I think of myself first and foremost as a writer and so I want to make sure I have time available for writing. This can only happen if I trust my producing and writing collaborators and actively delegate portions of the day-to-day workload of the show to them.

As I’ve said, Showrunning/Executive Producing is an impossible job. It can’t be done by a single person. Many first time Showrunners believe the job requires that they make all the decisions, but nothing could be farther from the truth. You must accept that the show you've written and care deeply about, is going to be dependent upon dozens of other people working in concert with you and making many decisions on your behalf every day. Your success depends upon the quality of the team you’ve assembled, how you lead them, the management structure you put in place (meetings, schedules, deadlines), and the safe working environment you create that allows them to do their best work.

An immediate problem with attempting to discuss Showrunning is the difficulty answering, “What is a Showrunner?” What does the term even mean? The question seems simple on its face. The Showrunner runs the show. But that’s misleading. There is no single definition of what the job entails because every show is different depending upon the talents and experience level of the team you assemble.

I’ve never run a show where the requirements of the Showrunning job were identical to the last show I ran (or any other show I had run before). I’m not even a fan of the term “Showrunner”. I prefer Executive Producer. The title of Showrunner has come into use to delineate the senior Executive Producer/leader on the team now that Executive Producer credits are given out freely. But don’t be led astray by assuming that being the “Showrunner” will mean you’ll be making all the important decisions on your show. You won’t be. And you can’t be. There are literally hundreds of decisions being made all day long by your producers, department heads, directors, etc. You can’t be involved in them all. You must delegate.

And you’ll delegate differently based on the strengths (and weaknesses) of your assembled team. I’ve Executive Produced shows where I’ve spent much of my time with the writing staff (in the writers’ room, doing notes, pounding out plots) because the writers were inexperienced, and the production staff was very experienced. I’ve Executive Produced shows with a strong writers’ room and an inexperienced production staff where I had to spend more time involved in the physical production of the show. I’ve Executive Produced shows with Executive Producer/Directors who were for all intents and purposes the Showrunners because they were exceptionally talented creative producers. Every situation is different, and you will have to delegate responsibility based on your evaluation of the experience and talents of your team.

But how to decide who to delegate to on a new show? If you haven’t worked together before, you are a Showrunner they don’t know and don’t yet trust. They’re afraid you may not know what you’re doing and that will impact their future employment (chaotic and over budget shows are career contagious, everyone in a position of responsibility is suspect). There are so many chaotic shows in our industry now that your collaborators will arrive hopeful that their experience won’t be difficult, but wary that it may be. You’ll be evaluating them while they evaluate you. You need to gather a team that has the experience to compliment your strengths and make up for your weaknesses.

Be honest with yourself, what do you know and do well? What don’t you know and don’t know how to do? Staffing a show is like staffing a writers’ room. You’re casting a group to work together well and to meet your needs. You can’t put together the team you need if you’re not being honest with yourself about what support you need for the areas where you’re weakest.

But how to gather a team? First, at every step in your career, on every show you work on, you must identify the artists you find to be talented and great at their jobs. The writers, directors, cinematographers, line producers, ADs, production designers, costume designers, location managers, editors – everyone and anyone who impresses you with their ability and competence.

This is one of the great advantages of working on other shows before you get an opportunity to do your own show. Keep a list, ask them out to lunch, tell them how much you’d like to be able to work together in the future. Then keep in touch after you’re no longer working together. When you get a deal to write a pilot, call them up and let them know you’re hoping to have a show soon and you want them on it if they’re available.

If you haven’t worked on a show before you’re at a disadvantage. You have to pull your team together from scratch. In this situation you want to hire your pilot director/producing director first and discuss who they will want to bring with them. If the director is only doing the pilot, will the rest of the creative team that they want to bring with them be available to stay with the show after the first episode/pilot? You need ADs, cinematographers and camera operators who are going to stay with you for the series.

