The Apprentice: Weekly Performance Review, Episode 11 – Playing to Win

Protégé:

First off, I enjoy the irony that Protégé Corporation now consists of three men and no women. Ereka can’t be pleased about that.

Kwame: I’m glad you finally took an active role in the show! I think it was more that there were too many people around to really focus on you. You were doing your share, but not doing anything spectacular. That can be an asset in business. As Project Manager this week, on a team with two strong employees, you did the best thing you could do: give them their tasks and get out of the way. A good manager knows when to lead and when to get out of the way, and you did both at the proper times. Well done.

Bill: Once again, you are the idea man and the workhorse. And once again, you provided the idea that made the difference between winning and losing; this week, it was the idea to go after the high rollers. It suddenly occurs to me that they might be playing up your love/hate relationship with Troy because you are the final two, and they want a story to go with the finale. I think you two are the strongest ones on the show, and have thought so for a while, so it makes perfect sense to me.

Troy: You know you’re my favorite, and it’s getting hard to keep coming up with good things to say about you. I’ve come up with another one, though. I enjoyed seeing the pure glee in your eyes as you competed in the task this week. It’s obvious you love life, and it comes through in your work. When you have fun at work, you affect those around you, and makes a difference in everyone’s performance. And to top it off, only you could compliment and brush off a “model” at the same time. Lovely.

Versacorp:

Nick: I’m getting worried about you. No, not about Amy; I think you’re intelligent enough to separate work and play. I’m just afraid you’re coasting, overconfident because of your earlier victories. I also think your smugness will be your undoing if you don’t watch it in the boardroom.

Amy: I still remain unimpressed. Most of your victories have been as a result of the stupidity of the other team. Case in point: you called the client in the jet advertisement challenge. It wasn’t a brilliant strategy, because the other team wanted to do it and Jason shot the idea down. You had the excellent idea to sell ads in the rickshaw challenge, which was a flash of brilliance, but you would have beaten the other team in pure transportation receipts.

You also didn’t accept the blame for the loss in the challenge this week. As Betsy said in her recap, it was clearly your idea to raffle off the lame “car rental” prize. That may have been a smart idea to avoid blame, because admitting it would have been like stepping in front of the firing squad, but it does not make you look good at all.

None of these facts really bother me, however. What concerns me is that in the hotel room, talking about your relationship with Nick, you said, “What better time to see where this will go?” Sometime when you’re not competing for a job, maybe? This is the reason I think you’ll be the next to go home, despite what David Bloomberg’s prediction article says.

Katrina: It’s nice to have some validation once in a while. Last episode, I said, “Maybe they’re not listening to your ideas because your ideas aren’t any good.” This week, Trump basically brushed you off for suggesting a circus, which was one of the brilliant ideas that you got all huffy about earlier. There’s no way in hell you deserved to get this far – you were just conveniently saved or not available when you should have gone. Enjoy the attention you’re getting now, because soon enough people will go back to not caring who you are.

Mike DeGeorge has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Management from Christian Brothers University in Memphis, and has almost ten years of management experience. Email Mike at mikmaria@charter.net.

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