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You're Fired! Success Tips and Tricks from Celebrity Apprentice


The latest season of Celebrity Apprentice recently completed and Leeza Gibbons won the $250,000 grand prize for her charity, Leeza’s Care Connection, a charity to support Alzheimer’s patients, those with other chronic illnesses, and their caregivers. If you have never watched this show, that it is a game designed to look and feel like a business, under the watchful eye of Donald Trump, who can terminate those who are not performing. Much like in the real world of work, there are secrets to success. Winning Celebrity Apprentice is like winning the world of work and workforce development.
 
Clearly Defined Roles based on Strengths - The best project managers knew the job that needed to be done and they knew the strengths and weaknesses of their team. The best project managers had people work on tasks that met their strengths.  This was key to winning a project. If the wrong people were doing the job, it would lead to failure. If a team had a great team member, but was assigned to the wrong job, the team would fail. Project Managers needed to use people to where they could be the greatest.
 
Follow the Plan- Each week the Project Manager had to develop a plan for the ultimate task. In the beginning of each weekly project, there was a meeting to determine how the team would approach the plan and delegate the work.  Successful winning teams not only developed a plan, but the plan was followed by the Project Manager and the team. If a Project Manager swayed from the course, the team would become confused, lose confidence in task completion, and ultimately this would lead to a team not winning for the week.  Team members needed to know how they fit into the plan. In Celebrity Apprentice, the loosing team, would have a team member fired by Donald Trump.
 
Drama is for Theater, Not Business! -  There were many times in the approximately 12 weeks of the show where the thing that got in the way of a successful outcome was people. More specifically, it was people fighting and bickering with other people. It was personalities that clashed and some that made power plays. Big egos got in the way of the work. While this makes great reality television, the truth is that it does not make for great business.  In the Celebrity Apprentice, each contestant on the show is a celebrity. Some are actors and reality television stars that make their living on dramas, but truth be told each time the drama made ratings, it did not make for a team winning the challenge. Individuals all have different perspectives because they come from different circumstances and may be from different generations.  It is important in any business, including workforce development, to take all the perspectives into consideration. It is also important to not allow the personality conflicts get in the way of getting the job done.  
 
Know Your Audience- Many of the challenges in Celebrity Apprentice were fundraising or marketing challenges that required a team to get others to invest in their project or for a client to buy the end result.  Sometimes doing something risqué can pay off, but other times it can lead to disaster. For each task, the audience needed to be considered.  Same is true in real life. For example, in workforce development, there are materials written for workforce development professionals and then there are materials written for job seekers. Celebrities selling bread, hotels, or boat tours is the same thing.
 
Step Up or Get Fired - In teams there are those that do, those that talk about doing, and those existing. It doesn’t matter what your role is. One week a person could be a project manager, the next, the same person could be shopping for props for a commercial. It doesn’t matter what a job is, if you don’t do your job, you can get fired. Many times in the show if there were people that were not performing, they blamed others, didn’t like the direction the project manager gave or were not capable of doing the job. Sometimes it was the Project Manager that got fired. There were times when a person would over promise and under deliver. Promises were meaningless. Performance was key to success.  When the project was complete, non-performers got fired. The reason for non-performance did not matter to Donald Trump.
 
When all was said and done there were so many jewels of wisdom to take away. Whether you are reading this as workforce development professional, looking to counsel your job seekers or a workforce development professional looking to climb the career ladder, there were nuggets of wisdom. The most interesting thing was that when the team was the right combination of the right people, each utilizing their strength, acting in a professional manner to get the job done, it was magic. Many times a business like workforce development might look at a successful project or team and try to copy that success in another location or market.  The whole success is the sum of its parts.  
 
Thank you for reading. Until next time, enjoy some reality television. Feel free to email me at kcirincione@gmail.com or post below. ~ Karen Cirincione - Reality Workforce Development Professional

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