IS YOUR BOSS A PSYCHOPATH?

Q102: We were talking about bosses and some that are villains. We've already told you about body language in bosses and all of the tricks of the trade that they will perpetrate upon you. And earlier on, Michael Barry told us about psychopaths - a number of people in touch with us have already said, "Yes, I work for one of those."

But what exactly are the parameters that are sought when it come to selecting leaders, managers, bosses and people of that sort? Rowan Manahan is the managing director of Fortify Services and he works with big companies hiring and training management and staff. Good evening Rowan and welcome back to the programme.

Fortify: Hi Scott, nice to be back.

Q102: What are the parameters, the criteria, you use when you are measuring ... have you got some sort of Vernier scale or a calipers or some such when you are hiring these people?

Fortify: Well, when we are working with a large organisation and we are hiring senior management - up to and including Board level - clearly we are looking for people who can make an enormous impact, a difference, in the organisation. A classical methodology that we would employ is stringent background checking on the individual, whereby we are verifying that what the individual is claiming on their CV is true. We can all claim that we can "walk on water and raise the dead" on our CV, but unless you actually have a verifiable track record in doing those things, the likelihood is that you are not going to be able to produce that performance, to that level, going forward ...

So for instance, at CEO level. At that level, we are looking for someone who can do basically 4 things: someone who can set the strategy for the organisation and get that strategy approved by the Board, who can raise and allocate capital necessary to make the business a success, who can hire and fire the appropriate team, and who can create a defined corporate culture within that team to achieve the overall strategic targets that have been laid down.

Now there are very tightly defined rules and regulations in corporate law within which that individual has to work. BUT - if you look at what that individual gets rewarded for - what his or her bonus is paid on - you will see at the end of the day that it almost always comes down to top line performance, bottom line performance, maybe market penetration and share targets. So what happens is, all the big corporations in the world have wonderful corporate credos - "We operate within good corporate governance, we treat our employees with dignity and respect" and so forth - but the fact of the matter is they are operating in a pressure cooker and the pressure is on to PERFORM.

So if somebody of the ilk that Michael (Barry) was discussing earlier on, somebody with defined psychopathic tendencies, has made it into that system, into that organisation, and focuses their psychopathic tendency on 'making that target' well then the organisation, frankly, loves them! They are making the numbers.

Q102: So the organisation loves them, but is it a happy place for you and me to work?

Fortify: Very unlikely Scott. And you can end up with an Enron, a Worldcom, an Adelphia, a Tyco at the end of it all, because these people are not capable of thinking about the long-term consequences of their actions ...

Q102: Because they don't care?

Fortify: Because they are devoid of healthy emotion in that way.

Q102: So, if they are incentivised to produce X% market share within this time span, that IS IT ...

Fortify: In some cases, that is it ...

Q102: Whatever it takes? That's a little scary Rowan.

Fortify: It's not the norm, but it does happen. In most organisations, things run on a healthy level and management strike a balance between concern for productivity and concern for staff and concern for adherence to something other than the laws of the jungle in order to attain these targets and then there are those very small few - and I must stress that this pattern of true psychopathic behaviour is, fortunately, very very rare - but those small few will go all-out. "Who cares what's in the way? Run rough-shod over it ..."

Q102: That latter group you just mentioned, in some respects with the way corporate life works with targets being set up by boards and Wall Street having certain expectations - are those rare few actually better candidates, from the perspective of delivering what's required?

Fortify: Not necessarily, and certainly not if you want your organisation to survive in the medium to long term. Because clearly, these people are not building their strategies on solid foundations and there will always be a great deal of duplicity going on if you have someone who is classically psychopathic at the helm. Again, building on what Michael was saying earlier, the clinical psychopathic is a pathological liar. They are almost incapable of telling the truth and one of the biggest power trips that they get is this perception they have that they are 'putting one over' on the whole world. But as Lincoln famously said, "You can fool some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time." It will eventually catch up on you.

There are so many checks and balances, there are so many audit trails, so many electronic trails now - just look at the €450 million paid this week to the Revenue Collectors; these people thought that their off-shore accounts were absolutely inviolate! "There'll never be a problem with this. How would anyone ever find me, when my account is in Timbuktu?" Well guess what, you left a paper trail ...

Q102: So to ask you finally then, those people who have these tendencies - should they be screened out when you are looking for candidates at this level as Michael was saying? Chief Executive for example ...

Fortify: There is a great deal of screening that already goes on at senior executive level. Many organisations require full-on psychometric profiling before the individual is even considered for the final stages of interview -

Q102: How valuable is psychometric profiling?

Fortify: Very valuable. It can be a very useful indicator for the right personality traits, the mental toughness needed. More specifically now, and to answer your question, the 2 psychologists that Michael referred to (Hare and Babiak) have developed the B-Scan 360. This is a 107-point questionnaire that is not answered by you (so your pathological lies won't be taken into consideration here Mr. Psycho), but rather is answered by your peers, colleagues and subordinates - they will grade your personal style, look at your approach to interpersonal relations, your antisocial tendencies.

And they do this under a number of very unpleasant headings like: Unreliable, Parasitic, Unethical, Bullying (which we are hearing so much about in the workplace and in the courts these days), Arrogance, Insensitivity. Now underpinning that is hard science. The B-Scan is a somewhat lighter version of the full-on PCL-R, which is the test used by psychologists in clinical settings, typically on Death Row, where they are trying to get inside the minds of these monsters - the classical psychopaths.

With the B-Scan in the corporate setting, we are looking at somebody who might be displaying a psychopathic tendency, but who is manifesting that tendency in what is ultimately a more socially acceptable way, which is generating large revenues for a corporate entity.

Q102: Well, that's all fascinating stuff. Rowan Manahan, thank you very much for your time today.

Fortify: Good to talk to you again Scott.

Q102: Rowan is the MD of Fortify Services here in Dublin. Thanks again Rowan.