The Apprentice 5 Weekly Performance Review, Episode 3

Charmaine: I think Charmaine got away with one big-time this week. It may have been a good idea to get a semi-name entertainer (Last Comic Standing 1’s Cory Kahaney) but when the material became insulting and irritating to the audience, that was a disaster. First of all, some ground rules for material ought to have been established and secondly, it should have been Charmaine and not her PM who finally got the microphone out of Cory’s hand.

It may have been expensive but comedienne Cory did fulfill her obligations and it was correct that she was fully paid. At least they got that one right.

Secondly, Charmaine was responsible for the spokesmodels. Their inability to convey product knowledge overshadowed any possible positive eye-candy factors.

Charmaine gets a rating of UNSATISFACTORY. Cory gets a NEEDS IMPROVEMENT for not reading her audience and adjusting accordingly. I’m guessing that after this airs it will be a while before she books her next corporate event.

Dan and Lee: There may be those who think they should have showed up to work. However, Trump clearly supported them and I am not about to disagree. NO RATING.

Lenny: Lenny was a hard worker again this week, but he was less of an asset to his team than before. He angered his teammates over religion, then over the generator issue. This exhibited very poor teamwork skills.

Maybe providing electricity was Lenny’s responsibility and maybe it wasn’t, but when he was so blasé over the generator problem it was a negative example of his self-motivation and communication skills. Further, initiating the argument with Bryce in the suite was pointless.

In the boardroom, his flip answer that he’d fire everyone was also unwarranted. I’ll rate Lenny as UNSATISFACTORY. What seemed like straight-forwardness last week came across as petulant, confrontational, and argumentative this week.

Leslie: NO RATING is given out to Leslie for the third week in a row. There is a Leslie on the show, right? There must be, she was briefly in evidence last week and I might have seen her from behind working at the golf event.

Tarek: To his credit, Tarek did try to make Theresa focus on identifying a theme. However, he was unsuccessful in getting that point across to anyone else.

Tarek did try to arrange for Astroturf for the golf event, although a piece ten feet by eight feet is a joke. On the morning of the event when the status of the grounds was discovered, we didn’t see the option reviewed. Maybe the money was gone or maybe rapid delivery wasn’t possible, but it we just don’t know. It did seem as though people were having good fun here, but it must have been the wine. As a serious golfer I wouldn’t have been caught anywhere near that fiasco.

Tarek was handcuffed on both issues, but a serious candidate has to work past that. I’m going to generously give him a NEEDS IMPROVEMENT rating. I suspect the opening episodes of this show have been a humbling time for Tarek, who is probably more used to things going his way. As he left the boardroom Tarek said, “I’ll step it up, Mr. Trump.” Don’t tell him; show him.

Theresa: Theresa started out pretty well, but she fell down and she couldn’t get up. Basic point – when you have an event, you need a theme to tie it together. When Tarek tried to develop one, she talked over him repeatedly. The result was an event that was perceived as disconnected.

Theresa did well in assigning various tasks to various people, but the responsibilities of delegation also include getting timely feedback and responding to issues. Theresa came up short in these latter areas. Her resource allocation may not have been ideal either, it seemed Lenny was doing all the setup and then he wasn’t involved in anything.

The horse and carriage idea just didn’t fit in. Giving all those people a decent duration ride would take hours and hours, so either some missed out or the rides were really short in duration.

On the plus side, Theresa is obviously comfortable public speaking.

In the boardroom, Theresa switched her idea of who was most responsible from Lenny to Tarek, which indicated she didn’t have a handle on what had gone wrong. She should have considered inviting Bryce and/or Charmaine to the final boardroom.

However, I sincerely doubt any choice would have saved Theresa. Thus she earns the dreaded UNACCEPTABLE rating for engineering a failure on multiple fronts.

Final Comment:

While watching my favorite show this week (Corner Gas) there was a line uttered that is perfect advice for both Brent and Lenny: “If you want to soar with the eagles, you have to pretend to be one.” Sage advice!

Brian lives in Toronto, where he can be reached at uncle_bto@rogers.com. He spent a couple of decades working in middle management at The Prudential, primarily hiding behind the coffee machine to avoid his pointy-haired bosses. He’d like to hear your opinions and promises to respond to all serious email!

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