Simple. Both know they're hired to be fired.
Most baseball managers, no matter their success, are eventually fired. The Yankees fired Casey Stengel after he'd won 10 pennants in 12 years. More recently they fired Joe Torre after the most successful pennant run in recent history (OK, technically they didn't renew his contract, but it was still a firing). Two of the most successful recent managers, Davy Johnson and Tony LaRussa, were fired by several teams. Occasionally the team will allow you to announce your retirement, like the Atlanta Braves are doing this year with Bobby Cox. But in almost all cases, baseball managers are fired.
A similar fate awaits those heading the entertainment divisions of the major networks or movies studios. Even Brandon Tartikoff only had twelve years as Head of NBC Entertainment. Why is that? The people who rise to these top jobs generally have creative flair, a successful track record, and competitive instincts. Why is it so hard to stay there?
Tastes change. What works one year may not work the next. The audience likes their favorite shows, but they also crave variety. For example, police procedurals like Law and Order, CSI, and NCIS are popular, but there is a law of diminishing returns. The next police procedural is less likely to be popular. And in all of those jobs, the goal is to predict public taste one, two, three, or even ten years in the future. No one can do that consistently over time.
So if tastes change, and it's difficult to pick the hits, what do we do as creators of projects? We make our projects as good as we possibly can. We work on several projects at the same time. We remember to be original -- Look for what's not being done, and put your own original spin on the material.
Finally, we should make friends with people at all levels in the business. This has two purposes: 1) You'll have more friends. You can never have enough. 2) You never know when today's development assistant may head the network tomorrow. Jeff Zucker, although he's leaving as head of NBC Universal, started as a research assitant on the Olympics.
So keep working. What have you done on your project today?
Is that a threat to programmers? Maybe they just have to do their work right to stay on their field.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I was just starting in the business one of our research guys said that video on demand would replace programmers in three years. We've had VOD and even the internet, but programmers are still here. However, very few of us are working at the same jobs with the same networks. That just shows the importance of building a network of people who like your work.
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