Who is Liar and Who Will Connect with Chatri to be Chosen as "The ONE" - Episode 10 of The Apprentice

Paulina was asked to go after Week 10 of the competition as the Project Manager of the combined team in this week's Business Challenge - to host a trade event to attract clients for the Jakarta International Expo.

Chatri Wants to Get to Know the Last 5 Better

It may not be obvious at the beginning of Week 10 but after watching the entire episode, it seems that this is the theme.

Through the physical challenge (which there was none this week), Chatri had the opportunity to get closer to the Last 5 by having deeper conversations about the best part and the worst part in this competition so far.

Take this deeper. "The ONE" will be announced in just a few weeks as the Apprentice, the Protege and the Chief of Staff for Chatri. It is understood that Chatri would need to find out as much as possible from these candidates in making his final assessment to choose "The ONE".

In this boardroom conversation with Jessica, for example, Chatri appreciated her skill in sales, together with her charisma, her charm, her ability to upsell etc. But Chatri also said

"I don't really know you! I feel that you are very guarded about the rel you. I don't know why!"

That's the alarm or I should say a red flag for Jessica. If Chatri fails to "know" Jessica, it would mean that it is an obstacle for her to be chosen as "The ONE".

Jessica was quite talented in responding to Chatri's concern. She said, "you haven't gotten to know me well because I have never been at the Bottom Three".

And if I were Chatri, I would have nothing to respond to immediately because so far Chatri gave opportunities to the Bottom Three each week in the chopping block to share their personal story.

Were the Candidates Judged based on the Results?

The answer is "of course" and it's a no-brainer.

Having said that, Jessica is one of the top-performing candidates in this competition because she can sell and she ranked the top twice when the business challenges involved the candidates to sell.

By the way, Jessica was voted by the guests and the panel of judges as the top-performing candidates in sales as well this week.

The reason why I mentioned this is that if this is the criterion for Chatri to choose "The ONE', Louie would lose out because Jessica is better than Louie when it comes to selling.

The judges were impressed with Jessica. One of the judges made the following comment:

"I thought that Jessica was definitely a standout. She was the one that I felt, could really engage emotionally with the salespeople."

On the other hand, let's look at Louie. His energy was lower and the judges were not impressed with his energy and his ability to connect with the sales representatives at the emotional level. In any case, Louie was voted as one of the bottom three by the sales representatives in this event.

The fact that all four ladies voted themselves as the Project Manager but Louie decided to opt-out, is another indication that Louie wanted to play safe. It's been recorded and I am sure Chatri knows.

This makes me wonder whether Louie would end up as the chosen "ONE". Just three more weeks to go and Louie has to step up to get Chatri to notice him and earn his trust.

Why Was Paulina Eliminated?

It seems that Chatri did not want to send Paulina home but for the nature of the competition. Someone has to go each week.

The fact that Paulina was the project manager and Chatri regarded that the team took the safe path to do a stereotypical corporate event means that Paulina had to take full responsibility.

In Chatri's words, the presentation was dry and information regurgitating. When I watched the presentation, I totally agreed. In my words, the presentation is all about why me. Tbe basic principle in sales is to speak to the prospects to motivate them to say "Yes". Instead of about me, it should be about them. What are the benefits I can get by saying "Yes" to you? It's missing in the entire presentation.

And one thing I admired was Paulina's courage to take ownership of the team's failure. She said

I am the leader. I lead the team not having enough time to build strategdy and do more creative. We find that there's limitations on time. I will take [responsibility as the project manager].

You may see in the past weeks that other project managers from the losing team would find fault of other team members for the failure. The courage Paulina had to take responsibility for her team of 5's failure is something I have a lot of respect for.

She knows deep down by holding herself responsible and accountable for her team's failure would mean that she had a high chance to be eliminated.

Well, next week Chatri has said that he would eliminate two more candidates

Towards the end of Episode 10, Chatri said that he is going to eliminate two more candidates in the following week.

Who will be the two to be eliminated?

At this moment, Jessica is the strongest candidate among the remaining four for sure and Chatri has had a good impression of her at all times.

It means that the unfortunate two would likely come from Irina, Monica and Louie.

By looking at the track records of these three candidates, Irina is losing out.

Irina (Project Manager two times - 1 Win 1 Loss)

Louie (Project Manager two times - 2 Wins)

Monica (Project Manager two times - 2 Wins)

And also keep in mind that Irina was the Bottom Three in Weeks 9 and Weeks 10. Louie was only made the Bottom Three once in Week 10 while Monica was the Bottom Three once in Week 8.

Based on the track record once again, the first highly probable candidate to be eliminated should be Irina.

I personally would vote for Louie to be the finalist with Jessica but in Chatri's word, when Louie stepped up to fight against the accusation from Irina about his contribution, and Chatri said "someone is lying", it remains to be seen whether Louie will be able to gain the trust from Chatri. If Chatri feels that Louie is a liar, he will be gone.

We will see.

See you in my next article here on LinkedIn.

Jack HM Wong (Founder - Dragons Den Tigers Cave)

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