The allure and danger of high-performance environments in The Devil Wears Prada

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This summer, we’re going to the movies! Management experts from McGill University analyze popular films and share the lessons that lie within them.

The Devil Wears Prada (2006), follows Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway), an aspiring journalist who can’t find work in her field. Sachs stumbles into a role as an assistant to the editor-in-chief (Meryl Streep) of Runway Magazine, and drama ensues as she navigates her way through a high-pressure industry space built on performance, image, and power.

The intensity and dynamism of such an environment is what makes the film so appealing to Sabine Dhir, Assistant Professor of Strategy and Organization at McGill Desautels. In an interview with McGill Delve, she shared what The Devil Wears Prada can teach us about these high-performance environments and organizational life.For all of her insights, tune into the McGill Delve podcast on YouTube.

Trying on ambition

Even 20 years after its release, The Devil Wears Prada effortlessly speaks to both the uncertain overwhelm of entering a high-performance workplace and the dreams of success every young person hopes will follow. Though Andy Sachs’ experiences at Runway seem closer to movie magic than reality, viewers can see themselves in her character as she tries to make the most of the job she didn’t think she wanted.

This is a common experience for young people entering the workforce, said Dhir. They’ve worked hard, they’re young, they’re eager. And in trying to get their foot in the door, any door, young people are encouraged to say yes even if the entry-level positions aren’t exactly what they dreamed of.

Sachs herself did not care about the fashion industry, at least not at first. She had a journalist’s training and impeccable credentials, and wanted to work at what she believed to be the more prestigious publication, the New York Mirror.

But young people can find themselves in positions they weren’t prepared for, said Dhir. Sachs herself is thrown into the high fashion arena and is schooled repeatedly for underestimating the challenges — and the significance — of the work around her.

Still, we can’t fault Sachs for taking the job, said Dhir.

“You’re supposed to learn,” said Dhir. “Your job is to spend some time figuring out what you like and what you don’t like, what the world of work means to you, where you find fulfillment.”

Sachs didn’t apply for the job directly; she received a call and took advantage of the opportunity to try something new. This is exactly the kind of risk young people should feel empowered to take in those early years, said Dhir.

As the film continues, Sachs seems to put her predispositions about the industry aside and fully commits to her work with Miranda Priestly, the magazine’s editor in chief. The audience watches Sachs try on designer clothing in an effort to understand this new world around her. At the same time, the audience can see her figuratively try on someone else’s ambitions, said Dhir.

Just as young people are exploring where they find fulfillment, they are exploring what success looks like for them. In that process, they may try on ambitions that look like a marker of that success, said Dhir, even if they aren’t the ones they had initially chosen for themselves.

This is where Sachs runs into another struggle. In the pursuit of her new ambitions at Runway, Sachs falls short of her personal values. She misses her boyfriend’s birthday. She betrays her coworker. She feels overwhelmed and like she has no choice.

Unfortunately, this too may be a familiar feeling for young people. Stepping into the workplace — taking new opportunities, learning about what matters to them, or trying on new ambitions — it can be easy to get caught up in a high-performance environment like Sachs.

Sachs, like anyone in this situation, does have a choice. But it’s not that simple. The choice is sometimes less about integrity and more about what will support someone’s ability to pay rent, to buy food, or to live, said Dhir.

This raises a harder question: how much indignity should someone tolerate in order to “just stick it out?” What does it cost to endure a high-performance environment like Runway, in order to get to the next step?

“This should be a signal,” said Dhir. Of what these environments may ask of a younger person is useful information in that exploration they are undergoing – something to weigh when deciding whether to stay, or what to ask for in their next job.

And maybe it isn’t the environment that’s the problem. Maybe it’s who’s running it.

The myth of the “heropreneur”

Miranda Priestly, editor-in-chief of Runway Magazine, embodies the intensity and allure of the high-performance environment — as well as its cost.

“The brilliance in Priestly’s character is how she is able to use her authority and power,” said Dhir.

Priestly is able to encourage the people to make decisions in service of her goals even if it compromises what they would have naturally wanted to do, said Dhir.

We see this tension in Priestly’s relationship with Sachs. Priestly’s leadership is highly effective because of the hostility she directs at her subordinates. This is what we see exacted on Sachs, which contributes to her feeling she had no choice but to say yes to Priestly’s overbearing demands.

“I don’t think that’s acceptable in any way shape or form,” said Dhir.

Priestly’s seemingly solitary brilliance and hostile leadership are effective, concedes Dhir. But they’re not the only way to do things.

Twenty years ago, there was mythologizing around the idea of the singular leader that was going to shape an entire organization, said Dhir. That principle is what we refer to as the “heropreneur.” Think Steve Jobs or Elon Musk.

While this style of leadership has garnered credibility in the past, people can appreciate now that those sorts of accomplishments are actually the work of many people, said Dhir. We can see in the movie just how many other people are working to contribute to Priestly’s vision.

This is true in any high-performance environment. While strong and visionary leaders are important, they are nothing without the people working with them. The real success is in their collaboration.

The danger of underestimating aesthetics

As an industry that concerns itself with aesthetics, success in fashion is rarely held with the same respect as successful careers in finance, tech, or law, despite them all having the potential to be high-pressure environments. In the film, we see this through the eyes of our protagonist: she begins her time at Runway resenting the fact that she’s not producing “real,” hard-hitting journalism, as she was trained to do.

“There is this perception that if it’s pretty, that if it looks good, how deep could it be?” said Dhir.

In other words, if something were truly valuable, then it could stand on its own, without being dressed up. Dhir attributed this, in part, to the limits of people’s knowledge, and their inability to recognize those limits.

“We underestimate how much we really don’t know,” said Dhir.

In the film, Sachs experiences this first-hand. She learned quickly the value of fashion and why it’s important to so many people. Otherwise, she would have been left with the impression that fashion decisions are made flippantly or detached from anything of value.

“That feeling of arbitrariness gives way to the assumption that it can’t be that important,” said Dhir.

This phenomenon is more present in industries like fashion, where so few people outside the field understand what goes into decision-making, as captured in the film’s cerulean sweater scene.

Sachs had only just begun work at Runway, and lacked an understanding of, and respect for, the work around her. This led her to scoff naively at what seemed to be a decision between two identical blue belts. Priestly then expertly lays out her process for picking something as simple as what colour shirt to wear.

Many of us, like Sachs, don’t understand the process that goes into a given decision, said Dhir. But what a loss it is to assume that just because something isn’t understood, it must not be important.

This article was written by Edie Pearman, Content Assistant at McGill Delve.