8/14/2019 Review of Snakes in Suits

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Review of Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work by Paul Babiak and

Robert D. Hare, Regan Books (Harper Collins) N.Y. 2006

Copyright 2008 by James M. Craven/Omahkohkiaayo ipoyi

I cannot recommend enough, to enough people, the book"Snakes in Suits: When PsychopathsGo to Workby Paul Babiak and Robert Hare. These authors, both highly qualified on the subjectof psychopathy, walk us through, and so richly illustrate, not only with cutting-edge theoryand research, but also vivid case studies, the "ABCs" of Psychopathy: NoAnxiety; NoBonds;No Conscience. They also illustrate how the corporate world is increasingly a target richenvironment for psychopaths. By the term corporate world, they mean, not only corporations,but other entities and institutions we increasingly find corporatized: politico-legal, sociocultural,educational, religious, etc..

As Robert Hare, inventor of the PCL-SV and PCL-R Checklists for Psychopathy put it:

"I always said that if I wasn't studying psychopaths in prison, I'd do so at the StockExchange.

According to the authors, the corporate world, and other entities run like corporations, areincreasingly a target-rich environments for psychopaths for four basic reasons:

1) Some core psychopathic personality traits (talents) may superficially seem attractive injob applicants and get them hired (excessive assertiveness and confidence; ability to

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8/14/2019 Review of Snakes in Suits

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appear genuine when faking sincerity and honesty; ability to quickly assessvulnerabilities of people and manipulate them; shallow affect and expertise inschmoozing and networking; etc);

2) Superficial notions of effective management and leadership (focus on hierarchy;

taking charge; exercise of top-down power and decision-making with avoidance ofaccountability; etc) play right into the hands of psychopaths whose own proclivities formegalomania, malignant narcissism, manipulation, intrigue and using/treating people asmere useful objects or instruments, may appear, to those also not real managers orleaders, or even to fellow psychopaths, as decisive management, and evenleadership.

3) Changing organizational structures and models, from pyramidal bureaucracies in the1960s to 80s, to sleeker, flattter. more free-form and faster-paced organizationalstructures, with more scope for lower-level decision making, led to increased focus on

managerial traits that psychopaths easily fake: confidence; willing to rattle cages to getthings done quickly; decisiveness; callousness disguised as professionalism;ruthlessness in firing and discipline; etc;

4) Psychopaths, known for no Bonds or Bounds, willing to break rules, regulationsand laws , plus their cunning and conning, all under the banner to get things done,appear as organizational saviors in in flexible, fast-paced, highly competitive, high-risk,high-profit and transitional organizations;

Perhaps Plato, one of the first recorded analysts of psychopathy (one can also add the Taoists),noted:

"Those who seek power are invariably the least fit to hold and wield it."

Plato understood, perhaps instinctively, or perhaps from examples around him, that those whowould self-annoint, self-proclaim, self-credential themselves as "leaders", to be parachuted"down" on--and over--those they purport to "lead", demonstrate a certain level of hubris,absoluteand unfounded--certainty, malignant narcissism and megalomania that is breathtakingand extremely dangerous. As an old Chinese aphorism goes:

"Power is something a good person will not seek and a bad person should not have."

But lust for power and domination, coupled grandiosity and a monstrous sense of entitlement,superiority and being destined to rule others, is at the center of everything the psychopath doesand how he/she does it. Traits and capabilities such as lying, revenge, using people as objects,manipulation, deceit, charm, schmoozing, networking, assessing vulnerabilities of targets,intrigue, callousness, assertiveness, supreme confidence, sophisticated masks, etc are all butinstruments and weapons in the overall arsenal of the psychopath.