The Devil Wears Prada

Office-Politics lessons from The Devil Wears Prada Think you have the worlds worst stump? How does your node measure up against the Boss-from-Hell? By Franke James, MFA The Devil Wears Prada will no doubt fuel round hot, haute water-cooler chat. ground on the novel by Lauren Weisberger, the film is a wickedly funny tale close on the job(p) for a chief who is a tyrant (rumor has it that the book was inspired by Weisbergers stint at panache Magazine executeing for Anna Wintour). Meryl Streep stars as Miranda Priestly, Editor-in-Chief of Runway Magazine. Think Cruella de Ville with Medusa eyes.While the movie is an entertaining good turning period about the travails of working for a tyrannical boss, it raises some important questions If you work for a Boss-from-Hell how do you finagle? Is your boss a Boss-from-Hell? Is your boss bullying you or simply delivering a tough-love message? Are you a victim or just paying your dues? Does your boss thrive on chaos? Does your boss key impossible demands? Does your boss play the shoes politics game 1. Is your boss a Boss-from-Hell? Miranda quickly constituted her role as the Master over her Slave employees. She lived, ate, and breathed her c atomic number 18er.Work and life had merged into atomic number 53 unified and indivisible whole. She expected e rattling champion to have the same devotion to Runway Magazine. Employees time with family and friends was an expendable commodity, a frill. Miranda refused to address her new assistant Andy (Anne Hathaway) by her proper name, and substituted the name of her other assistant. She demanded that Andy be on vociferation 24/7 (without adequate compensation) She gave a long list of demands without whollyowing any questions and expected employees to have sex the expand of each task, but did non provide any training.She sent Andy on multiple errands, without clear instructions, and an impossibly short time-frame under threat of being fired if she did non delive r. She insulted her intelligence and mocked her zeal of dress, publicly and privately She forbade any employees from riding in the elevator with her, which further underlined a Master/Slave relationship. While some of these incidents, if taken al champion, could be dismissed as minor irritations, collectively they amounted to psychological warf be.All of these power-plays shared one thing in common a lack of respect by the boss for the employee. How to cope deliver up for yourself You have to stand up for yourself to get what you indispensability with a Boss-from-Hell. Remember that they are to a greater extent concerned about themselves than you. They are the center of the universe. So dont take it personally that your boss cant remember your name, or wont take the time to delegate tasks properly. Your scoop out strategy is to be quietly persistent and firm. Repeat back what tasks have been requested, and the expected timeline.If the boss is overly impatient to listen, then send them a summary email or memo, before and after the task. memorial everything. 2. Is your boss bullying you or simply delivering a tough-love message? No one likes to be dressed-down, specially in public. Miranda routinely demeaned Andy in front of the other employees by calling her insulting names, mocking her style of dress, her level of intelligence, and her ability to handle the job. The funny thing was that there was a grain of truth to Mirandas criticisms. You cant expect to work for a invent magazine if you dont know the product.The belligerent delivery was inexcusable but the underlying truth was that Andy was ignorant of fashion and she would not fail without changing, learning and growing. Mirandas criticisms (but not her bullying tactics) could be viewed positively as a tough-love approach. How to cope component the company harbors (or exit) Miranda was setting up a challenge to Andy and every employee conform to my standards or you are fired This is not as unre asonable or evil as it appears at first glance. It raises a question that every employee should ask themselves.Am I not fitting in because I dont share the company determine? An extreme example if you wanted to join the Hells Angels, you know that youd have an easier time being authorized if you rode a motorcycle, dressed in leather, modify your body with multiple tattoos, drank a two-four daily, and (perhaps) had some illegal activities on your record. Clearly if you are working in the fashion field then it is a safe assumption that you share the value that fashion is important. Andy jilted that value. She did not fit in because she did not wear the uniform. She knew it, but she didnt care.She thought her brains were what really counted, not the surface decoration. Showing up for work in outfits that look like she rescued them from a frugality store was akin to waving a red flag in front of a bull. uncombed hair, shapeless argyle blend polyester sweaters, frumpy plaid skirts, and clumpy clogs labeled Andy as an ignoramus of the fashion world. Andy ask to embrace the fashion culture in order to survive, and ultimately to be accepted. Not knowing that a Manolo Blahnik is a brand of shoe is like a carpenter not knowing what a turncock is. Dumb, dumb, dumb. only it does get ahead for good comedy in the film. (Just dont make the same luxate in your career. ) Since the product in this case was fashion, it was elementary logic that Andy should show respect by pursuit the dress code. She was part of the Runway brand, as surely as the clothes-hanger models and glossy pages of their magazine. Andys career off-key around in the second half of the movie after a fashion makeover. She finally accepted that she necessitate to be the brand in order to excel at her job. She accepted the shared value. Miranda won a battle that should never have been an issue.If you dont accept the shared values of a company then that company is not the right place for you. 3. Are you a victim or just paying your dues? In the movie Andy frequently told her boyfriend (whose birthday caller she missed), that she had no choice. She whined constantly, But I had no choice Miranda called You dont have to be a tyrannical boss to want to wallop Andy with a big designer purse and yell, Dont answer the phone acetify it off. Andy was a willing victim. She chose to put her boss necessitys (and her career) ahead of her boyfriend.She decided that to climb the ladder she needed to work 24/7. Was that wrong? Not necessarily (besides the boyfriend is about as exciting as a heap of half-eaten mashed potatoes). But for Andy, whose true dream was to be a serious journalist, the pain was not worth the gain. How to cope Decide if it is a reasonable price To cope with a tyrannical boss, the near basic question you should ask yourself is whether the price in aggravation and stress in exchange for your hebdomadary paycheque is worth it. If its not worth it, then you have two ch oices. 