Is All Fair In Love And Business?

I just finished watching The Apprentice: Los Angeles and I have mixed feelings about the actions of the competitors.

For the first time the teams were competing on common ground for the same customers. In previous tasks they were in seperate locations so the competition was for results alone as they came together in the board room to compare their sales.

Because they were in the same place at the same time – they were able to watch each other’s tactics and respond to them.  At first it looked like the Kinetic team had a winning idea by being on roller skates, they were intercepting buyers before they could get to the Arrow tables – but Arrow turned the tables and used loud speakers to announce they would get free water only if they buy from a table – not a person on roller skates.

On at least one occassion an Arrow team member interrupted a Kinetic sale in progress and told the customer they would get a better deal at the table.  Some of the customers clearly found this irritating.

It was all very cut throat and distasteful in my opinion.  It is one thing to shout out enticements – it’s quite another to insert yourself right into a competitors conversation in order to steal the sale.

In conversation before the board room the Arrow team shows no remorse for their behavior.  One quotes Donald Trump from a book where he says to ‘crush your competition’ – and as it turns out they were right.  Donald responded favorably to their aggression and felt they had done nothing wrong.

I’m not suggesting that if Arrow hadn’t been complete jerks that Kinetic would have won – it appears that Kinetic had a better set up overall.  It’s just too bad that we didn’t get to see them win strictly on the merits of their plan.

Do you agree that ‘whatever works’ is justified? 

I don’t.  If you win because you were the most obnoxious and literally pushed and prodded you way to the win – I don’t respect that. 

I am competitive, but I place a high value on people.