The Celebrity Apprentice

I have a guilty pleasure: reality television. I particularly enjoy Celebrity Apprentice. I am particularly excited about this season because of the phenomenal celebrities participating. Of note, Star Jones, Nene Leakes, Meat Loaf, Gary Busey and Lil Jon. Prediction: This will be explosive. To quote Donald Trump, "The circus is in town, and you are looking at the ringmaster."  For a little break from my more academic posts, I hope to review each episode of The Celebrity Apprentice this season. However, I hope to tie in some business analysis and theory application into my review and recap of the episode.

Spoiler Warning: I will disclose who gets "Fired," so do not read any further if you have not seen the season premiere of The Celebrity Apprentice.

This week's task: sell pizza to raise as much money as possible for charity.

The Contenders 
The Men: Team Backbone
Lil Jon: rapper, producer
Favorite Quote: "I cannot be associated with nothing lame." (This was in reference to some of the team names suggested).

David Cassidey: Star of The Partridge Family

Richard Hatch: Winner of the first series of Survivor, and spent time in federal prison for tax evasion
Favorite Quotes: "I'm always willing to be project manager...always."
"I think they're already confused, and it shows." (Referring to Latoya Jackson's inability to remember what the women's ASAP acronym stood for).

Gary Busey: Academy Award nominee (seriously) and regular star on Walker Texas Ranger
Favorite Quote: "Get in here and buy a pizza for $100, and I'll take out your garbage for a week."
"I am the peperoni prophet, and prophet is spelled P-R-O-F-I-T." This might be my favorite quote of the night.
One of my favorite quotes from the episode from Donald Trump came in reference to Gary Busey, "Gary, you're a piece of work."

Jose Canseco: former Major League Baseball star
Favorite Quote: "He's like a tyrant...I guarantee if we get into an argument all hell is going to break loose" (Referring to Richard Hatch and his "management approach."

Mark McGrath: singer of Sugar Ray

Meat Loaf: legendary recording artist

John Rich: Country Star

The Women: Team ASAP
Star Jones: lawyer and TV personality
Favorite Quote: I would rather get a hug from (dog) than have to take a Xanax. Admittedly, this is a paraphrase, but the quote was very similar. Apparently, Star's dog is a therapy type dog for her and she takes the dog everywhere, including to compete on The Celebrity Apprentice.

Lisa Rinna: Dancing With the Starts Contestant (uggh, I mean Soap Star)
Favorite Quote: While holding pizza dough, "this feels like a breast implant."

Nene Leakes: star of Real Housewives of Orange County

Niki Taylor: supermodel

La Toya Jackson: Singer and Sister of Michael Jackson

Hope Dworaczyk: American Model and Playmate of the Month

Marlee Matlin: Academy Award Winning Actress
Favorite Quote: "I didn't hear it," referring to Gary Busey's phone ringing in the boardroom.

Dionne Warwick: American Singer and Actress and U.N. Global Ambassador

By far, the best thing about this season so far is the dynamic celebrity cast. Although, I am a bit surprised by Mr. Trump's choice in Richard Hatch. I remember a couple seasons ago that Mr. Trump fired Khloe Kardashian because she had a DUI. Meanwhile, Hatch has spent time in federal prison for tax evasion.

The women quickly stepped up and nominated Star Jones as Project Manager. The men nominated Richard Hatch to be Project Manager. As indicated by my favorite quote of his, he is not afraid to step up to a challenge. Although, I have seen from previous seasons of The Apprentice that it is not always wise to volunteer to be project manager on the first task. One does not fully know the dynamics of the team, how individual players operate, or the strengths of each team member. Mr. Trump sometimes tells what the project will be about, before the teams must select a project leader. However, this time, he did not announce the task until after the leaders were selected. If I were competing, I think I would wait to step up as leader until after I knew what the task was. However, volunteering early does show initiative and leadership.

Richard's leadership skills are already in question. Other teammates quickly described him as controlling and aggressive. Micromanagement is never a positive management style to pursue. I would have recommended that Richard assess the various skills his teammates possessed and then assigned tasks accordingly. I have seen previous Apprentice contestants be fired, for failing to delegate. Efficient and productive delegation is an important management trait.

Star's strategy seemed to be to put all of the other women in charge of making pizzas, while she worked on marketing. The other women viewed this as Star not liking to get her hands dirty. I am a firm believer in leading by example. Star should have had someone else help her with the "graphic design" in order to finish it more quickly. There seem to be several artistic women that might be more suited to a graphic design project than Star Jones. Then, Star would have been done earlier to chip in and help with "the dirty work."

Lisa Rinna told Star Jones that the printed material looked great; then to the camera Lisa said the materials were useless. In a professional setting, it is never productive to blatantly lie. If Lisa did not like the materials, she should have either said nothing, or politely told Star that she did not like them. If she chose to politely tell Star, she should have specifically stated why she did not like printed materials and related it to the task. For example, "the text is in a font that is hard for me to read." By not saying anything about the materials, she creates a potential situation of triangulation. She looks disingenuous. This will inevitably work against her in the board room. Although, I was surprised to see that the marketing materials were not mentioned at all in the boardroom. Probably, because the women's team won.

Star tasked Dionne Warwick with running the debit/credit card machine. This was a mistake. Dionne couldn't grasp how to do it quickly, which resulted in a huge line. This was an operational flaw for the women. If I was in Star's place, I would have asked the women if any of them had retail experience, computer experience, or had specifically used this type of machine before. To me, it did not appear that Dionne was very computer savvy, and perhaps someone with more computer hands on experience would have been more efficient in this position.

Star decided to close the doors to the pizzeria early. This was a questionable decision given that she and her teammates were not able to make a delivery where a "sizable donation" awaited. The forsaken donation turned out to be $35,000. Mr. Trump inevitably decided to donate the $35,000 to the American Red Cross, Niki Taylor's charity, since Niki Taylor was named by Star as ASAP's best player.

There was a lot of discussion of Richard "striking" or pushing David Cassidey. If this did in fact happen, where were the cameras and why did they not show this happening. If this did happen, it is completely unacceptable, but I am just curious as to why it wasn't documented. Donald Trump actually thought it was interesting that David Cassidey even mentioned Richard brushing his arm. Mr. Trump seemed to think that most men would not make an issue of this like Cassidey did.

The boardroom was en fuego from the get go. Jose and Richard got into a yelling match over whether Richard pushed David Cassidey. Jose called Richard a liar and Richard called Jose unintelligent. I don't recommend getting into a yelling match with your co-workers; it's unprofessional (shocking, I know). Although, it made for great TV.

Richard brought Jose and David back into the board room for the final discussion in front of Mr. Trump. Ultimately, Mr. Trump let David go. He reasoned that David did not have as much fight in him as Jose and Richard. I agree with Mr. Trump that David Cassidey would not make a strong leader; however, I do not think that Richard Hatch is an effective leader. The team does not like Richard Hatch, but sometimes Mr. Trump keeps around disfavored contestants. As Ivanka Trump said in this episode, it does not matter whether the team likes the leader, it matters whether Mr. Trump, Ivanka, and Don Jr. like the leader. This is an important lesson to learn. While it is always better to get along with all of your colleagues, the most important relationship to maintain is that with one's supervisor.

I think Mr. Trump's quote at the beginning of the show sums things up, "The circus is in town, and you're looking at the ringmaster." I look forward to future episodes this season.

The Winning Team: ASAP
You're Fired: David Cassidey