This is one of the more confrontational episodes that I have seen so far, but at the same time it was very interesting I thought. Team Arrow and Team Kinetic are no more now as everyone had to break up in three teams of two. The team pairs were James and Stefani, Kristine and Nicole with the last pair being Frank and Heidi.

Originally Frank wanted to team up with Nicole, but when asked who she would want to team up with she brought up how Tim was fired and that she was worried that people would think that she would be distraught over that which would affect her work. Frank then asked if she was emotionally hurt over that which got her riled up as she took offense to it. Talk about the wrath of a women scorned. Kristine thought that it was a great opportunity to show that she is better than Heidi which ultimately led to the pairings that we see.

For the task this time around, the teams had to do a task for Trump where in Las Vegas he built a building called Trump International Hotel and Tower which is already sold out. Because of that, he decided to build another one and he wanted the teams to create an advertising and promotional campaign for it. The team that had the worst campaign, which would be determined by his son and himself, would be the two people to get fired.

Whenever you do a presentation it is important to establish a theme for it as demonstrated here. James and Stefani came up with “The Height of Luxury”, Kristine and Nicole’s was “Gold Has Never Been So High” and Frank and Heidi didn’t seem to have a theme initially. It seemed that the only pair who saw eye to eye and functioned well together was James and Stefani. The other pairs seemed to constantly clash in terms of personality and work style. Essentially, they all took footages of the building and came up with a video and brochure to present.

James and Stefani was up first and their presentation was very organized and appealing. Kristine and Nicole’s presentation was a complete disaster. At first they couldn’t get the presentation to display and for the entire presentation their speeches seemed very slurred at times as it didn’t seem like they were very confident in it at all. A big detail came up though as Trump noticed that in the brochure that they made there were different numbers listed. It turns out that one of the numbers was to another company that isn’t even affiliated with Trump and Kristine was at fault for that.

Frank and Heidi’s presentation wasn’t too good either as the lack of an established theme made the whole thing a little weird. Heidi appeared as if she was improvising the whole thing based on tidbits of information about the building. In the end Heidi mentions their theme was “World Class Luxury” as Trump was confused on what the theme was about. The brochure was also not very appealing as it consisted of mostly a black page with a lot of text information. As apparent, James and Stefani won the task and because of how bad the other two teams have done, instead of getting rid of two people from one team Trump decided that he wanted to fire one person from each team.

For Frank and Heidi it came down to the brochure. Heidi was extremely distressed over the situation as everything she said was inconsistent and Frank simply stood his ground and called her out on that. He pretty much gave her no room to breathe and it wasn’t even close I thought. It was one of the more vicious battles I have seen so far and ultimately Heidi just kind of gave up and Trump eventually decided to fire her. Without even hesitating or giving her a chance to speak, Trump then immediately said that Kristine was fired as well as a result of her placing the wrong number on the brochure. She tried to save herself, but it didn’t help at all. Here are some clips from it:

I thought this episode actually showed a lot of useful information and it’s good that the candidates don’t have to sleep in those tents anymore. I personally don’t think that added any value to the program. Kristine’s incident was interesting as there are times where I hear people in a working environment say things such as “People screw up and so it should be acceptable”. It’s interesting because everyone has their own opinions on what constitutes as too big of a mistake.

I was told an example before where a person who was working for a company was dealing with a customer that claimed a certain product was cheaper than what was listed. Now the employee wasn’t too knowledgeable about it herself and figured that the customer was right as she was shown a sign that kind of made it look like she was right. While the product should normally be $400+, she sold it to the customer for about $50. The box color and all was the same, except think of it as kind of like a software product where one is a basic version and one is a complete one. To her, it was simply a “Oh well, people make mistakes”. Some people would consider that okay. To me, there are too many things wrong about that with the most important one being that the person didn’t really care about her error. I mean, an 800% difference is huge and imagine if it was something bigger.

I guess the important thing in these types of situations is that you be true to who you are while at the same time being genuinely accountable for what you do.

