If last week's episode was the equivalent of the advertising episode from the first season, this week's episode is equivalent to the lemonade stand episode. Come up with and market a new flavor of ice cream. It's obvious to me now why they switched the order. The brainstorming lessons they learned last time came in to play when coming up with a new flavor this week.
The War Room: Making Decisions
This week, the women started, predictably, with a good brainstorming session, getting ideas down on the white board, and their ideas were all over the map (this is a good thing, this is what brainstorming is all about). Their choice, however, was a bit questionable. I think they were going for "sophisticated" choosing a name like Red Velvet, which didn't really speak to the flavor (I can see countless people standing over ice cream shop freezers saying, "what's in Red Velvet?" day in and day out until they list the ingredients on the sticker), which was based on something only one of them had tasted.
My girlfriend had Red Velvet cake at a well respected restaurant in the south, and she said it wasn't anything special. Just a regular cake with lots of red food coloring. The ingredients for the cake were (according to the show) butter cake with cream cheese frosting and pecans. But on the streets, they were marketing it as raspberry. (?)
It was a bit of a treat watching the men in action because Kelly had military experience, and ever since reading Sources of Power by Gary Klein, I've been interested in military decision making and leadership. 1
Sources of Power, despite it's silly title, is an excellent book. It's actually one of my all-time favorite books. The author did research for the US Military on decision making under pressure. He studied fire commanders (guys that run into burning buildings and forests), and how they made decisions under real-world conditions. He calls his findings RPD or Recognition Primed Decision Making, and it tosses what most text books teach on decision making on it's head.
Essentially, what it says is that experience counts. There was a NY Times article, Subconsciously, Athletes May Play Like Statisticians a few months ago 2 that states that our brains may be Bayesian.
In everyday life, of course, people have been using the ideas underlying Bayesian analysis since well before it became the vogue in science labs, or even before Thomas Bayes, an 18th-century British minister and mathematician, formalized the method in a paper that was published two years after he died. When crossing a street, people rely on both what they see and what they remember about the speed of cars on similar roads. When deciding whether to take a sick child to a doctor, parents consider the current symptoms as well as the child's history and their general knowledge of illness.
This is very much in line with RPD. According to RPD, we have a mental model of what every situation should be like based on past experience. It's what lets a native New Yorker walk down the street at 4am and not get mugged, while a tourist can get mugged at 4pm. It's what lets experienced doctors figure out quickly what's wrong with a patient, and yes, it's that "business gut" Pamela was talking about last week. It's street smarts. It's intuition, and it all boils down to experience.
So how do you get someone up to speed quickly? Well the absolute best way is to throw them in to the fray and let them gain the experience in the real world. If that's not a viable option because the risks are too high, then the second best way is to create highly detailed, accurate simulations that will feel real to them that will allow them to get real world experience without any of the risk. Finally, stories are a good way to quickly explain what to look for in a situation in a way that a simple laundry list of items wouldn't easily give them.
The military has invested heavily in creating accurate simulations. One show I saw on PBS called The Video Game Revolution 3 showed how advanced AI based video games, played on wall-sized screens allowed the military to train their soldiers in situations, such as moving civilians out of the way safely when the situation called for it even if some of those citizens might have good reasons for wanting to stay. In fact, the military has always been interested in simulations. In the 80's I read about a USMC table-top war game that used a curtain that was slowly raised, allowing each side to see more of what the other side was doing, and military simulations probably date back to ancient Greece. Like combat, some things are best learned by doing, or at the very least, simulating.
Why do I bring all this up? Well, I have the feeling that this will come in to play later in the season when Andy is called upon to lead. His lack of experience may cause him to follow some leads that the rest of his team would find foolish. When you're inexperienced, you'll make foolish decisions, or fall back on the text book decision making models - generating alternatives and weighing each against the other.
Which is what Ivana seemed to do throughout this episode. "Okay, this task has two components..." This is something the rest of the team took for granted. The way she handled the brainstorming is a classic example of this. Of course, the whole idea there is to generate ideas and in that case this is the right approach, but at some point, a decision and plan of action need to be made. The women's team seemed to lack direction throughout the episode, and there was no solid decision making.
Shows like The Apprentice, are a poor substitute for experience, but they do work as a substitute. I'm not saying that staying home every Thursday to watch a TV show will make you a better worker, manager, or leader any more than staying up to 1am to watch infomercials will make you rich, trim and happy, but if you don't have the opportunity to do these things in reality, learning something from TV or a book is better than not learning it at all.
Kelly's approach was the opposite extreme. Regimented, and perhaps too regimented for a creative task. It was someone who wasn't on his creative team who came up with the idea they eventually ended up following. Kevin's "Just put a candy bar in it, or a doughnut or something," ended up carrying the day. Perhaps it was the lack of pressure that allowed him to come up with the winning idea (this wasn't his task, he was just calling in to see if they had come up with a flavor for him to sell yet), but whatever it was, it worked.