This can be a real problem when you’re hiring a director to do your pilot or first episodes who works primarily in features. They will often want to bring along their feature film team (or many of them) and if their team isn’t going to stay with your show going forward, you’ll be starting from scratch again once they’ve left. Not ideal. You want to surround yourself with a team that will be there for the series. If you hit it off with your Producing/Director candidate, they’ll be supplying much of the expertise necessary to assemble your team along with your line producer. But you need to be involved in these hires. Don’t let it happen away from your input and participation.

As you interview your collaborators, be honest about what you know and don’t know. About how you want to collaborate with them. What you will need them to do – and equally important – what you won’t want them to do. Do you want a producing director who will be involved in the early story stages in the writers’ room? Will you want them to prep the episodic directors? Will you welcome them in the editing room, or have them do a cut of other directors’ work before you see a cut? Clarity in your first meetings will remove friction in the future.

These same questions apply to your line producer meetings. Be honest with them. Do you know your way around a budget? If not, let them know a portion of their job will be educating you on the budgeting process and helping you make decisions on each episode and on the series’ budgets. Let them know you want to be involved in the hiring of your department heads. Many of the department heads will come from your collaborators. The Director and the Line Producer will be bringing the AD team. The Cinematographer will be bringing the Camera Operators, Gaffer, DIT technician, and Key Grip. The Production Designer will be bringing the Art Directors, Property Master, and Set Decorator. They’ll be introducing you to Make-up and Hair department heads. Your Line Producer will be bringing the Transportation Coordinator, Special Effects, and an entire office team. The Post Supervisor (or Producer) will be bringing in Picture Editors, Music Editors, Sound Supervisors, Mixers and Colorists, along with your visual effects team. You need to be part of these meetings and hiring decisions. Use these meetings to introduce yourself as a leader. Establish a rapport with your department heads. Set the tone. Some of these artists you will see infrequently, use these meetings to introduce yourself and your expectations for the kind of workplace you are creating.

Once your team is in place and you begin shooting, you’ll be evaluating your team to determine who you can delegate more to and who will need more of your attention. On a show where you’ve been able to staff your team with some collaborators you’ve worked with before you already know who you can delegate more responsibility to. As you come to know the strengths and weaknesses of the team members you haven’t worked with before you’ll adjust to those strengths and weaknesses. Delegating more to those who share your vision of the show and workplace culture. Giving more attention to those who need your guidance.

Don’t allow this delegation to be determined by circumstances (you become overwhelmed and don’t get everything done so someone else on your team must make the decisions by default). Train yourself to recognize when you’re becoming overwhelmed (you will be overwhelmed, I promise) so you can delegate tasks you’re not going to get to before they become critical. This isn’t you failing, this is you succeeding as a leader. Remember, you can’t do it all, no one can. Prioritize the tasks where you feel your input is essential and delegate other tasks. Your team will appreciate your empowering them to handle what you’ve recognized you won’t get to, and they’ll respect you for it.

The most difficult part of delegating is accepting that decisions will be made that are different than what you would have chosen to do. Usually these differences will be minor, but occasionally they won’t be. Resist the urge to express your unhappiness with the decision. Ask yourself, how important was the decision that was made differently? Was the difference important or just a different way to go? Very, very few decisions rise to the level of real significance. Keep your perspective. Thank the collaborator for making the decision, suggest you would prefer a different decision should the same issue come up again, but you really appreciate and value their leadership. Nothing destroys the morale of your team more than you going ballistic over something that you didn’t deal with because you were overwhelmed and someone else had to make a decision that you then didn’t like. The result of a situation like this will be the gears of your production seizing up, no one will want to take the risk of making a wrong decision and so they’ll make no decisions. Every decision will come back to you to make and if you thought you were overwhelmed before, you’ll definitely be overwhelmed now.

Delegation is one of the most difficult skills for new Showrunners to master, but it is essential to your success. Delegate but stay informed. Accept that not all decisions made by your team will be exactly what you would have decided, but that you’re working to create a team that is empowered. They’ll learn your tastes over time and soon be making decisions you would have made. Delegating puts you in a position to succeed. Showrunning is drinking out of a firehouse for months on end, delegation is essential to your survival.

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