There sure was a lot of drama this episode. It started to feel like a scripted soap opera where bad events happened right on cue. The episode started off where it left off last time in regards to questioning about Tim’s loyalty and whether or not he is a disloyal person as Trump made a comment about that before. Tim then got placed on the spot as his team questioned and tried to figure out if he was on their side or Nicole’s. Basically, he was like a punching bag with targets everywhere as there wasn’t really one answer that he could give that would result in repercussions. Love life and business is a dangerous thing to mix up I guess.

The task this time around was that the two teams would create an advertising supplement that would be issued with the Los Angeles Times newspaper for a product called Smart Mouth. The product is basically a mouth wash and so the two teams had to create the advertisement ranging from taking photos and designing the advertisement piece. Whichever piece the executives of Mouth Wash liked the most would win.

Team Arrow’s approach was to use everyday people in a photo shoot to act as if they woke up with very bad morning breath to show that this product was for everyone. On top of that, part of the advertisement would also include some very scientific details on how the product works. Team Kinetic went for more of an emotional appeal approach where the girls on the team decided to use themselves as the models. Basically, the advertisement portrayed the product as being used by glamorous people/professionals. They also included an advertisement design that looked like the paper was shaped like the product itself.

Members of Team Arrow seemed to be on different wavelengths as they didn’t seem to be united. Nothing seemed to be going their way as well as they showed one part where their cell phone batteries died and so they couldn’t communicate with each other. In the end, Team Kinetic’s approach was favored more as the executives commented on how Team Arrow’s piece was confusing in comparison.

In the boardroom the main issue that was brought was about Tim’s loyalty again and how that caused a ruckus with the team which affected their performance. So again, he was the target of scrutiny. When he was asked that question again on whether or not he was loyal to Nicole or the team, he tried to go with the safe answer on how neither of them are mutually exclusive. That kind of placed him in the bad light right away. Overall, it came down to Frank and team as the keyword for the loss was “distraction” and so they were both trying to show how one was worse over the other.

Trump gave a very interesting comment when James was arguing with Tim. He mentioned how he loved to watch people when they lose as you learn a lot about them during those moments. I can definitely agree with that on how a lot of people show their true colors during really hard times. Tim’s last resort was to imply that Frank is more of an errand type of person whereas he can do that and so much more. Frank countered pretty viciously by saying how this is an interview process and that if Tim was serious he wouldn’t have got himself mingled up in a relationship. Tim responded by saying that’s life, but that didn’t bode too well with Trump as it was clear to him that Nicole was a distraction to him despite him saying otherwise. As expected, Tim was fired. He made a funny comment at the end saying “I am going to be grayed out on the NBC website now. I hate that”.

I’ve personally only seen a workplace romance take place once in my lifetime so far in very serious way and it sure was a distraction for everyone. You knew that when those two had an office meeting that it wasn’t entirely business related. Although, I have definitely read stories of it working out for many too. Either way, it’s pretty hard to imagine how getting involved with someone in a work/business related environment would not hinder your performance in some way. In a kind of related example, I once saw a couple who was married and the wife was actually the owner of the company. The husband was the second in command it seemed but he still argued back as if he was the boss. I think in a regular circumstance he would have been fired or disciplined but you know that would have just come up later outside of the workplace. It’s like a no win situation.

Some people would say that you just have to learn to control your urges and emotions in these situations as there is a time and place for everything. Is there such a thing as a compromise in this type of situation? Kind of hard to say, but for the most part I’d say it’s probably wiser to avoid getting involved with someone in these types of circumstances as while I’m sure you will receive a lot of initial satisfaction, you are setting yourself up for a lot of challenges as well.

I’d say competitiveness was the keyword for this episode and I thought there were a lot of interesting incidents that demonstrated how competitive you have to be when it comes to business. On top of that, being able to separate your emotions from making ideal business decisions can be tough at times.

