For the sequel, are there possible "multiverses" where Andy either defeats or overcomes Miranda and while staying her own person, or a darker one where Andy defeats Miranda and becomes the same narcissist that Miranda was?
In any case, reminds me of Heathers for grown-ups.
I'd like a Heather-esque version. I'd like to see Andy go dark and topple Miranda from her throne. It would align with my belief that you can't escape a cult's effect on you without leaving the industry, cutting ties with everyone, deprogramming, and living a different life. Otherwise, you just become more and more like what the machine needs from you and further away from your humanity.
The four stages remind me of Robert Heller's saying that "the first myth of management is that it exists", just manifesting itself in different ways depending on the stage.
TDWP is one of my top five favourite movies for all the reasons you mentioned; also, while I've never lived in NY, I had a lot of extended family there so I'm familiar with and slightly experienced in the culture. The first time I visited Manhattan with my family, and just to be a brat in Bonwit Teller's I said to my mom loudly, "Boy, you don't see prices like these in Ah-hye-ya!" doing my best to sound Midwestern, which I didn't, because we'd moved to Ohio after my formative years and I never acquired the accent.
I can't wait to see the sequel, I don't care if it gets panned for sucking. I've been watching the previews on YouTube and it looks amazing. Just for the personalities alone I'll go see it.
What really cracks me up about TDWP is what an, I'm sorry, utterly useless industry high fashion is. Incredibly awful designs for incredibly stupid rich people that I can't imagine even they would wear outside of a Halloween party. "No, this isn't a Michael Corleone, I'm actually dressed as an upside-down late-fifteenth-century Italian beer stein someone smashed out the bottom with and stuck this live parrot in."
My favourite line is Andy's about how 'we're not curing cancer' here. She's dead-on about the two belts; the sycophants act like two slightly different shades of 'cerulean' make all the difference in the world and Miranda's little TikTok history lesson doesn't make a difference. Those two belts DID look exactly alike and anyone who can see the difference should be working in defense spotting land mines or finding missing children, not wasting their lives on this silly-ass nonsense.
I don't know that the fashion industry is in decline; I see a lot of oh-so-serious nonsense about it on YouTube shorts, but that's the extent of my knowledge. And the only reason I see *that* is because I started following Refashioned Hippie, so it's all my fault ;)
The description of the stages was so fucking eerie it'll stay with me. Because you had every word right; reminded me 1) of my fresh negative experience in a large company (to be expected) and 2) that incentives rule all.
I’m so glad the description of the stages resonated. It shows how predictable humans act in specific conditions with the right incentives and our willingness/ability to adapt to stay in those places. I kind of wish I was back in a late stage system so I can try my darndest to play with it.
I really enjoyed this (and I loved the movie when it came out). I worked for an organization in late stage (very, very late stage) and was tasked with implementing some very big changes. It went about as well as you can imagine....
I suppose I have two observations--
1.) If you want to work for Runway or Miranda- you get what you get. That is the job. Your job is likely not to change anything. Your job is to confirm. This is just the way it is.
2.) If you are an institution, big or small, young or old, going through big change, consider hiring a consultant or fractional person into a role for a year or so while you make the change, and then bring someone in full time. Reminder-- the consultant must see themselves as someone who comes alongside the existing team and respects their existing culture!
Sage advice Ellie! The issue I've seen in my experiences of observing consultants in my workplaces is that they just don't 'get' the culture and try to create what they've already successfully done elsewhere in the new place. They break a few things, make a mess, give recommendations, then leave. Staff are resentful and the pattern repeats a few years later.
Many years ago, as a corporate paralegal, I worked for a top Fortune 500 company in its corporate office in Los Angeles. My boss liked his red apples and green apples arranged symmetrically and polished in a bowl on his coffee table. They had to be perfectly positioned, with an equal number of each, placed parallel to one another.
