Davy Jones' Locker

The first interview was a breeze. Year-on-year 32% sales growth in the region, a brilliant team manager who could take actions on ‘non-performing’ assets (including team members – and that’s normal in a dynamic industry he was in; HR interviews are sometimes too theoretical on simple things like that, and ask unnecessary questions), led the team to high levels of achievement, an almost perfect grooming that came out of a finishing-school – that also demonstrated that time can be managed so well so as to be on the ground ‘at work all life’ and at exotic evening networking sessions as well.

Interviews don’t reveal unapproved discount-driven sales, false commitments of commissions to distributors, using local low-line political influence to threaten stockists, ‘networks’ created through diverting official marketing expenses into personal favours, moving out people from the team at a fast pace – anybody who ‘spoke up’; an almost unbreakable line of allegiance and loyalty in the line of reporting to the Head of Sales, who possibly knew deeper than that.

There was no second thought. That was the candidate.

Having packed up the personnel file after the final meeting with the Internal Audit and Ombuds-team, Hari (name changed) sat with his compensation Lead on the full and final settlement for the person the organization just took action on, and relieved from duties. It took his organization only three years to take that action – but by that time, a lot of people had lost their jobs - a lot of good people.

The book ‘Snakes in Suits’ is a 2006 non-fiction book by industrial psychologist Paul Babiak and Criminal psychologist Robert D. A lucid, approximately 320-page expression based on depth of years of research gives us insights into what appears to be a few thousand years of manipulative behaviours arising out of both genetic disposition and environmental influence (nature and nurture, respectively) – trampling others for promotions, power, fame and gain, lies and deception to show quick business results at the cost of a lot of other long term and sustainable elements – and the effect of such behaviours on colleagues and corporations and how (interestingly) fine the line is between specific leadership behaviours and the ones talked about in this book, that are actually accepted as a ‘normal’ in ‘high-productive’ environments; and why despite our knowledge and observation of these traits around, we succumb to it with absolute inaction.

With workplaces under increasing stress, it is not unlikely to have the Dark-Triad (narcissism, Machiavellianism and Psychopathy) emphasizing the ends-to-the-means in multiple circumstances at work and decision-making. The book fundamentally pivots around this theme, with subtle and every-day examples of tremendous manipulations, deceptions, flawless facades masquerading dark intents, personal gains, unbridled greed and overarching ambitions.

With every observation that has to have its caveats, the book elaborates 5 steps that are characteristics to look out for, on personalities that are disruptive in the long run - use of social skills and charm from an employment stage (1-Entry), finding out the pawns to victimize and patrons to use as shields (2-Assessment), creating stories using self-serving biases and malign against others (3-Manipulation), creating a defense through confrontation using techniques of character assassination to maintain and drive agenda (4-Confrontation) and then finally throwing out even the patron to gain the ultimate position or source/chair of power (5-Ascension).

With a tremendous ability to read into people and their weaknesses, excellent oral communication skills delivered with apparent confidence and aggression (jumping into conversations without social inhibitions that hamper most people), masters in the art of impression management, there are people at workplaces who stand out – like the ‘perfect invisible predator’. The book cautions that like all other complex social behaviours, there can be people who are charming, effective, socially facile communicators and are still honest. The thin line is where people use these abilities with insincerity not caring about feelings of others and as tools to take unfair advantages – as against the normal social need to be liked and respected.

In specific cases, leadership behaviour when encouraged through large incentives and extremely high target-settings is prone to achieving the ends regardless of the means. The desire to stay on the top and getting what one wants whether it is deserved or not, is a road map to amoral personal and corporate success; and what appears to be target-setting and stretch-goals, digs deep enough to our core to test what comes out in times under stress. It is also a common knowledge amongst executive recruiters that more than 15% of resumes from senior executives contain outright lies, and the same is there on social media like LinkedIn.

There is something uncannily cold in the behaviour of specific people, under guise of social warmth. Unconcerned about the impact of their behaviour on others, most of their responses are not based on cognitive and intellectual appraisal of the situations – and the decisions they take reflect this coldness. A talented corporate fraudster, the book mentions, easily comes across to executives as an ambitious and enthusiastic player, where competence and loyalty are ‘assumed’ and not challenged/tested. It is therefore important to keep an eye out on an executive who repeatedly engages in activities indicative of lack of integrity, is prone to engage in speculative ventures/accept unusually high business risks, displays poor attitude towards compliance with regulatory or legislative obligations, is evasive of the audit team, has multiple faces depending on whom the person is interacting with (“High Self-Monitoring” has a grey area under it).

There are solutions available to control entry and breeding of aberrant personalities in the organization. The first solution is to slow down and spend time on questions (3 levels down on each question) – were goals really achieved? Was there a trail of bodies left behind, or a triumphant team? Was the achievement sustainable or manipulated as a one-off spike for the sake of a succession-plan or business-critical review? Has this person even talked about failure at all, without a direct question on it?

The book cautions labelling someone as ‘aberrant’ looking at isolated characteristics, or not being formally trained to decipher traits.

The internal investigation team had to move really slow based on inputs from the audit team, triggered by an unofficial email that came up from a set-up Gmail account. There were lots of suspensions, closed-door conversations, recordings. The report that was finally submitted to the Chief Executive’s office by the Ombudsperson and Ethics Committee was more than 400 pages long.

I was sitting with Hari at a nice coffee shop and in a remote corner of it and he told me something interesting – a note he had, as we dived into the Davy Jones’ – a statement from the person that sort-of always went unheeded and not-actioned, as the case was closed: “ Have a look at your visiting-card, Hari – you will realize it has your designation printed on it, and it does not allow you to put your hands on places and people that matter - the ones behind this”.