[HN Gopher] Psychopathic tendencies help some people succeed in ...
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Psychopathic tendencies help some people succeed in business
Author : reqo
Score : 43 points
Date : 2023-07-29 19:34 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
| johndhi wrote:
| Hehe - sadly watching this play out at work this very week.
|
| The big one I've observed is people who shoot upward in an
| organization by being obsequious to those above them and brutal
| to those below.
| gscott wrote:
| It is a self-reinforcing cycle. Upper management hires a
| manager the manager meets all of the sales/service metrics but
| the employees complain about the managers style. Upper
| management feels they set the metrics high so this managers
| style must be working so they promote the manager and dismiss
| the employees concerns as complaining.
|
| If the manager starts missing metrics, manager start firing
| employees to cover up for these misses and maybe moves to a
| different region because they have laid as much destruction as
| one place can handle.
| kennethrc wrote:
| "Succession"
| boeingUH60 wrote:
| I'm not surprised by this, especially on the trait of
| _fearlessness_. Check many successful entrepreneurs, and you 'll
| observe that they're crazy.
|
| Take Musk for example, you really have to be fearless and
| delusional to think that you can build a successful electric
| carmaker from scratch and a company making re-usable rockets at
| the same time. These traits serve him positively in business, but
| it's no surprise to also see it manifest negatively in other
| areas...
| hristov wrote:
| I am not sure how Musk would qualify as a psychopath. If you
| look carefully, his successful ventures were actually the
| result of very thoughtful and careful long term planning. And
| this is not usually a strong suit for psychopaths.
|
| He did not build a successful electric car maker, he joined
| tesla well after it was founded and after it had done
| significant amount of development. But if you examined why
| tesla succeeded it was not only boldness or craziness, but
| careful planning many many years ahead. It is not enough to do
| something that seems impossible, that usually ends up in
| failure as the thing ends up being in fact impossible.
|
| The genius is to see how technology and public perception
| changes in the future as to set out in such a way that after
| 10-20 years of hard work the impossible will seem possible.
|
| On the other hand his failures and many embarrassments came
| universally from doing things on a whim. Examples are that
| "funding secured" tweet and the purchase of twitter. And if you
| look at those embarrassments they are really more the result of
| narcissism than psychopathy.
|
| So if I had to guess, I think Musk has developed more
| narcissistic traits later on due to his success, being
| surrounded by sycophants, mental exhaustion and perhaps drug
| use. But I don't think this is the cause of his success.
| rainsford wrote:
| I wonder about survivorship bias in Musk's case. Lots of
| fearless people with overdose levels of hubris don't lead
| successful car and/or rocket companies after all. You could
| probably make a reasonable argument that those traits helped
| Elon Musk specifically, but that's different than arguing
| they're useful traits for success in general. I agree with your
| point about those traits manifesting negatively for Musk
| himself, but I feel like that effect is going to be even more
| significant for entrepreneurs trying to succeed by emulating
| the 2023 version of Elon.
| hristov wrote:
| I got really angry reading this. It is a big mistake to think
| that just because someone does not break the law, and they are
| successful, they are beneficial to society at large or even to
| the organization where they are being successful.
|
| The fact that there a successful psychopaths is more an
| indication that we as a society have not quite created mechanisms
| of protecting ourselves from such people rather than any evidence
| that being a psychopath is somehow good.
|
| In the places where I have worked I have seen many of these bold
| people wreck the business as they are moving up the ranks of said
| business. In one previous workplace, the business was basically
| destroyed by these scumbags. But if the psychologists that wrote
| this article examine these scumbags, they will consider them
| "successful psychopaths" because they gained ranked and salary
| quickly within the business before they destroyed the whole
| thing.
|
| As I have done more work researching publicly traded companies, I
| have seen many companies destroyed by a bold charismatic leader
| that has a brilliant plan that can never succeed.
|
| Psychologists should concentrate on creating better tests for
| identifying psychopaths and creating better social or work
| structures for protecting against psychopathic infiltration
| rather than making excuses for or glorifying psychopaths.
| Hizonner wrote:
| > Psychopathic traits exist in everyone to some degree and
| shouldn't be glorified or stigmatized, she says.
|
| Sure, of course we shouldn't attach any stigma to being a
| goddamned asshole, as long as the person is smart enough to only
| do it when it benefits them.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Notice the word "Some"
| k__ wrote:
| So, the Gervais Principle has some backing?
|
| https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...
| salamiboy wrote:
| Remember Machiavelli's "The Prince"?
|
| "I conclude therefore that, fortune being changeful and mankind
| steadfast in their ways, so long as the two are in agreement men
| are successful, but unsuccessful when they fall out. For my part
| I consider that it is better to be adventurous than cautious,
| because fortune is a woman, and if you wish to keep her under it
| is necessary to beat and ill-use her; and it is seen that she
| allows herself to be mastered by the adventurous rather than by
| those who go to work more coldly. She is, therefore, always,
| woman-like, a lover of young men, because they are less cautious,
| more violent, and with more audacity command her."
| hammock wrote:
| Such a fascinating quote. It would be as welcome in red pill
| dating circles as it would be in the business context
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| Given the relations among genders today, I wonder how
| differently Machiavelli would have phrased his ideas here.
| JackFr wrote:
| I appreciate this comment.
|
| Unlike this article, at least Machiavelli didn't pretend he was
| doing science.
| yamrzou wrote:
| https://archive.is/Tl9DV
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