That was my daily 7:00–8:00 a.m. task: picking up fresh apples, washing them, shining them, clearing out the bowl, and arranging them exactly how he wanted. He went through 3-4 apples a day. He referred to me only as “you,” as in, “You come in…”
The pay was unbelievable, and that’s often how exploitation begins. Because of the pay, I justified his explosive temper, disrespect, and arrogance. I guess I didn’t really realize it until I read your article that this is corporate grooming (everyone enabled him.) That job is the only one I’ve ever quit.
I really like your deconstruction of 'The Devil Wears Prada'. I like the movie too. And though I will have to read that life cycle of institutions a few times, it triangulates well with the psychology of task-driven, group-dynamics in the classroom (grad studies included a heavy dose of Zoltán Dörnyei — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zolt%C3%A1n_D%C3%B6rnyei) and with what I've read of Joseph Tainter's 'The Collapse of Complex Societies'.
But one thing that has been bugging me over decades of living in Japan, is my observation of what appears to be personality types with behavior that remains stable in different situations. This includes extreme outliers of behavior on either end of a moral spectrum, from altruistic behavior to full blown sociopathic, Cluster B behavior.
I suspect there a very complex interplay between group dynamics and the emergence of that behavior similar to the relationships between 'genotype and phenotype' or 'phenomenon and epiphenomenon'.
But another fly in the ointment includes some relatively recent research in ethology (animal behavior) of chimpanzees and dolphins that suggests the collective gene pool of other social animals includes individuals with potentially 'pack'-pathic (as opposed to 'sociopathic') behavior in some individuals.
Although most of my reading along these lines comes from primatology, particularly Frans de Waal, here is a recent layperson-friendly (though a bit 'click-baity') podcast that sheds some interesting light on dolphin behavior ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRrNh-nN1ZE
Still struggling to integrate that complex relationship between group dynamics and individual predisposition.
Cheers from Japan, where, contrary to popular assumptions about group harmony, narcissism is admired as a fine art.
For the sequel, are there possible "multiverses" where Andy either defeats or overcomes Miranda and while staying her own person, or a darker one where Andy defeats Miranda and becomes the same narcissist that Miranda was?
In any case, reminds me of Heathers for grown-ups.
I'd like a Heather-esque version. I'd like to see Andy go dark and topple Miranda from her throne. It would align with my belief that you can't escape a cult's effect on you without leaving the industry, cutting ties with everyone, deprogramming, and living a different life. Otherwise, you just become more and more like what the machine needs from you and further away from your humanity.
The four stages remind me of Robert Heller's saying that "the first myth of management is that it exists", just manifesting itself in different ways depending on the stage.
I didn't know that saying but it does make sense. Management is just a professionalised endorsement of control, blackmail and manipulation.
I suggest you check into what all Heller had to say. You'll find it conforms quite nicely to that.
Ooo! My observations really resonate with that second sentence.
TDWP is one of my top five favourite movies for all the reasons you mentioned; also, while I've never lived in NY, I had a lot of extended family there so I'm familiar with and slightly experienced in the culture. The first time I visited Manhattan with my family, and just to be a brat in Bonwit Teller's I said to my mom loudly, "Boy, you don't see prices like these in Ah-hye-ya!" doing my best to sound Midwestern, which I didn't, because we'd moved to Ohio after my formative years and I never acquired the accent.
I can't wait to see the sequel, I don't care if it gets panned for sucking. I've been watching the previews on YouTube and it looks amazing. Just for the personalities alone I'll go see it.
What really cracks me up about TDWP is what an, I'm sorry, utterly useless industry high fashion is. Incredibly awful designs for incredibly stupid rich people that I can't imagine even they would wear outside of a Halloween party. "No, this isn't a Michael Corleone, I'm actually dressed as an upside-down late-fifteenth-century Italian beer stein someone smashed out the bottom with and stuck this live parrot in."
My favourite line is Andy's about how 'we're not curing cancer' here. She's dead-on about the two belts; the sycophants act like two slightly different shades of 'cerulean' make all the difference in the world and Miranda's little TikTok history lesson doesn't make a difference. Those two belts DID look exactly alike and anyone who can see the difference should be working in defense spotting land mines or finding missing children, not wasting their lives on this silly-ass nonsense.
