Now here’s a book with a great title!
You remember the bully at school — that kid who was jealous of you, so he hit you, called you names or broke something cool you made?
Their psychiatric problems may have started when they were children and continued on into adult life. Some are given labels such as bully, sociopath, social snipers, trolls and even psychopaths. Apparently, around 4% of the population are psychopaths.
If you are perceptive or have experienced this type of person before, when you meet one, you will quickly be able to identify these antisocial people.
These people often crave attention, and so they often use attention-seeking behaviour like provoking or humiliating people, and are often inconsistent — one minute being friendly and at other times being a complete asshole.
There’s some great info available to help you spot these individuals:
Antisocial personality disorder
There it says that:
‘Antisocial personality disorder is most strongly correlated with Psychopathy as measured on the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R)’
And the good old wikipedia site has a page on pyschopathy here.
There it says that:
‘Psychopathy is defined in psychiatry and clinical psychology as a condition characterized by lack of empathy[1][2] or conscience, and poor impulse control[3][4] or manipulative behaviors.’
Well, now a great book is available which details just this kind of person within the workplace. It’s called ‘The No Asshole Rule’ by Robert Sutton, PhD. Here’s a snippet from an editorial review from Publishers Weekly:
‘This meticulously researched book, which grew from a much buzzed-about article in the Harvard Business Review, puts into plain language an undeniable fact: the modern workplace is beset with assholes. Sutton (Weird Ideas that Work), a professor of management science at Stanford University, argues that assholes — ”those who deliberately make co-workers feel bad about themselves and who focus their aggression on the less powerful — ”poison the work environment, decrease productivity, induce qualified employees to quit and therefore are detrimental to businesses, regardless of their individual effectiveness. He also makes the solution plain: they have to go. Direct and punchy, Sutton uses accessible language and a bevy of examples to make his case, providing tests to determine if you are an asshole (and if so, advice for how to self-correct), a how-to guide to surviving environments where assholes freely roam and a carefully calibrated measure, the “Total Cost of Assholes,” by which corporations can assess the damage. Although occasionally campy and glib, Sutton’s work is sure to generate discussions at watercoolers around the country and deserves influence in corporate hiring and firing strategies.’
Here are some related links:
The No Asshole Rule: Part 1
The Pyschopath – The mask of sanity
No Asshole Rule video
Law.com – The No Asshole Rule
Just Fight On! Against workplace bullying and abuse
There’s a wealth of info at this last site — for example, this snippet:
‘Once the target is gone, there’s a period of between 2-14 days, then a new target is selected and the process starts again (bullying is an obsessive compulsive behaviour and serial bullies seem unable to survive without a target on to whom they can project their inadequacy and incompetence whilst blaming them for the bully’s own failings)’
Of course, successful people can expect to become targets by these inadequate bullies due to their jealousy, so it pays to know about their tactics so you can keep one step ahead of them 🙂