Celebrity Apprentice 2: Episode 4 Recap
| March 24, 2009 | Posted by Roshawn Watson under Uncategorized |
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By: Roshawn Watson
This week’s task was to produce a product launch event for ACN video phone. The audience was ACN’s sales team. Athena chose Claudia Jordan as their project manager while KOTU chose Brian Mcknight to lead them. No corporate reshuffling occurred as I predicted last week, even though the men’s team (KOTU) has been decimated: they’ve had 3 consecutive loss.
This week’s tasks presented some interesting challenges as group dynamics took a disastrous turn for the worst. Unprovoked, Dennis Rodman began yelling at Clint Black and actually got in his face before Dennis angrily stormed off and left. Dennis was pretty absent figuratively and sometimes literally for the rest of the task. Also, Melissa Rivers and Claudia Jordan butted heads over creative aspects of the project, and Melissa rightfully apologized and submitted to the her project manager (Claudia). However, Claudia repeatedly made personal and derisive attacks on Melissa’s character and skills as a producer.
Overall, Athena chose to do various vignettes using the video phone and had Joan Rivers serve as their MC. Melissa performed extraordinarily well their producer even though she wasn’t given very much to work with creatively. The skits Claudia chose were very tacky, but she dismissed any constructive criticism from her teammates. Joan Rivers didn’t disappoint, but even her comedic wit couldn’t save the sinking ship. KOTU on the other hand, chose to create a video highlighting the video phone being used by a real West Point soldier calling home. Their video connected to the audience emotionally. Then, R & B star Brian Mcknight performed a mini concert for the sales event. Not only did KOTU get a standing ovation, the crowd spontaneously began to chant the name of their company in celebration.
After the event, the sales team (nearly 500 sales associates) voted for the which product launch they liked the best. The obvious answer is KOTU unequivocally won, causing Claudia and Athena to suffer their first defeat.
One of my sole purposes in writing posts about Celebrity Apprentice in the first place is because the business lessons one can glean from the show are so abundant. Today, I will just highlight the two that are most prominent in this episode.
Overconfidence can be your downfall. I am all for confidence. I think we all should accurately assess our skills and limitations and should feel comfortable with our capabilities. However, a leader who is overconfident can cause can a whole venture to fail. Clearly, Claudia suffered from the big head. She found “faults” will everyone except for herself. She couldn’t perform, nor could she get pass her own personal issues with her teammates in order to get them to succeed. Also, she had the disadvantage of being on the winning team and wrongfully attributing those wins to Athena being so good. In reality, KOTU was just that bad. Once KOTU got into the right mindset, they embarrassed Athena and Claudia with a great loss. I, for one, am glad she’s gone. Her venom is toxic.
Dealing with difficult coworkers appropriately can save you even in a terrible situation. This episode also showed the right way and wrong way to deal with difficult coworkers. Dennis is not easy to get along with, but to just sideline him for the whole episode even when he is trying to help is just not a good strategy, especially when you are 3 men down. Had Brian loss, he would have likely been fired. Claudia’s behavior was another example of how not to handle a employer-employee personality clash. Claudia admitted to disliking Melissa and was frequently rude and dismissive towards her. To echo Khloe, we all have to work with people we don’t necessarily like at some point, but we do it because that’s what’s best for the company’s bottom line. Melissa, on the other hand, handled Claudia brilliantly (no doubt from years of experience with how to get along in the business world). She addressed the overt disrespect being shown to her and acknowledged overstepping her bounds since she wasn’t the project manger. Then, she worked harder than anyone on the team. As a result, her team all backed her up as an extremely strong player in the boardroom and Claudia could not use her as a scapegoat for the loss. If you have boss like Claudia, it is sometimes hard to force yourself to do the right thing; however, it was Melissa’s saving grace
Well, this episode was pretty interesting, and I am pretty interested in the next one too. Apparently, Dennis Rodman’s drinking is catching up with him big time, and the show may stage an intervention for him. Happy viewing.
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