Celebrity Apprentice 2: Episode 5 Recap
| March 30, 2009 | Posted by Roshawn Watson under Uncategorized |
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By: Roshawn Watson
The Task
This week’s task centered on Athena and KOTU each taking control of 5 rooms at the Loews Regency, a luxury hotel. The member of the team had to serve in many capacities including offering concierge service, maid service, baggage service, room service, etc. Tionne Watkins from TLC and Dennis Rodman were the project managers for Athena and KOTU, respectively. Each team was assessed by a survey taken by their hotel guests upon their departure.
As alluded to earlier, Dennis started out pretty strong. He had lots of energy and was engaged in the task. He brainstormed with KOTU and also executed their wishes very decidedly. He even went out of his way to meet individual guest needs. For example, he personally delivered champagne and refreshments to the guests and had two Mercedes available for use their to make sure that they had comfortable transportation about the city. Notably, since Dennis had previously been somewhat detached from tasks and reticent to interact with people, he was conscientiously putting forth added effort. However, as the task progressed, he was derailed because he continued to drink and became so inebriated that he loss control of both his team and the tasks. At one point he even just left the hotel and temporarily abandoned his team and the patrons. Although his team ultimately had many challenges and slip-ups, they didn’t do too terrible overall.
Tionne also had a good run from the start. She was pretty collaborative and had full team support. She wisely picked Joan Rivers to be the concierge because she was a native New Yorker and good with people. Overall, Athena were extremely professional and appeared very in control of the task despite some outrageous demands and expectations from the guests. Tionne had stellar organization and kept her team working hard and together.
To make things interesting, Steven Baldwin and Vinnie Pastore from Celebrity Apprentice season one were guests as well. Steven stayed in one of the Athena rooms while Vinnie stayed in a KOTU room. Their assignment from Trump was to be pains in the butt, and they excelled admirably. They were not included in the survey judging each team’s performance.
Boardroom Breakdown
This boardroom was very different. Even before the outcome was read, Jesse James chose to bring up Dennis’ drinking as his downfall. It was obvious that both teams had reservations about Dennis and acknowledged that his deficiencies as a competitor and project manager were not due to lack of ability but the impairment caused by his drinking. It was pretty sad to watch both KOTU and Athena comment on Dennis’ present state and stage somewhat of an intervention for him.
Ultimately, Athena beat KOTU (91% to 86%), and Tionne was awarded $20,000 for her charity, and Dennis Rodman was fired.
Other thoughts
Personally, I hate to see heroes fall, so watching this episode was particularly painful because it was obvious that Dennis was battling personal demons. An especially poignant moment was when he defended himself by referring to his days as a NBA star because there was a clear contrast between his former self and his present state. Although he wasn’t surprised to go, two things were very clear: (1) he was beloved by most of the other celebrities there (probably with the exception of Brian Mcknight and Herschel) and (2) he didn’t feel like he had the team’s support. This made the firing more difficult because few want to see someone hit in the face when he is obviously already down and crying foul. Not being in control of himself was his biggest obstacle and resulted in his firing.
Unfortunately, Tionne seamless and graceful win was overshadowed by Dennis’ problems. However, she really led her team well. She did many things right including having exceptional organization, respect for her teammates opinions, and a healthy dose of humility. She really embodies servant leadership: this is where the leader serves as a steward of the resources (human, financial and otherwise) provided by the organization. She served others while staying focused on achieving results in line with Athena’s values and integrity. Accordingly, Athena won the task. Hopefully, her quiet but hard-working nature won’t continue to go unnoticed now that she has led Athena to a win.
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