The Apprentice 3: Why Alex Lost

That brings us to the sixth rule, focusing on the long-term. I feel like I’m repeating myself, but once again I have to go back to the way Alex behaved on this task. Alex seemed to be more focused on making it past the Boardroom – short-term thinking – than he was on what he needed to do to become Trump’s Apprentice.

Remember that the challenges are not the be-all end-all of the game. As the rule states, “The challenges can show Trump some things about contestants. … But failure at a given task does not mean you will lose.” Tana lost at this task, and she even did some pretty stupid things on her way to the loss. But Trump saw something in Alex that may have disturbed him more than a trip to Staten Island – the plan to win by doing nothing during a loss rather than trying to press the issue and actually win.

The seventh rule says to think outside the box. Magna did just that when they realized that they weren’t selling t-shirts, they were selling art. Net Worth had no clue and approached it solely as a shirt sale. Alex and Tana had to agree that they were both at fault for that.

Eighth is to not be one-dimensional. Maybe Alex was good at something – what, I’m not entirely sure considering his huge losing streak. But even if he was, he was not good at many things, and that is what Trump needs.

Finally, we arrive at the rule that says to use common sense. Sure, common sense tells you that running all the way to Staten Island is a bit silly – but even more so, common sense should have told Alex that both of them running all the way to Staten Island is even worse! Similarly, common sense should have told them both that marketing was the key. In fact, there were a number of common sense failures for both Alex and Tana. In the end, this was not the deciding factor.

So what was? The combination of leadership failures and overall behavior. While Trump berated Alex for forgetting that he had lost twice, and even went so far as to accuse him of lying (which was a bit too far, in my opinion), it wasn’t the forgetting that was the problem. The problem was the number of times he lost, both as a Project Manager and a player. That number was just too large. Then combine that with the way Alex seemed to be hanging back and just waiting for Tana to screw up, and I suspect it began to look to Trump like Alex had been playing this way all along.

Trump wants a leader, somebody who will step up and take responsibility, someone who will find and fix mistakes rather than trying to blame them on somebody else. Alex, however, showed quite the opposite behavior. That type of thing might have gotten him to the Final Four, and might have worked even better on other types of reality shows where scheming and plotting are rewarded. But on The Apprentice, it frequently leads to the words, “You’re fired.” That is why Alex lost.

If you haven’t already, be sure to check out the Apprentice 3 Episode 14 recap:

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

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