In the beginning Team Arrow had to give up one of its members to balance out the two teams and James was told by Donald Trump to choose that one person. James felt that it had to be either Tim or Nicole as he felt they were both creative people which made the most sense to him as he could give up one person and still have a team with a balanced skill set. Of course, we all know how Tim and Nicole are like two lovebirds right now which made the situation more dramatic. Eventually, James decided that Nicole would be the one to go to Team Kinetic. Nicole took it very personal and was jazzed up to win the next task as it seemed like she really wanted to stick it to James.

The task for the two teams was to sell passes for Universal Studios Hollywood Theme Park using what they call an “Adwalker” system. The Adwalker system basically looked like a vest that you wear that had gear which enabled you to do transactions on the spot as it had things like a portable credit card terminal. It also had a screen on the vest that allowed people to watch multimedia products on it. On an off topic note, Donald Trump mentioned how he had the number one rated show on television. I’m not sure if that is entirely accurate as I would think something like American Idol would be the highest ranking show right now.

Team Arrow’s strategy was to have a very noticeable station with big signs that highlighted the annual pass prices for the theme park in hopes to draw customers to them. Team Kinetic decided to wear roller skates to travel around the theme park in hopes to snatch up sales by approaching as many potential customers as possible. Nicole then mentioned how she wanted to try and use sex appeal as well as it helps to sell things. This was also the first task where the teams were competing against each other in the exact same space at the same time.

It was pretty much cutthroat business as the two teams were all over each other. Team Arrow appeared to be the most aggressive though as they had no guilt or remorse in simply walking up to customers who were already being pitched by a member of Team Kinetic. On top of that, Team Arrow tried to further distinct themselves by broadcasting how if people purchased the passes through them that they would get free bottled water and was not something you could get from the people on roller skates.

Team Kinetic seemed to have been fairly bitter as a result of Team Arrow’s aggressiveness as they started to label them as slimy sales people that would do anything to make a sale. Basically, they were calling them unethical. In my opinion, there is a difference between being pro-actively aggressiveness and being shady. Frank on Team Arrow had an interesting quote where he said something like “If you care about the other team you are going down. If you worry about taking another sale from the other team you are going down”.

The initial reaction from most people over a quote like that is how the person must be so heartless and so fourth. As hard as it may be for many to swallow, that is how aggressive you have to be many times whenever it comes to something competitive. Now you should obviously do things within reason such as you don’t want to say violate any rules. In this case, there were mentions on how some members of Team Arrow were misleading others that their prices were cheaper which I’m not entirely sure of such as if they were able to set their own prices. But if that is the case, then that would be an example where I would agree that it is crossing the line between aggressive sales and bad business practices.

I personally hate it when people whine over aggressive business tactics though and then seeing them justify their own shortcomings by implying that they are too good to be like that so to speak. There is usually more than one way to do something and for this case if you can’t think of a way to outshine the other person’s strategy then you need to take accountability for that. In the end, Team Kinetic sold $24,440.37 in passes and Team Arrow sold $31,366.65 in passes.

An interesting scenario came up shortly after as Nicole confronted Tim on how she felt kind of hurt/betrayed that he didn’t really speak up for her when James decided that she would be the one to go to team Kinetic. Tim then got angry over that and mentioned how he felt that was a selfish thing for her to do and that it would be silly to try and argue over a decision like that which was business related. I guess for myself I can see both point of views. At the same time I think what Nicole said can be true for business as well which I personally analyze at times as well.

For example, there were times where I say helped and stood by a certain people when it came to business. I helped them accomplish great things and at the same time defended them when they were ridiculed by others. When I say defend I don’t mean in an emotional way like “This person is my best friend” type of thing but rather something more subtle along the lines of “This person is an important part of our growth” and so fourth. When it came to the other way around where they were in a position of power to do the same, they didn’t do anything and justified it by saying they didn’t want conflict with a higher up. I think that is kind of similar with Nicole’s example as the fact that nothing was said shows a lot. To me, it shows one’s character and loyalty as well which is important even in business I’d say.