It's also not clear why he chose the people for the tasks he did. Was he playing off of their strengths, or was it that since he didn't know their strengths yet, he just divided the team arbitrarily?
For the most part, his leadership style was right out of Warfighting the USMC Book of Strategy. 5 In military tradition, people can and should question the leader while the decision is being made, but once he makes the decision, it's final, and they should carry it out. This is almost word for word what he said in one his monologues.
But the ice cream flavor wasn't the main focus of the task. It really didn't matter what the flavor was, it was pure sales that got them through this task.
Selling
Each team started with the idea of selling to restaurants, perhaps being inspired by last season's episode for Trump Ice, where they sold water to restaurants, but nobody seemed to stick to that task. Kevin mentioned that he didn't have any success with it early on, perhaps because he didn't know what the flavor would be, and the women had a few appointments set up for the next day, which the cancelled once they learned the guy's strategy.
As a sales team, the men seemed more functional. The women let the vendor telling them to move set them back several hours, and each time they saw the men doing something, they copied it. Perhaps to their own detriment. If both teams were set up on corners and capable of selling, why did they waste three hours trying to locate their team mates? They lost 3 hours of sales time. I suspect that if the men had faced that decision, they would have brushed off the problem and moved on. You just change locations, and as Carolyn pointed out, the women weren't too far from the men, so their location couldn't have been that much of a factor in their losing.
The TKTS booth 6 was a brilliant location for the morning. Perhaps a better approach with the vendor would have been to cut him in on a percentage of their profits if he let them stay. This way they're no longer competing with him, and the volume of business they're doing was probably more than he was doing. He would have to be willing to take that risk, but it's only one morning's profits he's risking, they wouldn't be there the next day.
This brings up something that I've been wondering about for a while. How much of what they do on this show is illegal? They're never licensed for any of the things they decide to do, but they go ahead and do it. Recently I was having a conversations with my sister about starting a business. I had this idea to sell gourmet home-made foods in local stores on consignment. My sister pointed out that I'd probably need to be licensed to produce food in my home. I'm sure this is true, and once I started this business, if it got serious, I would get licensed, but I wouldn't let that get in my way. If anyone told me I needed to be licensed, I would go out and get the license. The government seems to be lenient on business owners and will give them a slap on the wrist before shutting them down. The show is so spontaneous, that nobody ever has a chance to get licensed, and I always wonder if a cop is going to come by and try to shut them down.
Anyway, back to strategy. What surprises me is that nobody recalled the idea that put the winning team over the top in last season's Trump Ice episode - selling several months worth in advance to restaurants. In each contestant's NBC.com profile, they have to put the lessons they learned from the first season. Apparently "why sell for just today when you can sell for 30, 60, 90 days or more" wasn't one of those lessons.
Kelly was smart to split the team into a creative team and a sales team early on, allowing them to get a jump start on selling (very Mythical Man Month 7 of him), and when that strategy didn't work, he consolidated everyone - both push carts - into one location. The women, on the other hand, had meetings lined up with restaurants that they gave up once they heard the men's strategy. Couldn't they dedicate 22% of their team (2 of the 9 people) to going to the restaurant meetings?
They did manage to sell two canisters to one of those Tasty-D-Lite stores, but what would've put them over the top would have been a 3 month contract to sell the ice cream in his store. As it was, that man was only was a guaranteed sale for that day, the equivalent of about 30 customers. Even the men, who weren't trying to sell in bulk, managed to sell a canister to a fan of the flavor he knew he wouldn't be able to get it anywhere the next day.
In the end, I think it was the women's lack of conviction to the sales task, losing 3 hours, and inability to be over-the-top like the men were in the sales tasks that caused them to lose. The "for charity" bit also lent the men a bit of credibility, but I don't know that they really used it, or that it affected sales that much. The winning margin was only around 10%, though the men did have higher costs in the form of the charity and the ingredients, which pushed the margin closer to 20%, that 20% could have been made up in the 3 hours they lost.
The Boardroom
Okay, let's cut through all the other crap. Trump fired The Bradford. Ivana and Stacie J. were both vying for the Weakest Link in the Chain spot, but Bradford, in a typical show of bravado said that he was confident enough in his performance that he would waive his exemption and throw his hat in with the rest of the team.
I disagree with Trump and most of the contestants that being project manager first is a strategic advantage. You're sticking your neck on the line for a team whose strengths and weaknesses you don't know, and Trump will get to know you in time anyway. Better to be a project manager on one of the later tasks when he already has an impression of you, and he's more likely to remember the success at the end. Remember this is a 15 week (television weeks, it's probably more like 7 or 8 in real life) "interview" and the impression you make at first won't necessarily be the one you leave him with towards the end.
So it's with the same attitude that caused The Bradford to volunteer to be Project Manager and get the exemption in the first place first that he made his fatal decision.
