Be the Spark
You’re a producer. Maybe you’re called an account manager or a client partner. Or maybe your title is managing director or executive director. Or your role might be as a project, program, product, or brand manager. Maybe you’re a line producer or maybe you’re a creative producer. But, really, you’re a Producer.
The Producer is an archetype that manifests in many different types of roles and titles. But being a Producer, whatever your role is titled, means that you get things done in smart, creative ways, and you help others do the same. Or, more formally, a Producer is a person that facilitates, shepherds, manages, directs, and guides a crew through a body of work, from the scale of a single small project to an entire organization.
Being a Producer isn’t easy, even if it comes to you naturally. As a Producer, you’ve probably had the experience of being the scapegoat when something goes awry. You’ve been under immense pressure, thrown under the bus, or underestimated. You’re talked over, overworked, and certainly overlooked. Your family doesn’t understand exactly what you do, and you’re not even sure if your team knows all that you do. Maybe you get the sense your team just wants you to take notes and not have an opinion about the work. Perhaps you’ve gotten the sense that your role’s value is most seen when you step in to fix a problem. How many times have you, yes you, Producer, known in your gut something is right or wrong, but you weren’t in a position to say something? Or, if you did, you weren’t heard.
The seemingly impossible realities of the Producer can feel analogous to some of the social tensions women can face in western society, as laid bare by America Ferrera’s monologue as Gloria in Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (2023). For a Producer, this speech would be something like:
You have to be organized, but not too uptight. And you can never say you want to listen to the client’s idea. You have to say you want the work to be on time, but also you have to be flexible. You have to have a budget, but you can’t ask for more budget because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be bossy. You have to lead, but you can’t contribute to other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being Type-A, but don’t talk about your timeline all the damn time. You have to be a career person, but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for team members’ behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining. You’re supposed to stay smiling for other people, but not so upbeat that you annoy them too much or that you threaten other producers because you’re supposed to be a part of the team.
A lot of leaders, team members, and producers themselves have just accepted-as-truth the long-seeded notion that the Producer should be a barely tolerated, retroactively added, neutralized necessity. In fact, too many organizations don’t define, recognize, or fulfill the full value and potential of the Producer. Peers may resent the Producer as the source of negatively perceived limitations and blame them for corralling structures. And some producers find a sense of purpose by perpetuating those norms, finding their biggest opportunity for impact in going around “putting out fires”—a reactive way of working and bummer of a role. Nobody wants a wet blanket.
It’s liberating and empowering once you know it shouldn’t and doesn’t have to be that way—both in theory and in practice. The Producer could and should be engaged more impactfully in many organizations to both maximize the benefits of the role and to properly value the skillset. The Producer should be a fully integrated role that honors the full range of talent. We know because we’ve lived the reality of the Producer as a vital and galvanizing leader.
This highly skilled, diversely embodied discipline is most influential when it is deeply integrated and genuinely respected across an organization. Producers, in fact, should be highly valued, respected leaders who are deeply pivotal to successful outcomes across a business, client relationships, and projects. Producers can bring their truly strategic and creative minds to the work, collaborating with all other disciplines to make it compelling and successful, while at the same time facilitating a process that is inspiring and enjoyable.
We know this to be true from a wide range of direct experiences and indirect stories… and we know we can help the industry level up the Producer role for the benefit of everyone. Truly—the time is now! Significant shifts in the ways creative work is being made (hello, AI) and distributed (we see you, creators), alongside big changes to business structures and practices (goodbye, AORs), demand true workplace model innovation.
We see the urgent need for more Producers to be at the center of the modern model, Producers operating in integrated roles that connect client partnership more strategically to the delivery of the work, leadership of the team, and business intelligence. We see the world in which the Producer is engaged thoughtfully, understood completely, and paid handsomely.
Imagine (or remember) the world in which you, a Producer, are an equal partner to your colleagues in the work and that your opinion is as important as anyone else’s in the room. Can you see a world in which your team understands and appreciates your role? (It’s okay if your family still doesn’t get what you do.) What if you had actual, direct input into planning and scoping so that the work and client relationships were set up for success? What if your understanding about the past informed future planning and drove business success?
And imagine if you had a useful and tangible documentation of all the skills that make you a Producer (yes, including so-called “soft” skills)? Imagine having a clear vision of career progression that was transferable across workplaces and that gave you not only self-confidence in your value, but appropriate compensation for it. Can you imagine what would be possible for you if you had both support and training in the wide range of skills it takes to be a Producer?
We can—and we have. We’re here to make it clear just how incredible you, the Producer, are. We are here to light a fire in the industry.
Fire is life! Fire is warming and healing and rejuvenating. Fire is a natural and powerful force. Fire is the energy of ideas and creativity. So, Producers shouldn’t run around putting out fires. Producers are the spark that helps start fires.
The Producer Model
We surveyed hundreds of Producers and leaders across the industry. The data support the need for an integrated and empowered discipline.
