The premier of the third season of Celebrity Apprentice certainly provided lots of grist for the gristmill and the portent of intriguing things to come. 

Several themes emerged during the first episode, which had the teams (divided by gender) run a New York diner for a few hours: 

  • Cindi Lauper was an ineffective leader for the women’s team and Holly Robinson Peete demonstrated the concept of “emergent leadership” in the vacuum left in Lauper’s wake. 
  • Bret Michaels, leading the men’s team, proved that sometimes the best project management strategy is to get out of the way and let team members do what they do best. 
  • Carol Liefer was fired, despite Lauper’s dismal performance, because she didn’t curry the favor of her teammates. 
  • Donald Trump has lost all pretense of civility, even while blathering on about how the country is suffering and he is doing the show to help (???), and he blasted out of the starting gate with stunning vulgarity.

The Lesson Learned that I want to focus on this week is Lauper’s failure to align her efforts with the organization’s goals.  As a project manager, you know that you have a project to deliver.  Success means finishing your project on time, within budget and delivering complete scope, no more or less.  But as my friend Candace Lopez of Bright Blue Marketing likes to ask, what is “The Big So What”?  So what if your project is on time?  What does it mean to the organization?  While the goal of your project may be to complete a new software application, the goal of your organization is to deliver a competitive new solution to the marketplace.  Ignoring the larger goals, The Big So What, is a mistake.  It’s not enough to keep your head down and focus on your project; you need to be working for what is important to the organization as a whole if you are going to be a valuable asset. 

In the vernacular of Celebrity Apprentice, the goal is to raise money for charity.  As soon as the task started the men’s team, Rocksolid, pulled out their cell phones and started “smiling and dialing” to get their friends with deep pockets to visit their dinner and spend -  on a $250 serving of truffle risotto prepared by celebrity chef Curtis Stone.  On the other hand, the women’s team, Tenacity, seemed to spend a great deal of time in the details of the task, without ever focusing on The Big So What, which was raising money.  This led to several tactical mistakes, from their low price points to their lack of personal appeals to donors to their failure to turn the tables in the diner fast enough to accommodate everyone in line. 

In the end, Rocksolid raised nearly $58,000, twice what the women’s team did, and the boss was not happy, bringing Tenacity into the boardroom for a showdown and firing Carol Liefer. 

In his book, The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins offers advice for new employees during their first three months on the job.  “Whatever your own priorities, pinpoint what your boss cares about most and aims for some early wins in those areas”, he counsels.  Even though Cindi Lauper survived to play another week, taking this advice might have prevented her first loss as a project manager.

Please join us on Twitter during the next episode to discuss the drama as it unfolds.  You can find the conversation be searching for #celebrityPM.