Management Lessons: That's What She Said

Fashion Friday: Backward Glances

All week, Arwen has been writing about television shows that have been remade into movies. I wish I could tell you I had seen the new A-Team movie, or had gone to the Miami Vice movie, but I had my fill of those in the 80s. Once John Taylor had played with Power Station on Miami Vice, I was finished. Shark was jumped. They were never going to be able to top that. Nothing topped John Taylor when I was 15.

You know what else I loved when I was 15? Stirrup pants. I saw a pair of designer stirrup pants in the store last week, and when Arwen told me what her theme was, I thought of them immediately. Just like the A-Team and Miami Vice had their day, so has 80s fashion. For that matter, so has 60s and 70s fashion. I defy you to show up at work looking like Marcia Brady. That wouldn't even work for Marcia Brady these days!

Retro fashion does have its place outside the office. Wear your pompadour with pride on the weekends, and get down with your disco self after hours. But on the clock? Let's be honest, okay? No one likes to be honest about this. In the corporate mothership, you want to blend to get ahead. In any profession you want to blend. Why? Because your professional reputation depends on your ability to convince your higher-ups that you are enough like them to lead their company in the direction of their choice, and if you are a maverick, your career depends on your ability to make your higher-ups feel comfortable enough with you as a person to take a chance on your ideas. To a large extent, that means costuming yourself to appeal to their subconscious minds. Working Girl, a movie that went on to be a television show (Sandra Bullock starred, can you believe it?), is an excellent case in point.

Tess McGill is able to completely remake her career by remaking her image to match her corporate brains. Is a wardrobe change all that is needed? No, but would you have taken Tess' Jersey hair seriously? Of course not. You would have been wondering how much Aqua Net went into that remarkable mass. It is much easier to read her as a trustworthy source of information once she has transitioned from the unspoken uniform of the secretarial pool, into the unspoken uniform of management.

I write all this and then feel compelled to tell you that I don't always blend perfectly into the sea of black and navy. I am professional and dress code compliant, but if you put me in a line-up, I would stand out. Oh, I wear my pencil skirts and heels, and I have my suit jackets and blouses, but I am mad about accessories, color, and retro styling. You won't catch me wearing day-glo 80s, or Pucci prints from the 70s, but I rock the 40s and 50s Girl Friday look frequently. To my point, that look is office friendly and it is appealing on a subconscious level. You can trust a peplum jacket. You can feel good about a Peter Pan collar. You know those spectator pumps are going to walk over to you with the right spreadsheet. It is different from what you see every day, but it is still clearly professional and not costumey at all. That is everything to do with the fabrics and the fit.

So while I urge you to blend in with your higher-ups, I also hope you will find ways to be creative with your look. If you love the 80s, suit up in pink and gray, but kill the shoulder pads and avoid the Capezios. Trust me. You will never be able to wear Capezios as well as a member of Duran Duran. Don't even try.

Lane Buckman has been in love with fashion since she realized that her first Easter dress came with matching gloves, shoes, and purse. Growing up in the entertainment industry this former beauty queen, model and actress turned corporate career woman understands that dressing for success is just another form of costuming. And, since she has run the size gamut from 2 to 18, Lane understands dressing a variety of shapes. She has written dress codes and conducted Business Style and How to Dress seminars for Fortune 500 and finance companies, boutique agencies, and an international non-profit organization. She gives her stylish Southern mother credit for teaching her everything she knows.

Flash and Substance

Miami Vice, which was pitched to executives as "MTV Cops," was noted for its hyper-stylish and artistic ouevre, and for plots that focused on the glamorous and sexy Miami underworld life of illegal sex and drugs. The sets, the music, the camera angles all took a relatively routine cop show formula in a new, pretty (and for the most part, sort of cheesy) direction. The writing was a little flat, but the colors sure popped, especially Sonny Crockett's trademark outfits.

Lt. Martin Castillo is the counterpoint to the rest of the show. He is button-down and wears dark suits. (We'll let the hairstyle go. It was the 80s.) He is quiet and deliberate, not splashy and wisecracking. Castillo is, to some extent, a Latino version of Frank Furillo in that he is a humane and sympathetic leader who adheres to a strict code. But where we learned a lot about Furillo's personal life, Castillo is even more laconic with his staff and he is pretty much a recluse outside of the office.

(There's nothing wrong with this, I'd like to add. Depending on who you are and what your work situation is, sometimes keeping your personal life personal might very well be the best thing you can do for your staff.)

This is probably not surprising, given that co-executive producer Anthony Yerkovich worked on both shows. If a formula works, why would you mess with it? Right down to the -illo surname suffix, if you please.

We learn a good deal about Castillo's formula early on in the series, when his group is re-assigned to the robbery division to help crack a home-invasion case. Crockett came from robbery, so he is the bridge between the two lieutenants. It's an interesting dichotomy: the good ol' boy visiting his old stomping grounds with his uptight by-the-book boss.

It's also a lesson in how to bigfoot a meeting. Ordinarily, I'd advise against this sort of behavior. There's not much to be gained in taking a guy down in front of his people. Even if you're right, this sort of thing will make you wrong in the eyes of many people and create enemies unnecessarily. 

As the episode progresses, Castillo essentially conducts his own investigation and does his own legwork, which does help advance the case, but also makes things a bit awkward for Crockett as he is left hung out to dry with his old boss.

This competitive police work and calling out of shoddy work escalates -- if you can call it escalation; Castillo isn't exactly a volatile guy, so there are never any huge altercations. But right about here is where any normal person in Crockett's position starts bitching to both sides and, if at all possible, starts refusing to stand in the middle.

(Also note, please, how Crockett's coat pulls down the stripes in the patio umbrella in the photo above. This sort of attention to artistic detail was really what made this show.)

Ultimately, of course, Castillo demonstrates his superior ability to crack the case, but it is a group effort.

And for whatever reason, after all the bad guys are caught and Castillo shows himself to be a steady hand in a shootout, we see that he's willing to let bygones be bygones -- and pay the rare compliment.

I admit, the ending doesn't ring particularly true for me. But even if it is completely insincere, knowing when to be gracious and give the guy an out is also a sign of a good leader. No point kicking a guy when he's already out the door, right?