Mood: still a little sick from paper work
Listening to: the latest political news about Harper and Belinda
He can gain control through denying the event as well as enabling the
event. Don't do what he wants so he takes his ball and goes home. He
can't be the center of attention his way....take his ball away and be
the center of attention that way (his control). Anyone with a ton of
money can hire people to put on events....that does make them nice
people. Yes Marc helped bring this out and that out in the past, but
for whose sole purpose?
Side notes: The Bike Rally of Port Dover - no one funds that,
people just show up from North American wide. Halifax Mardi Grass
- no one funds that, people just show up in their fantastic outfits.
This in my opinion sums up Marc Emery.
majere
Psychopath in a suit
February 21 2003
By Leon Gettler
One
of the problems in identifying the corporate psychopath is that it's a
world in which some of the defining characteristics are commonplace.
Is the boss a psychopath?
Not
a murderer, a vicious criminal or rapacious scam-meister. But we know
the type. Oozing charm and charisma but with no emotional depth; more
sizzle than steak. These are the ones who are manipulative and ruthless
enough to do whatever it takes and stick the knife into anyone standing
in their way. With their finely honed political skills, sharp timing
and chameleon-like abilities, they thrive on risk, chaos and upheaval.
And they are cold-blooded enough to claim later that they did nothing
wrong.
Research done by Dr Robert Hare, emeritus professor of
psychology at the University of British Columbia and a New York-based
colleague Dr Paul Babiak indicates the psychopath usually seduces and
takes over in five stages.
First, comes the entry phase, in
which the psychopath charms the hiring team into selecting him or her
for the job. Then comes the assessment phase. Here, the psychopathic
employee identifies the potential support network of Patrons (those who
will protect and defend the psychopath), Pawns (those who can be
unwittingly manipulated into using their power in service of the
psychopath's aims), and Organisational Police (staff in such control
functions as audit, security, human resources who might get in the
way). Stage three is manipulation: the psychopath works the patrons and
pawns, building the influence network through close and intense
one-on-one relationships and at the same time moving up the
organisation. The next stage is confrontation. Individuals no longer
deemed useful discover they've been wiped, relegated from close friend
to Patsy. Two factions start forming: influential supporters (Pawns and
Patrons); and powerless detractors (Patsies and Police). Finally,
there's ascension. That's when all that planning and manipulation pays
off - the patrons are betrayed, the boss is shoved aside and the
psychopath moves in.
Babiak and Hare, who consults to the FBI on
serial murders and child abductions, are developing the B-Scan, a
107-item tool to assess managers, executives, high-potential employees
and succession candidates.
Hare's internationally recognised
psychopathy Checklist, or PCL-R, is used in criminal justice systems
for identifying psychopaths.
Hare himself estimates that psychopaths account for only about 1 per cent of the general population.
But
he says there would be a higher proportion in such areas as business,
politics, law enforcement agencies, law firms, religious organisations
and yes, the media.
"They have a predatory quality to them and the prey is always around certain areas," Dr Hare said.
"In
the business world, if I was a good psychopath and I was well educated,
bright, intelligent, grew up in the proper way, knew how to talk and
dress and how to use a fork, I'm not going to go out and rob banks.
"They're
attracted to where the action is. You're not going to find one of these
guys out in Alice Springs working in a pub hoping to become manager in
five years."
The two are also working on a book with the tentative title Snakes In Suits: When Psychopaths Go To Work.
Many
might say it's not before time. For all the tomes that have been
written on leadership - go to Google and you get 11.7 million links,
search on Amazon and you'll find nearly 13,000 books - very little has
been written about the dark side of management.
Even though
those who rise to the top are often the most aggressive, ambitious,
wilful and bloody-minded in their peer group. Go figure.
Still,
last year's parade of corporate chicanery might have changed that,
starting from Kenneth Lay and the Enronites who, among other things,
made bucketloads by unloading $US1.1 billion ($A1.85 billion) of shares
between January 1999 and July 2001, while telling investors and
employees to hold on to theirs. From John Rigas and his sons, who
allegedly looted cable television company Adelphia to buy items such as
a private golf course, to the gaggle of failed bosses who have no
qualms about being paid out millions of dollars.
So it's no surprise now that analysis of the dark side has come into vogue.
The
B-Scan is a 360-degree assessment that works off an exhaustive
questionnaire, filled in by anyone who works with the employee.
Typically, these would include the immediate supervisor, subordinates,
former bosses, peers and internal business customers.
They will
grade the subject's tendencies in areas and categories and
sub-categories. These categories include "insincere" (for example,
"makes a well-packaged slick presentation", "difficult to pin down on
personal details"), untrustworthy ("will say or do anything to get his
own way", "tells a larger than usual number of white lies"),
manipulative, arrogant, insensitive, remorseless, shallow, blaming,
impatient, erratic, unreliable, unfocused, parasitic, dramatic,
unethical and bullying.
The results are then sent to the test publisher or authorised consultants and scored.
One
of the problems in identifying the corporate psychopath is that it's a
world in which some of the defining characteristics are commonplace.
Many
successful managers and executives can, for example, be grandiose and
narcissistic; but that doesn't necessarily mean they're psychopaths.
Similarly, many organisations are set up in ways that foster these kinds of behaviours.
For
example, it's doubtful whether the B-Scan would have picked up
widespread psychopathy at Enron, which was suffused with arrogance,
where the Darwinian "rank and yank" performance-appraisal system
encouraged traders and different groups to sabotage each other, and
where reluctance to acknowledge losses resulted in accounting trickery
to paper them over.
Still, this kind of research reminds us not
to get too carried away with claims from some in the leadership
industry that it's about inspiration and charisma. Those can be just as
dangerous as psychopathy.
Rog: Oh, if Marc has a problem with me, he can visit me here in Kitchener :)
