‘Apprentice’ not a test of corporate skills

The big question going into Thursday night's finale of “The Apprentice 3” is not, “Who will become Donald Trump’s next apprentice?”

The question is, “How is his show going to fill another hour without the help of Regis Philbin?”

While viewers will be spared a three-hour, audience-infested finale this season, last week’s episode covered most of what we’d expect to see this week. Tana and Kendra completed their tasks and faced off in the boardroom; as we left them, they were waiting nervously in the lobby for their team members to report back to Donald and friends. After that, there can't be much left.

Besides covering most of the material viewers would expect the last episode to include, last week’s episode also seemed to strongly suggest who will win. Based upon the way the tasks were shown, there doesn’t seem to be much doubt that Kendra will be Donald Trump’s first female apprentice. Although Tana is smart and competent, Kendra seems like the obvious choice because of the way she handled the final task.

Was Tana's task tougher?
The tasks handed to the final two candidates on “The Apprentice” typically involve coordinating a number of people and smaller events at a large venue, and that held true in this, the show’s third season. Tana was assigned to manage the NYC 2012 Athlete Challenge, while Kendra ran the Best Buy Video Game World Championships.

Tana’s task appeared to be considerably more complex, at least logistically, and the episode focused on a number of her fumbles. She left New York governor George Pataki standing outside with nothing to do; she couldn’t find an American flag to be included in a processional; brochures that were printed all had to be trashed because of an embarrassing error. Meanwhile, after an initially icy reception from her corporate sponsors, Kendra’s event seemed to progress almost flawlessly.

Both the final boardroom grilling from Trump and the penultimate episode itself suggested that the candidates’ ability to manage and interact well with their teams was central to their success or failure. Although managers must be able to control and organize people, who are never perfect, Tana and Kendra’s teams were clearly selected based upon their abilities to screw things up. Donald Trump admitted this in a voiceover that preceded last week’s episode, as he called Kendra and Tana’s helpers “the most difficult members of their original teams.”

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