1.Create an action curriculum that will change the aspects of your job you find most difficult. 2. Ask yourself what better job you could move to and what skills you need to acquire before you make the leap. 4. Does your boss thrive on chaos? Miranda did not have a well-oiled system. Things were constantly springing leaks. Tyrannical bosses need alleviate and not just psychiatric. At Mirandas company there was a crisis every hour. Employees were running around in a frenzied panic. Sadly, Miranda demanded perfection but was unwilling to split up a system to train her employees.Although many people admired her ability to run a fashion magazine, she was a poor manager of people. At the end of the movie she expressed relief that she would still be at the helm saying under her breath that no one else could handle the job. Which was probably very true. She was irreplaceable because she ran the business on fear and chaos, and it would have imploded on her exit. How to cope Cre ate a regular system To cope with the Boss-from-Hell, realize their shortcomings and compensate accordingly. In Mirandas case, the company lurched from mini-crisis to mini-crisis.A smart employee could have created systems to help run the place efficiently, smoothly and to minimize crisis. And then that employee would have been highly valued, and very marketable. 5. Does your boss make impossible demands? Miranda was forever making impossible demands of her employees. One hilarious example was when Mirandas plane was grounded by a hurricane. Andys dinner with her out-of-town Dad was interrupted, while Andy tried valiantly to schedule other flight. Of course, the only thing that flew that night was the st hitting the fan when Mirandas request for a flight was not met.How to Cope Can you think two steps ahead of the boss? putting aside the truly impossible demands, how do you stay two steps ahead of the boss? reside what the boss will need, before theyve even thought of it. That w as the key to Andys turnaround success. When Miranda asked for the impossible, a copy of an unpublished Harry Potter manuscript, Andy pulled strings to get it. But she proved herself to be a proactive intellect by getting the manuscript duplicated and bound (just in time for Mirandas twin daughters to read it on the train-ride to Grandmas).The cope strategy in this is not to take your boss requests at face value. Think further down the street to what the next logical step is going to be. That devil-boss will be eating out of your hand. 6. Does your boss play the office politics game? Miranda is an expert office politics player. The climax of the movie occurs when Miranda becomes apprised of an close coup that threatens to topple her (the magazine owner wants to give Mirandas job to his sexy new mistress). But Miranda checkmates the move very effectively by threatening to steal her high-profile fashion designers away to a bear upon publication.The owner grudgingly allows her to keep her Editor-in-Chief job, and offers his mistress an alternate, if largely titular, job. An unlucky pawn caught in the crossfire is Nigel, Mirandas hardcore design assistant. His ambitions get decimated, prompting Andy to virtuously claim that she could never backstab someone like that. Miranda corrects her and says, Oh, but you already have. You did it to Emily. This uncomfortable truth forced Andy to look in the mirror and make a decision as to what she wanted out of life, and how far she was willing to go to get it. How to Cope Learn to play the office politics gameTo cope with the Boss-from-Hell, employees need to learn how to play office politics, whether they want to or not. burial your head in the sand will not make it disappear. It is in your best interests to be aware of the shifting agendas, imbalances of power, hidden motives, and swift-moving unseen forces that are shaping your workplace. You need to become a student of homosexual nature, which is ultimately wha t office politics is all about. Oh yeah, and to survive the Boss-from-Hell, document everything You never know when you may be able to turn it into a best-selling book or a hit movie feature an Oscar-winning actress.About the author Franke James, MFA is the site founder of Office-Politics. com, and inventor of the Office-Politics Game. Office-Politics lessons from The Devil Wears Prada copyright 2006 Franke James. First publication July 2006 ICFAI University Press, name of Chartered Financial Analysts of India. All photographs The Devil Wears Prada 2006 copyright 20th Century Fox. The Devil Wears Prada starring Anne Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Stanley Tucci, Simon Baker, Emily Blunt. direct by David Frankel. Based on the novel by Lauren Weisberger.The Devil Wears PradaThe novel The Devil Wears Prada by Weisberger is about a girl named Andrea moved to New York and found a job as a next-to-last assistant of a fashion magazine editor. However, Andrea has a hard time on her job. Furthe rmore, her relationships with her family and friends get very bad because she is too hard-working. However, at the end of this novel Andrea makes her own way out by her heedful and wisdom. after reading the novel, I found myself and the protagonist of the novel, Andrea are some(prenominal) too hard-working and careful.Andrea and I are both so hard working that we forgot our families and friends. In the novel, Andrea is working very hard that she put all her time and energy into her job, so Andrea does not have any time for her family and friends. For example, in the novel Andrea see to it to call her boyfriend at three oclock, but she was very busy at her work that she never gets to call her boyfriend the whole day. I was very busy at work once, and I totally forgot to tell my mother that I will be getting off from work one hour later than usual.My mother was waiting for me at the supermarket one hour. Furthermore, I found myself and Andrea are both very careful that we notice or remember small things that others do not. Andrea finally made her boss approve with her ability because Andrea is very careful and she notices and remembers things that her boss does not. For instance, Andrea and her boss went to a big fashion party in Paris, and there were so many famous fashion designers. Many people came and greet to Andreas boss, but her boss does not recognize any of them.However, Andrea memorizes all guests name by flipping through guests list. After that her boss was very impress on Andreas careful. I found myself is very similar to Andrea. I always remember to check the address of the place we are going to, when all of my friends forgot to check. I applaud reading this book very much because I have the same personality characteristic, too hard-working and careful, with the protagonist, Andrea. I will recommend this novel to English-second language readers because the novel is easy to understand and interesting.