I don't know that the fashion industry is in decline; I see a lot of oh-so-serious nonsense about it on YouTube shorts, but that's the extent of my knowledge. And the only reason I see *that* is because I started following Refashioned Hippie, so it's all my fault ;)
The description of the stages was so fucking eerie it'll stay with me. Because you had every word right; reminded me 1) of my fresh negative experience in a large company (to be expected) and 2) that incentives rule all.
I’m so glad the description of the stages resonated. It shows how predictable humans act in specific conditions with the right incentives and our willingness/ability to adapt to stay in those places. I kind of wish I was back in a late stage system so I can try my darndest to play with it.
I would say Miranda is also a key contributor to the culture of the institution since she's its leader!
She sure is. She's assimilated by it and is its most powerful sustainer.
I really enjoyed this (and I loved the movie when it came out). I worked for an organization in late stage (very, very late stage) and was tasked with implementing some very big changes. It went about as well as you can imagine....
I suppose I have two observations--
1.) If you want to work for Runway or Miranda- you get what you get. That is the job. Your job is likely not to change anything. Your job is to confirm. This is just the way it is.
2.) If you are an institution, big or small, young or old, going through big change, consider hiring a consultant or fractional person into a role for a year or so while you make the change, and then bring someone in full time. Reminder-- the consultant must see themselves as someone who comes alongside the existing team and respects their existing culture!
Sage advice Ellie! The issue I've seen in my experiences of observing consultants in my workplaces is that they just don't 'get' the culture and try to create what they've already successfully done elsewhere in the new place. They break a few things, make a mess, give recommendations, then leave. Staff are resentful and the pattern repeats a few years later.
Many years ago, as a corporate paralegal, I worked for a top Fortune 500 company in its corporate office in Los Angeles. My boss liked his red apples and green apples arranged symmetrically and polished in a bowl on his coffee table. They had to be perfectly positioned, with an equal number of each, placed parallel to one another.
That was my daily 7:00–8:00 a.m. task: picking up fresh apples, washing them, shining them, clearing out the bowl, and arranging them exactly how he wanted. He went through 3-4 apples a day. He referred to me only as “you,” as in, “You come in…”
The pay was unbelievable, and that’s often how exploitation begins. Because of the pay, I justified his explosive temper, disrespect, and arrogance. I guess I didn’t really realize it until I read your article that this is corporate grooming (everyone enabled him.) That job is the only one I’ve ever quit.
Hello Nathalie,
I really like your deconstruction of 'The Devil Wears Prada'. I like the movie too. And though I will have to read that life cycle of institutions a few times, it triangulates well with the psychology of task-driven, group-dynamics in the classroom (grad studies included a heavy dose of Zoltán Dörnyei — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zolt%C3%A1n_D%C3%B6rnyei) and with what I've read of Joseph Tainter's 'The Collapse of Complex Societies'.
But one thing that has been bugging me over decades of living in Japan, is my observation of what appears to be personality types with behavior that remains stable in different situations. This includes extreme outliers of behavior on either end of a moral spectrum, from altruistic behavior to full blown sociopathic, Cluster B behavior.
I suspect there a very complex interplay between group dynamics and the emergence of that behavior similar to the relationships between 'genotype and phenotype' or 'phenomenon and epiphenomenon'.
But another fly in the ointment includes some relatively recent research in ethology (animal behavior) of chimpanzees and dolphins that suggests the collective gene pool of other social animals includes individuals with potentially 'pack'-pathic (as opposed to 'sociopathic') behavior in some individuals.
Although most of my reading along these lines comes from primatology, particularly Frans de Waal, here is a recent layperson-friendly (though a bit 'click-baity') podcast that sheds some interesting light on dolphin behavior ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRrNh-nN1ZE
Still struggling to integrate that complex relationship between group dynamics and individual predisposition.
Cheers from Japan, where, contrary to popular assumptions about group harmony, narcissism is admired as a fine art.