This one was down and dirty, a perfect demonstration of how one bad
leader can turn things real bad, real fast.

This week’s project, the two teams “Book Smarts” and “Street Smarts”
were each given $20,000 to renovate their own vacant Motels on the
Jersey shore.

The units were in pretty bad shape, so their job was cut out for them.

Highlight of the show: The Donald telling the story about Vince
Lombardi being a tiny man, easily slapping around football players
twice his size – he got away with it because he won! Message being,
focus on winning in your business or market – above all the other
garbage – focus on winning and you will gain respect and success.

Best Line: “You will not know if you’re sitting on a $5 toilet or a
$50 toilet – you’re ass just won’t know the difference!”

Net Worth (Street Smarts) started fighting right away – project leader
(Brian) fighting with finance leader, things were off to a very rocky start.
In fact, the first 45 minutes was constant in-fighting, struggles
between the Net Worth team – wow, somebody call Dr. Phil! Brian took
some serious heat as the Project Leader.

Magna (Book Smarts): Focus on hospitality over design was a clear, early
decision by this team. They were well led, understood their goal,
and worked as a team to achieve great things.

Outcome: This one clearly went to Magna (Book Smarts) as Net Worth
completely self-destructed.

If I could have fired them all – I would have. Brian for being such
a crappy leader, and the rest of the team for turning their tales and
walking away.

This Week’s Lessons:

1. Given a limited budget, you need to prioritize first – agree on what
will make the biggest impact and budget accordingly.

2. Understand the top priority of your customers, AND PLAN TO MEET THAT
PRIORITY. Magna, fresh off their lesson on customer service last
week, decided – as a group – early to focus on service, hospitality
and customer service. Net Worth couldn’t get it together and thus
had no one, agreed upon direction – definitely missed the boat on
hospitality.

3. Leadership is tough. You don;t lead by delegating work. You
lead by developing and communicating a vision, inspiring your team,
working with those that are behind you and feeding off of that momentum.

4. They don’t call the travel and hotel industry “Hospitality” for
nothing – that’s the business, not fashion, design or furniture. Do
you really know what your customer thinks “Your” business should be
about? It may surprise you.

The prize – a yacht ride on “The Highlander” owned by Steve Forbes.
Wow – what a killer watercraft.

Hey we have a week – log your comments by clicking the “Comments” button below.
Let’s hear your opinions, what do you think?

Cheers…

Jeff