herself to the wrong fellow, and when the right guy shows up, he is classless with his Corvette license plate bearing his name, "The Brad." Her face falls, so the first guy moves in to save her by intercepting him and introducing himself as Alex -- Brad flees. ²

When Bradford introduced himself to the women saying "Who am I? I'm The Bradford" this is exactly what I thought of. Already watching the episode I had this image of him as being an unaware, self-centered, arrogant guy who just sort of ego's his way through life. I don't know if he was consciously referencing this commercial, or "The Donald" or both, but when he said it any humor that may have been implied was completely lost on everyone, including me.

The Bradford definitely seems to have problems working with other people. When the women are coming up with a name for their team, he didn't seem to know how to interact with them. I guess he was trying to figure out how to take control of the situation, but in this case I think it was like herding cats. The women were in the middle of doing something, and he just shows up trying to assert his authority - it didn't work.

Flash forward to the brainstorming scene where they're coming up with product ideas, the women seem to know what to do - get ideas flowing and write them down on the white board. Sure some of their ideas were just plain stupid (dresses for boys?), but they were talkative, and engaged as a group.

Here, again, The Bradford steps in to assert his authority. Now, maybe he saw that this whole situation was going terribly awry and after an hour or two of "what's the boy's version of EZ-Bake ovens?" he decided something had to be done, but that's not the way it comes off in the episode. He really makes no attempt to smooth things over, or give a rational for his decision, he just says "I know what boys like, and this is it." Mattel didn't agree.

What The Bradford did do well was question Mattel about the viability of his product idea, and shift tactics once they said it wasn't a good one. He used the experts to help steer him towards a good product.

A good way to approach this task would have been to brainstorm some ideas, and get a top 3 list and run them by the Mattel team. Knowing this, everyone would have been encouraged to come up with a very diverse set of ideas rather than focusing on one area too much. "Well, we already have something like that, let's try for a different direction."

From The Bradford's profile:

What has been your biggest challenge in the pursuit of your career goals?
Learning the art of compromise. I believe that if you win all your battles sooner or later no one will want to go to war with you. It has been an ongoing learning process for me that you need to give in a little sometimes to achieve your goals.

Another place where The Bradford comes off as arrogant is when Stacie J. ("The Macy Gray Chic") started freaking out for no good reason. The task was completed, there was nothing to do but sit around and wait, and she started to lose it. "What are you guys thinking, why are you so quiet? Wait, let me consult the Magic 8 Ball." She was obviously nervous and this is how she handles being nervous - trying to get validation from everyone around her.

The Bradford said something (I forget what) that really cut her to pieces, but he didn't say it to her, he said it to someone else, while nodding so he can get support from the group. He didn't attack her directly, but he said something that was designed to undermine her. Robert M. Bramson, in his book Coping With Difficult People ³ calls this "The Sniper." The Sniper is a frustrated bully who gets his way by making snide remarks when other people are around, and they'll defend themselves by saying "I'm only joking, isn't it obvious I'm joking, look everyone else is laughing." According to Bramson, the way to deal with these people is to call them out on what they're doing.

Of course, I could be completely wrong about him, and maybe in future episodes he'll show himself to be a strong and valuable team player.

Pamela

If Bradford made an executive decision, alienating everyone else, I don't know how Pamela's team made any decisions at all. I know we're just seeing highlights, but it really looks like whoever spoke the first and loudest was the one whose idea got picked. I really didn't see that she was as abrasive as Trump made her out to be, but as I said, we're only seeing highlights.

In sharp contrast to the other team, they didn't seem to have any whiteboard at all. They just argued about ideas and kept throwing them out there. Most notably, Andy, the Harvard graduate who loves crustaceans. I really don't know how (or why) his idea was passed, or why Rob would jump on the bandwagon and suggest an almost identical idea with an electric eel.

On the women's team, one woman stepped forward to write things down on the white board - excellent. On the men's team, it just seemed to turn into a giant free for all, and they argued bar room style, as if they were discussing a recent football trade and why they thought it was good/bad for their home team.

In fact, the women's team also wrote down name ideas, while the men just chose whatever was thrown out that they didn't disagree on. The two tasks (coming up with a name, and coming up with a toy) were similar, the each team took the same approach to both.

If I were to give a theme to this episode, it would be "shooting from the hip." It's what The Donald spoke about, and it's what everyone seemed to do. It's what led to the bad decision to sell lemonade at the South Street Seaport in the first season's first episode, and it's what led these teams to think a football helmet car and crustaceans were cool.

