You Are Not Conan O'Brien

In case you’ve been in a media free zone the past couple of weeks, you know Conan O’Brien has left The Tonight Show. I’ve read takes by Libby Sartain and Jason Seiden so I am late to the party and I have various degrees of difficulty with both arguments thrown out there. Let me be perfectly clear before I begin: I am on Team Conan. I’ve never watched Leno for more than a couple of segments. I just don’t think he is funny. So there are my biases. Bring it on FTC.

Conan: Super Rock Star Talent

Conan O’Brien isn’t just rock star talent, he is super rock star talent. Even by the network he parted ways with, he was considered a rock star as they tried to prevent him from going to another network by giving him a mega-deal to keep him at the 12:30am spot for five freaking years. Five years! For a time slot that most networks use to run the latest (and extremely creepy) Billy Mays infomercials or repeat number three of Sportscenter.

Has that ever happened to you at your job? Has anyone ever thrown you that kind of coin to keep you from a competitor?

Here’s my guess: probably not. Conan had talent that was worth that ridiculous money. He had a skill set that only a couple of people in the world have: a TV friendly formula, an of audience and over a decade of successfully running a talk show on the same network.

We talk about shifts in power all of the time on this blog. Conan had the power to essentially write his own exit even after the network had chosen this other guy (who is fairly well regarded as well).

Do you think your company is going to do that for you when you decide you want to move on?

Conan And Your Career Path

And I guess that’s part of my problem with applying anything but the most general advice to the late night TV situations. Conan has a special talent and your company isn’t going to kiss your ass on the way out the door after you make a big stink. I think that is a fairly unrealistic scenario. So is getting a Twitter hashtag. I wouldn’t count on that either.

Now do I think the executives at NBC are a bunch of idiots for the way they handled this whole thing? Of course I do. Especially you Dick Ebersol. He has single handedly demolished NBC Sports into one of the most pathetic properties in NBC’s portfolio (ESPN the Ocho has better sports coverage). His Winter Olympics coverage is going to lose more money than Conan and Leno will when it is all said and done. And it still cracks me up that NBC Universal is the number one Gen Y company to work for according to Brazen Careerist (not that I didn’t call that). Keeping on ass kissers like Ebersol, who isn’t losing his job even though NBC is going to lose a couple hundred million dollars over a two week broadcast, certainly has to give hope to Gen Y. Pucker up well enough and you’ll not only get to keep your job, you’ll be able to lob bombs at a 20+ year employee as he is getting pushed out the door.

Ebersol also deprived us of this fantastic tune (Warning: John Tesh) that opened up every NBA on NBC game. So yeah, I may not be over that either.

All of that aside, my guess is that your career arc isn’t going to look like Conan’s. It probably isn’t going to look too many other people. So if someone says you should be like Conan and you should throw some gasoline and a match on the place as you walk away or if they say you should be like Leno and be a company man through and through, even if it means screwing over a coworker, take a step back for a second.

You are not Conan O’Brien. You are not Jay Leno. Take your own path. You’ll be glad you did.