The Apprentice: Why Kwame Lost

Omarosa compounded the problems she caused by then blaming Kwame for them when she was in the boardroom with the other five workers. Yes, she said he was the best for the job, but she had already done plenty of damage.

Still, we can’t blame it completely on Omarosa, no matter how much we might want to. Trump likely would have seen that Kwame’s management style was different from his own even if Omarosa hadn’t been in the picture. Indeed, in the previous episode, his staff pointed this out as a potential mark against him. Trump said that maybe the organization needs somebody like that, but it was likely still in his mind.

Let’s face it, Donald Trump is not a laid-back guy. He could much more easily relate to the energy shown by Bill than the coolness shown by Kwame. Bill might have been running around quite a bit during the golf tournament, but at least he had his finger on the pulse of what was going on. If he thought something was important, his employees knew. What if their roles had been reversed? If Kwame had found out about the missing Marquis Jet Card sign, he would have probably calmly asked one person to find it, and then let them go about looking. However, if it hadn’t been for Bill’s repeated attempts and, eventually, doing it himself, the sign never would have been found.

When Kwame lost something – in his case, Jessica Simpson – all he could do, it seemed, was helplessly call for people on his walkie talkie. He was in charge, but he didn’t know where people were or what they were doing. He even confused them somewhat by changing up who was in charge of what. Was Omarosa in charge of breakfast, or was it Troy? Was Heidi in charge of the meet and greet, or was Troy also in charge? Was he just there to help, or was he the co-pilot? Kwame said both things, but they don’t really mean the same thing. With all the changes, it was hard to pin down exactly who was supposed to do what. And imagine how the hotel staff felt, trying to figure out just who they were supposed to deal with. In the end, Kwame didn’t ensure that communication took place between all of his staff or his staff and the hotel staff.

It also didn’t help that Bill did all his running around out of sight of Trump himself. Kwame, on the other hand, was in a world of hurt when Trump showed up. It was obvious that The Donald was not a happy camper.

It’s good to have trust in your employees and to make sure you don’t micromanage them. But at some point a manager does indeed have to manage. The panelists on the Dateline special noted much the same thing, saying that Kwame was too nice and let things go that Bill never would have. For example, Bill got upset when Ereka took a five-minute break during the apartment-renovating challenge, but Kwame appeared to just let Omarosa lie to his face and didn’t say anything.

Kwame’s laid-back style worked sometimes, but not when it counted. That is why Kwame lost.

David Bloomberg is the Editor of RealityNewsOnline and can be reached at RNO@pobox.com.

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