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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBeware corporate psychopaths – they are still occupying positions of power
A single, second-hand, anecdotal account, but I'd love to see an enterprising investigative journalist tackle this topic. Are investment banks and corporations intentionally hiring people who profile as psychopaths?
Oh, and I enthusiastically recommend Ronson's The Psychopath Test. Ronson has the rare ability to inform and entertain at the same time.
Cut to a pleasantly warm evening in Bahrain. My companion, a senior UK investment banker and I, are discussing the most successful banking types we know and what makes them tick. I argue that they often conform to the characteristics displayed by social psychopaths. To my surprise, my friend agrees.
He then makes an astonishing confession: "At one major investment bank for which I worked, we used psychometric testing to recruit social psychopaths because their characteristics exactly suited them to senior corporate finance roles."
Here was one of the biggest investment banks in the world seeking psychopaths as recruits.
Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/brian-basham-beware-corporate-psychopaths--they-are-still-occupying-positions-of-power-6282502.html
DJ13
(23,671 posts)qb
(5,924 posts)A CEO must maximize profits no matter who it harms. That's capitalism.
Earthbound Misfit
(13 posts)no kidding...
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British journalist Jon Ronson immersed himself in the world of mental health diagnosis and criminal profiling to understand what makes some people psychopaths dangerous predators who lack the behavioral controls and tender feelings the rest of us take for granted. Among the things he learned while researching his new book, The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry: the incidence of psychopathy among CEOs is about 4 percent, four times what it is in the population at large. I spoke with him recently about what that means and its implications for the business world and wider society.
Are we really to understand that theres some connection between what makes people psychopaths and what makes them CEO material?
At first I was really skeptical because it seemed like an easy thing to say, almost like a conspiracy theorists type of thing to say. I remember years and years ago a conspiracy theorist telling me the world was ruled by blood-drinking, baby-sacrificing lizards. These psychologists were essentially saying the same thing. Basically, when you get them talking, these people [ie. psychopaths] are different than human beings. They lack the things that make you human: empathy, remorse, loving kindness.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2011/06/14/why-some-psychopaths-make-great-ceos/
Betty Karlson
(7,231 posts)raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)It trickles down as well. I've worked for a couple major corporations who considered themselves semi-progressive, or at least in advertising they did.
Once I entered the system I found it occupied by money crazed people who would call themselves Christians but cared only for the bottom line and had little issue in bearing false witness during sales presentations or the destruction caused to peoples health by evading health or environmental regulations.
Any deviancy I showed from the corporate line caused me to be maligned, passed over and eventually "tutored" by one of the upper management sycophants.
It appears I was a lost cause as the training never took and my respect for the common man outweighed my need to profit off them by deception.
Still, I could have had a nice 401k and retirement package. But then, I like to sleep at night too.
Response to salvorhardin (Original post)
woo me with science This message was self-deleted by its author.
phantom power
(25,966 posts)like a sociopath, come to think of it...