Leadership Lessons: 30 Rock
Season 1 Episode 1
Pilot
The pilot episode opens with Liz Lemon, The Girlie Show showrunner, taking a principled stance at a hotdog stand in NYC. This stance results in Liz buying all $150 worth of hotdogs in a reactive move to someone cutting the line. Liz’s day only continues to go downhill once she arrives to work. In addition to managing her demanding and whiny staff, she abruptly learns her boss has died, and he’s been replaced by a new corporate executive, Jack Donaghy.
Jack announces he intends to “retool” The Girlie Show and instructs Liz to meet with unstable and disruptive movie star Tracy Jordan in hopes of recruiting Tracy to join the show and boost the show’s audience with males ages 18–49, a key adverting demographic. She reluctantly meets with Tracy, and they begin to discuss a possible collaboration. Meanwhile back at 30 Rock, Jack declares himself as a “hands-on” supervisor, and he spends his time getting aquatinted with the cast and crew of the show while starting to make decisions for the upcoming live episode airing in a few hours. During an extended lunch with Tracy that involves a detour to Dark Sensations, a strip club, Liz calls into the office to check in on the show, She learns Jack fired her second-in-command and trusted collaborator, Pete, without her knowledge.
Events of the day continue to spiral for both Liz and Jack. Liz is furious about Pete’s termination, and Jack quickly finds himself in-over-his-head managing the show alone. Making a reactive decision similar to buying all the hotdogs earlier in the day, Liz decides to quit her job in response to Pete’s firing. She and Tracy go to the studio to allow Liz to stop publicly and she finds the show is running two minutes short and Jenna is using an untrained cat actor selected by Jack. Well, the cat attacks Jenna, and she throws it across the room to the horror of the audience, and in desperation, Liz solicits Tracy to hop on stage and fill the remaining two minutes of airtime. Fueled by anger and too many drinks at Dark Sensations, Liz confronts Jack.
Lesson Learned: Don’t Buy All the Hotdogs or Be Strategic, Not Reactive
This confrontation is one of the best scenes of the episode. Drunkenly, Liz stands her ground. She quickly calls Jack out on the reality of running the show by stating, “Yeah, yeah, it’s not so fun being hands-on with these bloodsuckers, is it.” Jack warily concedes.
Surprisingly, Liz takes a distinctive approach from her morning with the hotdogs and adopts a strategic methodology. Instead of raging, Liz gets smart instead. Perhaps thanks in part to the alcohol, Liz has the confidence to challenge Jack.
Liz was sufficiently assertive in this exchange, but not aggressive. She is direct without being rude, condescending, or launching a personal attack; additionally, her demands are reasonable and clear. She owns her value to the show the work she produces, and she demonstrates a clear command of the resources she needs to produce her show every week successfully. Jack, to his credit, actually listens to Liz and agrees to her demands. For the sake of comedy, he immediately makes a misogynic comment and the pilot episode of 30 Rock concludes.
Bonus Lesson Learned: When You Are a New Boss -The Bull in the China Shop Approach is Not Effective
When the audience is first introduced to Jack, he is redecorating his office. When Liz and Pete comment on the office remodel Jack responds with, “It’s a great office, but sometimes, you have to change things that are perfectly good just to make them your own.” For any employee meeting a new boss this would be a foreboding remark. Jack is ambitious and confident and ready to be “hands-on” in his new role. He quickly learned producing that show is not as easy as he assumed and his “hands-on” approach did not make the show his own, nor did it improve the show. His choice of cat actor was disastrous, he was ineffective in managing Jenna, and under his leadership, the live show was running two minutes short. When taking on a new leadership role, there is just a much value in learning the ropes and understanding the basics as in making something your own.
One of my favorite quotes from the episode: “You mean this eye? Ok. This eye, it doesn’t open all the way because when I was little, my sister peed in it!” -Jenna
Other Pilot Points:
• Jenna had to put down her two pet cats because she moved to an apartment with hardwood floors.
• Kenneth loves television
• Liz and Tracy spend some time on stage at Dark Sensations
• The government inspects chicken nuggets
• Jack is a misogynic nightmare. He guesses Liz’s weight, gross. For the life of me, I will never understand the men who pride themselves on guessing the weight and bra sizes of women. It’s equivalent to guessing the weight of the giant pumpkin at the state fair. It’s almost as if they view women as objects, not people.
I combine my passion for leadership development, team dynamics, and organizational behavior with my love of quirky workplace comedies to write about the real-life leadership lessons found on our favorite TV workplace sitcoms.
Up Next:
Season 1 Episode 2: The Aftermath
The crew of The Girlie Show is skeptical of having Tracy Jordan join the cast, especially when the show is retitled ‘TGS Tracy Jordan’. Feeling everybody blames them, Liz and Tracy decide to throw a party on a yacht.