From Pamela's profile:

If you had a super power, what would it be and why?
I think that clairvoyance would be cool. I'd be able to see the future, and then make bets on the market with perfect information. If I couldn't have the ability to see the future, then I guess I'd settle for the ability to silence other people from speaking, whenever I wanted. That would be just for fun.

Silence other people from speaking? Just for fun? This makes sense from the woman who couldn't control her meeting and who insulted the children in the focus group. She couldn't get people to stop talking, and then later Sniped the children.

The task of the project manager in this episode was simple, but it was made more difficult because there were no quantitative measures of success, everything was ideas. Set up the structure of the meeting, let the ideas flow, and choose the best idea. Keep the peace, and encourage everyone to give their best ideas. It was more coach than manager this time around. Get 9 complete strangers, 9 egomaniacs who are out to get each other, to be vulnerable enough to produce creative ideas.

The Boardroom

The men formulated a plan, and executed it flawlessly. I'm really surprised that The Donald didn't see through it. Rob set the script the night before when he said "She's going to accuse me of not doing anything, so I'm going to say she gave me nothing to do," and every guy stuck to this script word for word. "I felt that Rob was the weakest, but it was because Pamela didn't assign him a task." I guess it didn't work out for Rob in the end. Next time, keep your mouth shut when you think you didn't perform well, and maybe the rest of the team won't say you didn't do anything. Actually, I didn't see (and maybe it was edited out) either project manager give anyone a task. What tasks are there on a brainstorming project anyway?

I felt Andy, the "nationally ranked debater" (whatever nationally ranked means, he could've come in last place) from Harvard really didn't do anything wrong. He came up with a bad idea - so what? But I know that we saw very little of the brainstorming meetings, and it could've dragged on for hours, plenty of time to get a sense of how well each team member contributed.

From Andy's profile:

As the youngest of four boys, Andy learned to use his speaking skills to defend himself at an early age. In 1999, he utilized those verbal skills to win the U.S. National Debate Championship in Commentary Speaking.

Once the three people who had to go in to the board room were selected, it seemed that their arguments had very little to do with the task at hand. I guess it was the first board room meeting, and what they were trying to do was establish who they are in Trump's eyes. Both Andy and Pamela focused on past achievements, or possible future achievements. Only Rob talked about the task, and Trump called him on it telling him, essentially, that nobody was responsible for his success or failure but himself. If he wasn't given a task, it wasn't an excuse to not do anything.

From Rob's profile:

"As long as I make sure that I'm conducting myself in a businesslike fashion, everything else will fall into place."

It seemed to me that everything Rob said, from his electric eel idea to defending himself in the boardroom by saying he wasn't given responsibility, to what he said in the cab at the end of the episode stemmed from a basic sense that he knew he didn't have anything to contribute. Most of what he said was empty, and I think he sort of knows it.

Clothing, Appearance & Attitude

Obvious comments about Raj "The Dandy" aside, some people showed up Dressed For Success, ⁴ and some people didn't. In the opening scene, I saw that one girl had on a blue, frilly, and short summer dress. Not appropriate for a corporate job interview at all. One girl looks like she's 15, and her clothing accentuated this. I think her padded shoulders and her posture gave her the appereance of always shrugging, and making her look smaller and younger.

Andy, the young Harvard Graduate seemed to go through the motions of dressing right, but didn't quite get it. Maybe it's just a different sensibility based on region, but his tie was much too thin and red. Yes, I know I'm nit picking, and people are going to think I'm crazy, but his tie made him look younger.

The marketing director Maria (the one with really short hair who was taking down team names at the beginning) was dressed a little too funky for this environment, but since she comes from a marketing background I guess you're expected to forgive her. There were a few other people who stood out to me, I think someone (Kevin?) was wearing a suit in a non-traditional color (was it a light brown/beige?).

Everyone knows the rule of thumb is that you have to dress for the position you expect to get. If you want a promotion, dress for it. If you want to get a job, dress as if you already have it. Trump has a certain amount of flair, which shows up in pastel ties, wide collars, suits that aren't strictly traditional in terms of colors. But he's Donald Trump and he can do that. The people on this show should be striving to dress like George and Carolyn.

