Take Care of Your People: The Story of Showrunner Shonda Rhimes

I’ll begin this story at the end with the following headline, “Showrunner who has made network billions of dollars, denied one free Disneyland pass by employer.”

If you don’t know Shonda Rhimes by name, you for sure know her television credits. Rhimes is the producer, writer, creator, and showrunner behind ABC hits like Grey’s Anatomy, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder to name a few. Since hitting the television world, Rhimes has created hit after hit with her production company Shondaland, and ABC has been able to benefit from her brilliant writing mind. She has made billions for a network that like so many, have struggled to maintain viewers in a fragmented media market.  

Rhimes is a Dartmouth educated, self made millionaire who has turned heads since entering the production scene. She began her career making short films and working as a Research Director. Like so many trying to make it in Hollywood, Rhimes grinded her way through the business to eventually break out with ABC and Grey’s Anatomy. When ABC learned of the talent they had, they locked her down in a multi-year contract to ensure she would only be producing content for them.  

Showrunner’s like Rhimes are hard to come by. Over the last twenty years, there are only a handful of names tied to a network that have been as successful as her. Fox has Seth Macfarlane with Family Guy and The Orville, CBS has Chuck Lorre behind hits like Two and a Half Men and Big Bang Theory. Each network works incredibly hard to find, nurture, and take care of a talented showrunner as they are the gasoline behind content that makes money and keeps eyes on your channel.  

Finding a talented showrunner is no different than hiring talented employees for coveted roles. Producers, writers, and content creators fuel network success and keeping them happy is job number one. The same rule applies in corporate America as finding talented employees for coveted roles is always difficult; keeping them happy should be the easy part. Unfortunately, companies and leaders can often forget how valuable their assets are and they fail to invest in them.  

As a Showrunner, Rhimes was in constant battle with ABC over budgets, creative ideas, push back on content, and other items. Networks tend to try and control every aspect of the content as they feel they know what viewers want; they tend to be wrong. Steve Jobs was once famously quoted as saying, “it doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do.” In the case of Rhimes, she was paid millions of dollars by a network that was supposed to let her do whatever she wanted to do. They did the opposite.  

The final straw that broke it all was when Rhimes was given an all-access Disneyland pass, valued at $154 for the day, that failed to work. Rhimes’s Nanny, sister, and children were denied entrance into the park and called her for help. Like anyone would do, Rhimes called a network Executive asking for help. Rather than say something along the lines of, “absolutely, we will get it taken care of immediately,” the Executive instead said, “don’t you have enough already?” This final straw of frustration caused Rhimes to ask her lawyer and agent to get her out of her ABC contract immediately. The network that came calling was Netflix with a nine figure deal and Executives that leave her alone to make brilliant television.  

As the Jobs quote goes, why would we hire talented people and tell them what to do, not listen to them, and then argue or push back on their needs? It makes no sense to me, yet we see it happen all the time in the corporate environment. Talented employees want the space to roam, be creative, and innovate. Talented employees are hard to come by while mediocrity is a dime a dozen. If we want to hire robots to do whatever we tell them to do, those people are available. If ABC wanted to pay ten cents on the dollar for first time Showrunners, they absolutely could have.  

I believe the reason that leaders fail to take care of their people, give them room to run, and reject their ideas is out of insecurity and a lack of overall understanding of their role as a leader. ABC lost one of the most talented minds in television over a series of events. The day pass to Disneyland wasn’t the only thing, but it became symbolic of how much fight a group of Executives could give to someone they deemed as an incredible talent.  

Taking care of your people is easy and it’s not about snacks, nap rooms, and free lunch. (although sure people love those too) Taking care of your people is about doing what’s right, listening to their ideas, helping them grow, and giving them the room to run. Poor leaders who are afraid their employees are more talented than them tend to push back on simple things, I believe to maintain some form of ridiculous dominance. If you’ve ever worked for a leader like this, your career most likely was oxygen starved for growth until you suffocated to the point of quitting.  

Perhaps ABC thought they were adding value by pushing back on projects and ideas. This is maybe their way of thinking they were helping Rhimes to work through the creative process. Instead, it caused frictions to the already exhausting creative process of sleepless nights. Rather than ABC give Rhimes the keys to a budget and saying, “we’ll be here when you need us,” they in turn lost their most talented Showrunner to the business model that has been threatening them for years.  

Imagine your most talented employee going to work for your competitor, and not just any competitor, the competitor that is eating away at your market share every month. Imagine knowing that because you failed to take care of one of your most important employees, they signed a deal to leave you and do the exact same work that you needed them to do. Imagine being the leader that drove them out because you were a short minded individual who failed to do the little things to keep them happy.  

Rhimes didn’t leave over a Disneyland pass, she left over a lack of respect for her talent.  

Take care of your people. Give them space to succeed. Listen to their needs and help them. 

by Scott Bond

Article Credit: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/shonda-rhimes-is-ready-to-own-her-s-the-game-changing-showrunner-on-leaving-abc-culture-shock-at-netflix-and-overcoming-her-fears