I've heard that they're discussing The Apprentice in business school, and that for some courses it's required watching. As a tool for discussion, I think it's great. The producers acknowledge this, and try to work some sort of lesson in to each episode blatently, but to avoid appearing like a Saturday morning cartoon, they put it about 15 minutes in to the show rather than at the end. This also makes Trump seem psychic and all knowing, because he's giving the episode's lessons before we've seen what happens.

This episode, I have no idea what he might have said. The task was sort of mundane as well as any "lessons learned" we may be expected to grab from it. It was yet another "come up with a business idea and execute it" on a small scale task. Without the usual product tie ins, I have the feeling that this was an alternate task. One of their sponsors fell through, so they had to do this non-sponsor related task.

One person's advice, however, that I will remember is Mayor Bloomberg's. Paraphrased sleightly (because while I type fast, I don't type that fast), he said:

Innovation is really the essence of starting something and not knowing where it's going to go and all new things come out of that process. One of the problems of politics is that they demand answers before you spend money. Because it's the public's money people want to know who's going to benefit and where you're going to go.

The only advice I can really give you is don't ever comprimise on your standards or objectives because there's nothing worse than comprimising and losing. I always tell my people just go for it.

Jennifer M. v. Wes

Jennifer got the new members to evaluate each other. This tactic is more likely to give her a more objective overview of each person, as well as being firm, but fair. Nobody could feel sleighted by this because everyone was treated fairly.

Wes, on the other hand, came in to this with preconcieved notions and treated Stacy poorly and discounted her abilities by pigeon holing her from the outset. "I know you're good at arguing."

Jennifer said she would keep Raj's ideas in check, and she did. When he came up to her with an idea, her initial response was to shut him down, but, eventually she came around. Raj, Chris, and Elizabeth (in the extended footage) went down to where the other team had set up with the idea of setting up directly across from them, and try to steal some of their business. While Elizabeth wasn't comfortable with the idea of tring to sabotage the other team, it was a brilliant move. Eventually, they felt the other team had spent too much on supplies (posters, postcards, camera, etc.) and they were better off going back to the main station and washing more dogs. "This beats the hell out of massaging dogs."

Wes, on the other hand, even though he discounted Stacy's idea, seemed to play along by going with her to pet shops and looking at costumes. Maybe they were just buying regular supplies and she wasn't wasting time, but in general, they spent too much time gathering supplies and preparing for execution.

While Mosiac's oh-so-brilliant idea, "let's do a charity" was the same as a previous task, Apex was able to diversify and follow through on their ideas. As Bloomberg said, you have to try something before you know where you'll end up. Stacy's idea was good, and could have been toned down and executed. You don't need a costume to take a picture of people with their dog, some people would take the opporttunity to get a picture they wouldn't otherwise have taken for themselves. I think that ability to diversify, and not necessarily let ego's get in the way of execution, is a good sign for Apex and Jennifer M. in particular.

Another obstacle to diversification was the cell phone. However, as Trump's advisor Allen pointed out (in the extended footage), business has existed for centuries before cell phones were invented. Not being able to communicate with the other team wasn't the same as not being able to split the team up. In some schools of thought, good leadership is choosing good people and not getting in their way while they do their thing. If Wes subscribed to this theory of management, he would have easily been able to split the team up. He seemed too hung up on the problems and not focused enough on the solutions.

At the dinner, Jennifer M. seemed stuck on showing the team that she was leading by example, perhaps as part of a greater strategy targeted towards the boardroom. Wes, on the other hand, seemed to just be able to relax and actually be one of the group, rather than telling the group that he was one of them.

After the dinner, Wes talked to Kelly and Stacy, and seperately Maria and then Andy. He was trying to get the team on his side to go against Andy. "I won't say anything bad about you if you don't say anything bad about me." To Maria he talked about how he would take responsibility for choosing to keep Andy on his team, but blame the team's failure on Andy. Then he went to Andy and let him know that he would have to go after him because of the phone thing.

Stacy R. and Andy

Last week I think I said that Trump had to recognize that Stacy was brought in to the boardroom repeatedly with the same complaint, and this week he did. Her ego gets involved in everything she does, and not getting the doggy costumes was a serious defeat she couldn't recover from. Why didn't she alter the strategy to just take pictures of people with their dogs? With a camera she wouldn't be tied down to one single spot, she would have been able to wander the park and take pictures.

Andy, on the other hand, manages to stay task focused, come up with good ideas, and execute them. Still, everyone says he needs too much hand holding, and nearly every time he's brought in to the boardroom, this is the complaint. I guess we'll see what happens next week when he's made Project Manager.

Diversification

Finanial advisors will tell you not to put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to your investments so that a loss in one area isn't a loss overall. By diversifying, you create an average gain across multiple markets rather than potentially strong or weak gains (or losses) in one market.

One team was able to diversify consistently and try out new strategies, while the other team wasn't. I think even if Apex lost their cell phone, they would have been able to branch out, while even if Mosaic had their cell phone, they would have had trouble diversifying. In fact, Raj, Elizabeth and Chris walked down 20 blocks to where the other team was, and walked back one they saw what was going on. This could have easily been done without a cell phone, and I saw no evidence that they used a cell phone. Because they were empowered to make the decision themselves, constant communication wasn't necessary.

It pays to diversify, especially on a task like this where all of your resources aren't being utilized fully. So while your cash is either invested or it isn't, with human capital, a person could be utilized more or less in a given situation. Since overall, not everyone was fully utilized, it just makes sense to find ways to use everyone.

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