Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work (13 page)

Heaven on Earth?

The poetic phrase, “fleecing the lamb,” was used as the title of a book exposing the flagrant lack of ethics and regulation involved in the shameless promotion of highly speculative—and almost certainly worthless—investments. But with its implied
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reference to the willing subordination of the flock, the phrase has even more biting relevance when applied to religious congre-gants and cult members turning over their earthly possessions and their exclusive loyalty to a charismatic leader.

Jim Jones, the fundamentalist San Francisco preacher whose followers, in the hundreds, ultimately killed themselves at his bidding, remains our most horrific example, but examples of other hustlers posing as paternal and spiritually enlightened clerics abound. Turn on your television to some cable channels to see God’s blessings, as directed through His earthly representative, being shamelessly sold for money—cleverly hidden among many legitimate religious programs. The phony evangelist portrayed by Burt Lancaster in the 1960 movie
Elmer Gantry
, would have thought he was in con paradise if he too could have delivered his pitch to millions of people at one time.

The vulnerability of needy believers has been well known for centuries, and few would dispute the probability that around a campfire some time in the prehistoric past, certain of our more persuasive ancestors were offering security against the demons of the dark and the promise of an afterlife in exchange for a place in the cave, a juicy portion of the kill, and the warm company of women. All too often, the modern counterpart of this charismatic spiritual leader is a charlatan, a cynical manipulator capitalizing on an opportunity almost too good to be true: a trusting audience ready—eager—to be entertained by, and to follow the exhortations of, any self-proclaimed emissary of God who happens to come along. How else to explain the attraction of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the giggling 1980s cult leader with scores of Rolls-Royce automobiles and hundreds of needy followers? “Sur-render to me, and I will transform you. That is my promise,” a mantra that resonated with all too many lost souls before the cult collapsed amid rumors of skullduggery and attempted murder.

This type of fraud is disturbing because of the ease with which a social predator infiltrates, cons, and manipulates affinity groups. It also is a testament to the power of impression management and to
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the tendency of many to be more influenced by style than substance.

However, not all members of a given affinity group are so gullible.

Indeed, informal observation of a number of such groups suggests that something like the one-third rule may apply. For example, when a latter-day Elmer Gantry, such as Bryan Richards, makes his move on an unsuspecting religious group, perhaps a third of its members will see him as convincing or charismatic, a third will be suspicious (“he makes my skin crawl”), and a third will reserve judgment. The interesting part is that when the scams, deceptions, and depredations are revealed, many of the initial opinions remain unchanged. Those who were impressed at first still believe they were right and that there must be a mistake or misunderstanding. Those who were suspicious at first now feel vindicated (“I knew he was bad news”). And the remaining third still are on the fence (“what happened?”).

“I Felt Like I Was Lunch”

In
Without Conscience,
Hare noted that many people feel uncomfortable in the presence of a psychopath, whom he described as a social predator. Although most people can’t quite put their finger on what bothers them, many comment that they were bothered by “a predatory stare and empty eyes.”

In a recent study, researchers J. Reid Meloy and M. J. Meloy studied the reactions of mental health and criminal justice professionals concerning their “physical reactions” while interviewing psychopathic offenders or patients. The reactions were varied and included sensations and feelings that were gastrointestinal (queasy stomach, feeling of illness), muscular (shaky feeling, weakness), cardiovascular (pounding heart), pulmonary (short-ness of breath), perceptual (watchful, couldn’t look in the eyes), and dermatological (skin crawled, goosebumps). Many reported feelings of general anxiety, being ill at ease, repulsion, fascination, and stimulation. Some reported that they wished to flee the scene or that they felt as if they were about to become lunch.

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The authors suggested that their findings could be interpreted as suggestive evidence of a primitive, autonomic, and fearful response to a predator. They described the psychopath as an in-traspecies predator.

Getting Down to Business

Business organizations pose the next level of challenge for the psychopath. They are different from affinity groups, forensic hospitals, or prisons in their purpose, complexity, and structure. Although they can potentially present severe constraints to psychopaths wishing to misuse coworkers, managers, or the company itself, they do offer tremendous opportunity.

To start, business organizations have a fundamentally different reason for existence than other groups. They are designed to combine the labor of many people into a product or service to be sold for financial gain. For example, a local bakery will employ bakers to produce the pies, cakes, and breads; an office manager who orders supplies, hires the help, and handles the bookkeeping; and salespeople who will describe the various pastries and breads, hand out samples, pack the customers’ selections, and handle the cash. Although it is not out of the question that some psychopaths work in a small neighborhood bakery, most tend to take on jobs in companies where they can take advantage of others, make a big killing, and hide as well. A neighborhood bakery, usually run by family members, wouldn’t offer them the opportunities they require, at least not as long as it remains small and tightly controlled.

For example, the bakery might evolve into a major, national player in the baked goods industry. Initially, the owners may decide to open a second shop across town. They will need to staff this one and train the new help in their business processes. They may hire a main-tenance person to keep the increased number of ovens and other
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kitchen appliances running, a phone operator to handle telephone orders, and specialty bakers who can create new and different treats to help differentiate this bakery’s product from competitors’. Eventually, the owners may decide to buy or lease trucks so they can deliver large orders to commercial customers, hire a full-time accountant to do the books, bring on cleaning staff, a marketing team, and so forth. The bakery’s success, as with any business venture, relies on several important factors: how good is its product, how are its customer relations, and how well does it manage the operations? Managing all this growth is not easy. To the degree that all the people, all the functions, and all the equipment work together and cooperate toward the same end, the business will run smoothly and evolve to meet increasingly complex business demands. In a perfect world, everything would run smoothly, but as most readers understand from their own work experience, this is rarely the case. Without additional organizational development, our hypothetical family-run business would grow un-controlled, quickly running off the track.

