Podcast: Getting Stove-piped
Listen to Riley and Raluca’s commentary on episode five right here.
Now that a little dead weight has been thrown overboard, the contestants get to draw up a commercial for a cruise liner. After watching Dan get tossed, the Apprenti had some questions and some answers.
- Optimization of Resources—When there are too many cooks in the kitchen, teams begin to break down. The Apprenti think this was a mostly poor choice by the producers, not a failure by the teams.
- Risk Analysis—Plotting, scheming, and pondering victory all come down to effective risk analysis. Why five minutes of brainstorming could have alerted Dan and Roxanne to the task’s pitfalls. Learn more about Qualitative Risk Analysis and Quantitative Risk Analysis.
- Who Gets Fired: Ownership of Ideas vs. Leader’s Decisions—Riley and Raluca ponder absurd and not-so-absurd reasons why Dan got fired.
We’ve also got a new introduction and fresh “Things to Look For.” (Though we haven’t thought of a better name for this section and for that we are deeply sorry.) Tune in or tune out, we don’t care, but please download our podcast.
posted by Riley @ 10:27 PM
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6 Comments:
Guys - a great podcast. I appreciate how you take this show and weave in project management and real world principles.
The problem is - as a reality show, the players are all flawed from the get-go. I don;t mean they arent successful.. but most are a success on their own.
Place a group of independent type A;s into a team and you will have chaos - which we have seen. And where, as you point out - to many cooks.. the problem is no one wants to be seen as the waitress or busboy.
Secondly, many of these episides are filmed over a 3 day period.It is likely that a lot of activity occured before they got on the ship, that we never see. if true, then that also supports your to many cooks notion, but with limited on-aire time everyone wants to be see with the ladel in their hands.
Lastly, as I discuss on ApprenticeViews, Dan's firing was mostly for showing weakness (stating that he didnt want to bring both lenny and lee in as a formidable foe) and that - with Trump's ego dan did not take up his hints to bring lenny in. Unlike real world, there is a strategy to winning this game. And it amazes me how most participants don't take the time to study the prior seasons. Even the prior episode. Theresa was fired for not bringing in Charmaine. Dan was fired for not bringing in Lenny. Both had received hints that this is the more favorable direct - and neither picked up on Trumps hints. Right or wrong, it became clear to Trump that neither of these candidates can take his subtle hints and run with them.
But in addition, althought his might not have been known to Trump -- as you stated - Dan accepted tarek's plan for no voice over... and that exonorated tarek. He also endorsed Lennys idea - and this exonarated Lenny. No one was left to take the blame except Dan.
So unlike (or sometimes like) business - there are strategies within strategies. Think politics, where you may delegate to someone you perceive as a threat and give some tacit endorsement, but when the project fails you have enought ammo to say that you, in good faith delegated to Bob and he failed.
Hey geart podcast but do you have a RSS feed of all the PODCASTS?
You bet.
Click on "Subscribe to podcast" (or "Subscribe to blog" if you want the text feed) off the home page OR just copy http://feeds.feedburner.com/apprentipodcast into your feed reader.
Hey Stephen. Couple different things going on here that I'd like to address...
First, you're absolutely right about the show being inherently flawed. I was thinking about this last night and I want to do a more in-depth commentary on this for next week's podcast, but the general thought is this: where's the talent? I mean, are these really the best and the brightest of the business world? No. And from that moment forward the show is flawed.
Second, Raluca and I have been having real issues with Trump's leadership. I think great leaders and also great team players. Great leaders don't show weakness, but acknowledge the truth and process human reactions. It's been bloody obvious that the PM was getting ganged up on. I applaud Dan for recognizing the game and stating it out loud.
And here we get back to the first point, which is that whenever you begin with the assumption that someone will be fired, you have the PM setting up his own people for the fall. It's tragic and corrosive to team building. That brings us to Bryce and next week's podcast. I shall say no more.
Um... I don't actually watch anything involving Donald Trump, but I'm a big fan of these two Apprenti, so I thought I'd stop by and say "hi." Yay, I'm done with student-teaching!
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