Category: Life

Just as I predicted in an earlier blog entry, Randal is the apprentice.

I don’t think he won by coincidence either. In my mind, he is no doubt the most qualified candidate this year, if not the most qualified ever.

He exhibits many traits that contributed to his victory. First of all, he’s smart, with so many different degrees, he’s actually over-qualified for this job. Secondly, he is a natural leader. He works well with people, lead by example, and trust and respect the people he works with. Thirdly, he is very strong in organizational and communication skills. And finally, he handles emotions well. You all remember that his grandmother passed away at the beginning of the whole process, Randal actually took time-off from the show to attend her funeral service. It would be hard to recover from such tragedy, however, he was able to gather himself and performed the jobs assigned to him extremely well. I honestly don’t know if I could have handled it as well myself if it were to happen to me. People like Randal will do well regardless where they work, and I myself am learning to become such a person.

However, Randal won not just by being himself. People often make the mistake of attributing victories solely to someone’s character. Randal also worked hard, and thus had an outstanding record. I do think he made a mistake of not paying more attention to the weather forecast for the final task. However, we all make mistakes, how to deal with these mistakes is what tells good leaders from others. I think Randal handled the situation well, he made a decision to move it indoors, and committed himself and his team to make the event a success nevertheless.

Now, we come to the other finalist, Rebecca. I didn’t realize she was so young, only 23 years old. She acts in a mature and professional manner, so it’s easy to have thought her of being older. I admire her audacity of persevering through her broken ankle. She’s another example of people distinguising themselves by dealing with and overcoming adversity.

I never imagined that she would go so far. I thought she would be eliminated through the interview process, which didn’t take place this year. She was good at what her does, however, she really just started to shine toward the end, especially when she was teamed up with Randal. So her later success might be the result of her teaming with Randal, but doing regression analysis on the correlation will be impossible because the data is not there. She has a long road ahead of her, and she will be even more successful as she gains more experience.

One thing surprised me was Donald’s decision to fire both Alla and Felicia in one sitting. I thought that was a wrong decision by Donald, giving up Alla, who seems to possess all the right skills and characteristics of someone who works for Donald. However, after her comment on Rebecca on the finale, I wasn’t so sure she’s the right choice for the apprentice. There are people who see the world in binary mode, black or white, good or evil, smart or foolish etc… However, the world is much more complex than what can be described in binary bits. I think what ultimately failed Alla was her simplistic views of people and her abrasiveness, both are counter-productive in a business environment. People are not simple, they have many motivations, diverse background, values, and principles. It’s also difficult to pin the failure of any particular task to a single person (well, unless that person is Marcus, but I digress). It’s also tempting to focus entirely on someone’s negative side, even in the boardroom. I think her hammering of Felicia was perceived negatively in that boardroom, and ultimately resulted in her ousting. She’s also quite abrasive, meaning she lacks the finesse to influence without offending. It’s someone hard to do, and this is what distinguish Randal from her, he can lead without being perceived as forcing things on people.

This season is definitely better than last (third) season, on par with season 1, and maybe not as good as season 2, although I’m biased because I got hooked on season 2. This season there was no colorful characters like Omarosa or Sam. The rewards were not as nice, and the tasks were not as diverse (mostly product promotion).

I heard the Apprentice is coming to LA this year, hopefully it will remain as energetic and entertaining.

Job well done Randal, congratulations.

There are TV shows I like, and there are TV shows I love. The Apprentice falls squarely in the second category.

I got hooked on The Apprentice during the second season after reading somewhere that some business schools started using it as teaching material to show business students the way business works.

At the time, I was working mostly in technology, and didn’t appreciate the business side of things very much. Then I started watching The Apprentice.

The more I watched it, the more I realized that the people competing for the job is not unlike the people I work with. They come in from different background, with their own strength and weaknesses. It’s refreshing to see people work together under a tight time-line, and try to outsmart each other.

The second season was great, I enjoyed it greatly. After it was over, I went out and bought the first season DVD, which I thought was as good as, if not better than the second season.

I got to see how people make good and bad decisions, how the lack of team cohesiveness is an indicator of success, how one person’s negative attitude can bring down the whole team, how people clashes because of their personality, how mis-communication is the root of a lot of these problem, and how a good leader behaves and handles things.

There is no one clear indicator of success, but a few that stood out are: good communication amongst team members, assigning goals and responsibilities according to people’s strength and preference, focus on the goal, individual loyalty to the team, the artful ways of resolving differences.

The show is not without its flaws. It’s too short, and because it’s for TV, it’s tend to be more sensationalistic than more down-to-earth. At the beginning of the second season, they started putting out these extended versions on Saturdays, which I found great. However, middle of the season, they stopped doing that. I guess it’s not making the numbers. Also, the show is focused on conflict and the problems during each task, which definitely entertains, but it’s important to also focus on what people do well and how they do them.

This year, Donald changed the ruled during the middle of the season by firing four people during one episode and two during last night’s episode. I thought these are quite dramatic measures which removed some potentially great candidates for the job.

Last night, both Brian and Marshawn got fired.

Now, I think Brian deserved it, it’s his decision to leave late for the important meeting that ultimately resulted in the team’s failure to meet client’s expectation. I’m not so sure about Marshawn. Her mistake was that she saw the tasks is going down the drain, and try to save her own behind by refusing to do the presentation. If I were her though, I would’ve tried extra hard on making a good presentation. You can not stay safe by shying away from challenges, instead, you need to face up the challenge, and do the best you can. If that’s not enough to get you hired, then fine, but at least you tried and you should be content with the result. But when you shy away from a task that is assigned to you, and you gladly accepted, you need to take up the challenge and deliver. In the worst case scenario, you will fail along with the rest of the team. However, if your team lose yet you did a phenomenal job, people will see that and decide it’s not your fault that the task failed, and you’ll look much better than the people who did not do so well.

I think Clay will be gone within couple of episode just because he doesn’t work well with the team. I think Randal will ultimately win this year’s contest. He’s smart, diligent, works well with people, communicate well, and has a high EQ. Alla may be the one to compete against Randal in the final tasks. The others will be gone during the interview process (by the executives).

This season, they didn’t have colorful characters like Sam or Raj. So far, this season is much better than season 3, which was a total disaster.

I hope you get to enjoy it as much as I do, may you can leave me a comment on who you think will win this year.