My former student, Amanda Hill, got the "good-bye" signal from Martha last night.  I haven't watched the episode yet, but on the website, the jist seems to be that Amanda was not a "team player."  Now, that may just be rhetoric, but it may also be true.  But maybe it's not her fault.  She went to law school.  Law school is competitive.  We all know the speech -- grading curves mean that others improve to my detriment and vice versa.  There are no team projects.  We do not grade on how well one works in a team.  (There may be some exceptions here, but bear with me.)  Amanda is up against MBAs who are used to working in groups and who do so at work. 

We did watch last week's episode, though, and I did want to give Amanda a call (assuming time travel).  I think Amanda felt that the goal of each task was to win.  Nope.  The goal is to contribute to your team's efforts in such a way that makes the team more likely to win but ensures that if your team loses that the project manager will appreciate your efforts enough not to tell Martha you should go.  Amanda played to win, even if she annoyed her team.  So, when her team finally lost, guess who got the boot?  I do think that Amanda was substantively a very strong player, though, so I'm sorry to see her go.  I think Dawna will be the winner.

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