Historically, increased size and business complexity brought with it, out of necessity, bureaucracy, a term many small business owners dread, but a model of business that evolved to address the needs of growth. Bureaucracy typically involves a lot of rules and regulations in the form of systems, processes, and procedures. The recipe for sour-dough bread, which used to reside in the mind of the baker, is now captured in a “batch sheet” or similar formulation. The original owner’s insistence on “using only high-quality ingredients” is now called

“following good manufacturing practices.” While this standardization of things is necessary for success, it does cause a lot of stress.

The Corporation as Psychopath

The Corporation
is an award-winning documentary that uses extensive file footage and interviews with a number of well-known commentators and experts to evaluate the moral and so-Enter the Psychopath, Stage Left

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cial behaviors of the corporate world. The documentary uses a selected set of examples of corporate misbehaviors, as well as a brief clip of a longer interview with Hare, to make and bolster its position that the corporation meets the diagnostic criteria for psychopathy.

As a promotional release for the documentary put it:
“Diagnosis: the institutional embodiment of laissez-faire capitalism
fully meets the diagnostic criteria of a psychopath.”
Although the producers of the documentary stated that they used the term
psychopath
merely as a metaphor for the most egregious corporate entities, it is apparent that they had in mind corporations in general. The short excerpt from the interview with Hare did not convey his view that although the attitudes, philosophies, and behaviors of a
given
corporation (as a legal entity) might be considered psychopathic, at least as an academic exercise, such a “diagnosis” hardly would apply to all, or even most, corporations.

To refer to
the
corporation as psychopathic because of the behaviors of a carefully selected group of companies is like using the traits and behaviors of the most serious high-risk criminals to conclude that
the
criminal (that is, every criminal) is a psychopath. If the PCL-R, its derivative, the PCL: SV, or the B-Scan (see page 230)
were
to be applied to a random set of corporations, some might qualify for a diagnosis of psychopathy, but most would not.

We doubt that psychopathic individuals would be very successful in a highly structured traditional bureaucracy, for several important reasons. First, psychopaths are generalized rule breakers; rules and regulations mean little to them. The sheer number of policies, procedures, and laws governing how companies must act, as well as the fact that managers and supervisors are charged with enforcing them, makes them inhospitable to those prone to psychopathic behavior. They would not last long in a traditional, textbook bureaucracy. It is unlikely that they would even consider working for one,
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unless they knew the boss and could get away with getting a paycheck without actually producing any work.

Second, we know that psychopaths are not team players. They are far too selfish to work with others toward common goals. Recall that psychopaths manipulate individuals by presenting a mask custom-tailored to the occasion. Successful manipulation relies on three important conditions: (1) the psychopath needs one-on-one access to the individual, (2) the relationship that is fostered must be kept private, and (3) there can be no means to bring deviant behavior to the attention of management. In bureaucratic organizations, where much of the work is done in teams, it would be difficult to gain such restricted access to useful individuals and for clandestine manipulation and serious counterproductive behavior to go unnoticed. All employees are expected to be productive and focused on achieving objectives while on the job. All are expected to be honest, decent employees and not be abusive toward their colleagues. Given that prosocial behaviors and attitudes are required in most employment situations but difficult for those with a psychopathic personality to maintain in any consistent way, how could they survive?

Third, psychopaths have little genuine interest in the short- or long-term goals and objectives of the organization. Any suggestion that their efforts should take into account the good of the company would be foreign to them. They are much more likely to be motivated and guided by relatively immediate needs and gratifications—a quick score—than by the possibility of uncertain future goals and rewards, particularly if they require dedication, hard work, and personal sacrifice.

Fourth, traditional business organizations do not offer an easy means to hide. Counterproductive work behaviors that are visible to others and reported to management are often dealt with through human resource policies, such as codes of conduct and rules and procedures to handle complaints about sexual harassment, bullying, and other forms of unacceptable behavior. Internal auditors typically investigate suspicions of fraud, theft, or other forms of deceit. If proven true, these may eventually lead to legal action by the organi-Enter the Psychopath, Stage Left

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zation against the employee. Often, termination and a negative employment reference result.

Finally, psychopaths don’t share the same work ethic of most other workers, who typically believe in an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay, who take pride in doing a good job, and who value long-term employment. It is difficult to imagine that a psychopath would work diligently from 9 to 5 in the hope of becoming manager in five or six years. This is not to suggest that psychopaths never work in routine, dead-end jobs or in trades or professions that would seem to require training and experience. Many do, but it is very likely that their qualifications are questionable; their performance self-serving, unreliable, and untrustworthy; and their actions even illegal. Think of high-pressure sales representatives, predatory repair people, “pump and dump” stock promoters, Internet scamsters, fraudulent counselors, and shady professionals of all sorts, to name but a few.

But what about the so-called corporate psychopath? How does he or she survive and thrive in a big company? The fact is that many organizations are prime feeding grounds for psychopaths with an entrepreneurial bent and the requisite personal attributes and social skills to fool many people. Like all predators, psychopaths go where the action is, which to them means positions, occupations, professions, and organizations that afford them the opportunity to obtain power, control, status, and possessions, and to engage in exploitative interpersonal relationships.