The assignment the contestants were given was to decorate office space - a pretty mundane assignment in my humble opinion. The two teams, men versus women, were both about as dysfunctional workgroups as I could possibly imagine. Even before they had found out which team had won, they were turning on each other like wolves fighting over scraps. I understand that this makes for interesting viewing but I wondered if the circumstances these contestants found themselves in - being unemployed - was bringing out the worst in these folks. The teams, and I use that term loosely, were brutal in their assessments of the project manager's leadership skills. I don't know if there is such a term as 'followership' but these folks clearly didn't have it.
In my work at Pinnacol I see a lot of employee satisfaction surveys and results. One of the questions these surveys always seem to ask is around the notion of "we're all in this together". Mr. Trump and his management style seem oriented toward the master-slave relationship. The hapless young lady who was the project manager on the losing team was fired not so much for her performance as her apparent inability to fend off the attacks of those working for (not with) her and for not being able to control such a rowdy bunch of wanna-be Donald's.
Pinnacol has been arranged around multi-functional teams since the late '90's. We know that we succeed or fail as a group. It seems obvious to us that the minute we start pointing fingers at our team members instead of helping each other we're almost doomed to fail, but an alien from another world who watched last night's show would think American business is completely driven by "me" rather than "we". If you watched the show you probably noticed one lady who went above and beyond in her criticism of her project manager to the point that even Mr. Trump commented on her disloyalty. I sympathize with the rest of the group that will continue to work with this individual. Good entertainment perhaps, but the antithesis of good team work.
By contrast, I was watching the talent show series "America's Got Talent" which had its season finale on Wednesday. There were a handful of finalists any one of which I would have been thrilled to see win. While there could only be one winner, they were all worthy. Hard work and sacrifice, real passion for what they were doing, and accountability for their own performance were the common traits. If Jackie Evancho, the 10-year old with the amazing voice, faltered on a certain note in front of an audience of millions there would be no one else to point the finger at. That's a harsh but incredibly valuable lesson for anyone, especially such a young child, to learn.
I may tune in from time to time to catch more of The Apprentice, but if the current crop of contestants reflects the current state of what's best in American business then I'm afraid recovery is going to be a long time coming.
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