In the boardroom, the blame game was on the roller skate idea and Angela mentioned how Nicole should be responsible for the loss as a result. On top of that, Angela used the fact that James sent Nicole over to Kinetic as a sign that she isn’t that strong of a candidate. However, that didn’t mesh out too well at the end as the entire team agreed that only the project manager could be blamed for the end decision. Trump seemed like he really did not want to get rid of Angela as she is an Olympic gold medalist. Eventually though, he decided to fire her which she became extremely emotional over.

This was kind of a complex but interesting episode I thought as there are so many examples of personal beliefs and values in one’s life and where you draw the line on something being entirely personal and business related is different for everyone.

There were a lot of perspectives in this episode where I’m sure a lot of people will be divided on. The two teams objective was to film and create a forty-five second webisode, which is essential a small episodic video show that is distributed online, where the purpose was to promote the cleaning product Soft Scrub.

Team Arrow seemed to have meshed very well it seems this time around. James was the project manager mainly due to him being one of the people who were on the chopping block last week and so this week was his chance to prove himself. While he did not much about film making, he relied on his teammates who were very passionate about it. As he mentions too, this can be a risk but I guess it’s better compared to him doing it having virtually no experience in it. Their webisode molded out as a story of a guy who was going to propose to his girlfriend and before doing so he had to clean the house up with Soft Scrub. Overall it turned out pretty good.

The drama between Muna and Kristine in Team Kinetic was growing even bigger this time around. For example, Kristine wanted Muna to be more involved on the production side that took place behind the camera whereas Muna kept insisting that she would be better in-front of the camera. Kristine eventually decided to simply allow Muna to do the acting. The production was a disaster as during the beginning of the shoot there wasn’t really anyone directing it as Kristine was out doing something else. Muna didn’t seem comfortable at all as her lines sounded like a fast blurb that made the story difficult to follow. Even I am having a hard time trying to remember how the story went. As you can tell, team Arrow won.

A touchy subject came up afterwards as since Team Kinetic lost as usual people began to talk about their thoughts before heading to the boardroom. Muna brought up religious points as she was reading the bible and how she believed that she will succeed in the boardroom with God looking over her. Kristine was reading some literatures that Trump wrote to hopefully find ways to communicate her points to him that he would understand. She then commented about Muna’s way of thinking on how God was not the decision maker in the boardroom and that Trump was. Basically, it looked like she was criticizing Muna for being so religious/spiritual about the situation when she thought that it should be more about down to earth business basics such as highlighting your positives and the other person’s negatives. I’m sure this will generate some heated debated from a lot of people.

In the boardroom another interesting point came up where Kristine was questioned on what happened with apparent blunders such as Muna’s acting and of course details about Muna insisting that she wanted to act in the webisode came up. The comment about that was how depending on how you look at it can be good or bad as simply allowing Muna to do it reduced the possibility of disruption as she could be bitter throughout the entire task and causing the team to be less productive. On the other hand, it could also be seen as a sign of weakness from a leadership point of view as instead of dealing with the problematic person one simply chooses to avoid it and go with the easy route.

That is one subject that I have seen so much personally where you have a high positioned manager or supervisor who instead of dealing with say a loose canon or disruptive person they simply allow them to do as they please as they are afraid to confront them. I’ve never seen this to be a good choice personally as people often see that as favoritism which ultimately costs even more productivity from your team as people tend to respect the person in-charge less. I’ve even seen some pretty ridiculous cases too where the person in charge doesn’t know what to do and despite everyone telling them on how disruptive the person is they still do things such as attempt to promote the person to keep them happy. In their mind, making that person happy so that they won’t cause a negative vibe to everyone else is somehow more effective than setting the person straight and making the rest of the team happy in a fair and consistent way.

Everyone seemed to have had a hard time just giving straight answers on who they would fire when asked the question. Overall, everyone said that they would rather keep Kristine over Muna. While the direction of the webisode played a big role in the loss, Muna made this comment on how she was like a lost sheep, or something along that line, as a way to show how vulnerable and lost she was to justify her acting performance and all. Trump saw right through that and re-emphasized on how he knows that she is a strong person and can’t really say that as if she can’t be held accountable for anything. That seemed to be the key moment as Trump then decided to fire Muna.

