Sunday, March 11, 2007

Thoughts on The Apprentice: LA, Episode 8

Arrow lost this week on the task of promoting GNC at an LA Galaxy soccer game half-time show. This week's lessons are easy; they deserved the loss. They didn't behave as a team. Frank started out the episode saying, "Surya is a phony. I hate him," then he proceeded to mock Surya during the planning phase. The whole team has not supported Surya for a couple of weeks. Someone on the team should have taken the lead to pull Surya aside and address their concerns directly.
Lesson 1: Don't sabotage your own team.
Lesson 2: If you have a problem with your leader, you need to tell them.

Surya has been no better and was fired for it. He never took the leadership role of holding his team accountable for being a team. When team members don't support the team's success, the whole team counts of the leader to fix the problem. In particular, Surya needed to pull Frank and James aside and tell them individually to shape up. Both of them needed to hear that they were off the task if they couldn't support the team.
Lesson 3: You are responsible for unifying your team.
Lesson 4: You have to be direct in dealing with disruptive team members.

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