As I said, there are regional differences to style of dress, but everyone saw the first season, and everyone knows how the people on Donalds team dress, especially the public facing ones. (We got to see what the people who don't always face the public dress like last season in the episode where Donald's team interviewed everyone towards the end.) People know what the standards are, and should be choosing from a pallet of fairly conservative, New York suits.

Attitude also would also cause me to eliminate a lot of people from the running at this point. A lot of the people who were immediately sizing people up, or talking about the others negatively right out of the gate I would say are probably out. The talking interviews that they show in between segments may have been taped much later than this episode though, so these people may not really be that negative now. Didn't one guy say "I don't want to go into the boardroom anymore." Anymore? This is the first episode!

Cross Promotions Everywhere!

It's set up to look like The Donald has pull in all sorts of corporations like Mattel and whoever else the candidates will be working with, but the truth is these are in-show promotions, and you have to wonder who paid who to get this spot. Did NBC pay Mattel, or did Mattel pay NBC?

Early Predictions

This early on it's hard to tell, I don't even really remember the names of most of the people, and even looking at the pictures on the website it's hard to remember who's who. Right now I like Maria, the short black haired woman who took charge of the naming, and John, whose comments during the individual interviews seemed generally positive and focused. Raj is too much of a character, The Bradford is too negative and controlling. Pamela, Trump already doesn't like. Andy is too inexperienced, but bright. Stacie J won't be able to handle the pressure, and the girl who looks like she's 15 will probably go too. Everybody else, I pretty much forget.

But I have a whole season to be proven wrong. ;-) After the first episode of the last season, I liked Nick a lot, but changed my mind about him after a while and started to back Bill, starting around mid season.

Cheers - The Friday Morning Project Manager.

Comments on the Extended Boardroom / Saturday edition

This really is the best part of the show. The rest of it is good, but this is like... the director's commentary, plus serious conflict and people being put on the spot as well.

The stuff they put back in was interesting, especially the stuff where they talked about how long the process was, and whether the meetings were structured or not, and that the other team spent until 11 at night coming up with their product (which is where the "we'll have to work over night" comment from one of the Mattel guys came in).

It certainly makes The Bradford look like less of an asshole if at 11 at night his team still hadn't come up with anything worthwhile. Then again, that could have been his fault entirely based on how he structured the meetings.

The flipside of the strategic advantage to bringing in 3 v. 2 people is that now you have 3 people arguing against you. She knows the weaknesses of the people she's bringing in, and she knows their arguments and how to counter them. Bringing in someone else brings in an unknown factor, perhaps someone a little smarter than the two she chose, who may have come up with an argument that undermined the image she was building for herself.

So from Trump's point of view it's 33% chance v. 25% chance, but from her point of view, it's one less adversary.

Comments from the first season cast

I saw a 5 minute clip on some news magazine show of 3 women from the original cast (Erika, Katrina and Heidi I think) commenting on the new show. Heidi said only Omarosa can be Omarosa, but she thinks the show will heat up and "The F Bomb" will be dropped a few times. She doesn't like Cruella DeVille (Pamela).

One of them (I forget which, maybe 2 of them) liked the blonde bombshell lawyer Jennifer. They all liked the hunky guy John, who I also kinda liked. He kept his nose clean this episode and said some pretty good things.

Erika (I think it was her...) had a pretty interesting comment. She said that this team has an advantage over the first team. The first team didn't know what they were in for, and had no idea what the Boardroom was. This team saw the original series and knows more-or-less what to expect.

One of them also said something about them all being actors and models, and I think Erika said she expects a woman to win this time.

The Art of Innovation: Lessons in Creativity from Ideo, America's Leading Design Firm
They didn't invent the mouse, but they did design it. I recommend this book to anyone who has to be professionally creative.
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+brad%22+diageo
This commercial is a classic, and I really picture Bradford in some tacky 70's outfit, long sideburns, and driving a midlife crisis car ever since he called himself The Bradford.
Coping with Difficult People by Robert M. Bramson.
This book not only outlines difficult personalities, but gives you specific things you can say to cope with them. Not necessarily get along with them, but cope with them enough that you can get your job done.
John T. Molloy's New Dress for Success.
There's this hilarious commercial in England for a clothing company (or store) that shows a faceless suit getting away with all sorts of things at work, and intimidating all the other workers. I think the suit also has sex with one of the guy's wives or something. The best part is the suit in the commercial is straight off the cover of this book! This book is so much of a classic that it's become almost a parody, sort of like How to Win Friends and Influence people. Still, it really did open my eyes to how dress affects how others see you.