This was a very open ended episode I thought where depending on what side of the fence you are on you would probably see things completely different from a business perspective. This is one of the more thought provoking episodes I think so far in terms of determining what a good business decision is in certain situations.

This episode was kind of strange in the sense that some of the candidates seemed to switch personalities at the flick of a switch at times. The task for the two teams was to promote a health and wellness company called GNC with a half time event at a soccer game. The vice president of marketing for GNC would also be observing the events and which ever team’s event that he prefers would win.

As usual, everyone in Team Arrow appeared to dislike Surya. From the clips they were showing, Surya sure did look like a talker where he says things to simply try and make himself look good to others as oppose to being truthful about his opinions. In the beginning they showed him praising how great he thinks everyone is or that he is so happy that he changed teams and yet we all know from previous episodes on how he dislikes so many of them. For their theme, they decided that their half time show would be about a skinny guy in a boxing ring who was down in life and how taking GNC products made him better in everyway.

Team Kinetic seemed to be more jazzed up about winning since they have been on a losing streak and only having four members left due to two people getting fired last week. Kristine mentioned how she has a lot of experience with these types of things and so she decided to be the project manager. Their theme was to have people in GNC costumes racing through an obstacle course in which the obstacles were suppose to represent bad things like heart disease and how these GNC guys can still overcome them all to get to the finish line. A tiny conflict came up where Muna continually gave comments and doubts about Kristine’s decisions which offended her. So for Kristine she took it as an insult that she has all this experience and it seems like she is not trusted whereas Muna thought it was absurd that someone wouldn’t want to hear input. I guess I would have to agree with Kristine’s view on this one as there is such a thing as doing too much.

When the event began Team Kinetic’s event went very well with the crowd it seemed as everything was energetic and they did the event commentary in both English and Spanish which was interesting. Team Arrow’s event looked like it was poorly executed where in the beginning they started off by telling the crowd this long storyline on how “Joe” was depressed and all that stuff. James, who was in the GNC costume, then came out and was suppose to be a GNC vitamin. When “Joe” interacted with the vitamin, all of a sudden life became better. In the end, Team Kinetic was chosen as the winner by GNC’s vice president of marketing.

Before the boardroom, the most interesting part of the episode came up I thought. Because Team Arrow loss the challenge, Surya then went up to his old teammates and talked about how everyone is against him and that he regrets moving. Talk about a phoney. He says that he is so excited about this and that when things are going great only to contradict himself when things go bad. As always, it might be just due to the video editing, but he sure does look like a phoney person.

In the boardroom it was mainly James against Surya. Surya was trying to paint a picture that James is a disloyal person and used an example where initially James would agree to a plan and then at the last moment would express concerns about it as a way to cover himself if something happens. James tried to paint a picture on how Surya doesn’t allow people to fully express their thoughts and that he wasn’t a team player. During this scuffle it looked like Surya was actually winning due to Tim mentioning how Surya did actually encourage people to give out ideas. The negative about James appeared to stand out more. When Trump asked Tim on who he would fire he said Surya as the team would function well without him and maybe worse without James.

Surya then made this very odd comment and asked Tim on whether or not he agreed that he functioned better in a non project manager role. What an odd thing to say huh? That was the nail in the coffin as Trump expressed he wanted a leader and not someone who just functions well in a non leadership role. As a result, Surya was fired. I couldn’t believe Surya’s comments at the end where they interview the fired candidates in the car and how he was implying that he was so much better than the others. He also expressed how it was a mistake to fire him and that the best people don’t always win. Just those parts alone shows that the right person was fired, in my opinion.

All this about disloyalty and people being a phoney is very interesting I think as you see it all the time in business and other things as well. It is often hard to meet really genuine people I think and it is even more important for when you are doing business with people as you will tend to attract the same type of people that you frequently associate with. For myself, if I had to say pay more money to do business with someone who seemed more genuine then that’s what I would do as I would rather surround myself with those types of people.