Now, the question is, did Trump make the right decision? Obviously as the person doing the hiring, he made the right choice for himself, but I think a lot of people might disagree with this decision. So what was so bad about it?
If you have a guaranteed position, something that can't be lost, it's foolish to give that up. If you have a contract to be the exclusive vendor or contractor for a project, it's foolish to say "I'm so confident in my company that I'll give up the exclusivity and throw my hat in with all the other vendors." It's a wise thing to say if you don't have that exclusive position, but once you have it, don't give it up. To put it in some more perspective, what if The Bradford was in Bill's current position - construction manager on a luxury high rise. Would he say to the zoning commissioner for the city "Sure, let someone put another luxury high rise up across the street, I'm confident enough in my building to let them compete."
In the cab ride on the way home, he said that he felt the team was divided and that this gesture would help bring the team together. I happened to catch him on the Today show and he said that he thought The Donald would feel differently about this gesture. That you think the other person will mirror your sentiments. I was wondering why he knew so much about psychology, but it turns out he's a trial attorney, and this whole mirroring concept is probably extremely important in jury selections and selling your case to them. It also explains why he's so good on his feet as a salesman.
I don't know if I believe his story about trying to bring the team together, and the whole "General leading his troops in to battle" thing (which he reiterated on the Today show). On this project they weren't his troops. I can see why it would be important for him to bring the team together for the next ask, but it really seems like he did it to look good to The Donald. This kind of gamble probably pays off regularly in front of a Jury, but this isn't a jury, and if he says it in a trial, it's normally hypothetical, not real.
Ivana was obviously upset that she chose him to go in to the boardroom. While his action shot himself in the foot, it was her taking him in to the boardroom that killed him off. Also, the conversation that happened outside of the boardroom between her and Jennifer C. right in front of Stacie J. just served to drive a further stake between Stacie and the rest of the team.
Her indecisiveness was on serious display in the boardroom. Choosing Jennifer for no reason, and I don't know why she chose Bradford, because she told Trump he did a great job. I think she just felt like she had to go with the consensus, and if Trump said Bradford made a mistake, she felt she should choose him too.
Books Books Books: Franchise It!
It seems like everyone on the Apprentice Season 1 is available for speaking or is writing a book.
It's interesting watching this whole thing unfold. Most people are taught "go to school and get a good job" but the closer to the top you get (if Donald Trump represents the top, he certainly has more money than I do), the more it seems to be about hustling to get money.
I know the show certainly gives that impression. $2,500 in a day just standing on a street corner selling ice cream. That's the equivalent of $50,000 a month just working weekdays. Similar amounts selling lemonade or clothing at a flea market.
Trump also gives that impression - real estate, casinos, books, games and according to the show, water and ice cream as well. "Ice Cream is a $60,000,000 business and I want a piece of it." That speech reminds me of something Robert G. Allen 9 would give. I'm almost surprised that these books aren't being marketed under the TRUMP BOOKS label.
Oh, and the Ice Cream is available, and it bears not a Trump label, but an Apprentice label.
Update: The AMA also focuses on decision making
I guess I wasn't the only one who decided to focus on decision making for this episode. A day after I wrote this article I found out the AMA (American Management Association) decided to write, as their Apprentice tie-in article about decision making as well. Here's their article: How to Make Sound Business Decisions
Update: Notes on the extended Saturday edition
I was ordering pizza around 15 minutes in to the episode on Thursday and missed both the part where Wes was trying to call restaurants and where Trump was talking about leadership.
Now that I saw Wes tell the world that he was comfortable in the world of cold calling, Kelly's choice of putting him in charge of sales seems more logical. I was also impressed by how he talked about his team. Even when he was saying Wes wasn't good, he added "at this task."
In the military you don't hire a team, they're given to you and you have to make due with them. Corporate life can be like this too. You have to work with the strengths and weaknesses of the people you're given.
Ivana is a very effective leader... When it's time to place the blame! The meeting she ran to spin the previous day's events against Stacie was well run, effective, and motivating. When a few people said something agreeing with her, she started to close the meeting "So we're all on the same page..." and Stacie walked in.
Speaking of Stacies, Stacy-with-a-Y has huge green eyes. Are those real or are they contacts? She still looks like she's 16, I think a haircut and wardrobe change could do a lot for her.
I wonder if the amount of time put in to brainstorming last week influenced the amount of time it took to choose a flavor this week. Perhaps it was just a "When you're given a deadline, the task is gauranteed to take until the deadline to accomplish" situation where they were told 4:00 was when the task was due, and 4:00 was when they had it done.
Kelly's strategy of getting a sales team going in parallel was great, but even better would have been setting an 11:00 deadline for choosing a flavor and dedicating the rest of the day to setting up sales meetings.
What really impressed me about boardroom scenes wasn't any of the added footage of the contestants (which was interesting) was how aggressive George and Carolyn were. At the beginning of the last season, it almost seemed like they were afraid to interrupt Donald. Now they're much more outspoken.
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