Maybe you’re in a position now that requires you to hire staff. That usually means you also have the responsibility to let others go.
People working for me had to work really hard to lose their job. When I identified someone as losing focus, passion, or ambition, I’d climb aboard. I wanted to find out what was causing the change. Generally, one doesn’t go from a valued employee to a questionable employee just as a whim.
It may not be something they wanted to talk about at first, and that’s OK, as it was not the most important aspect. I respected their privacy, and they knew that. But after they realized I was truly concerned about them, and my focus was on their well-being, they virtually always opened up. When we got to that point, I felt fairly sure that I saved a good employee.
There’s usually something at the base of it all, something responsible for the trauma — potentially outside the office environment — and that “something” can usually be fixed. Usually. But what if it’s an excellent employee who became ineffective, virtually overnight, as well losing his ability to keep his high performance and work-quality ratings? This is someone who’s been with the company a long time.
Since all he knows for sure is that he has been shunned and made an outcast by those he used to call friends, how can he possibly explain “what the problem is” to his supervisor or the HR department?
He’s been made to believe that everything is of his own doing. He is unable to discuss it, since even he doesn’t know what “it” is. What if this person has become the victim of a sociopath — a co-worker he barely knows?
In today’s corporate environment, he doesn’t have a chance.
Any Companies Trained to Deal with Sociopath Employees?
I’ve not heard of even one company that has realized the need to become sociopath-aware and proactive. Not one. So in the scenario above, that “excellent employee” will be deemed ineffective and unnecessary to the company, and likely given his pink slip. The company successfully rid itself of an “excellent” employee who was only temporarily marginal — he needed trained help.
As far as that goes, the company — representing most companies — is in the stone age. Feeling a previously-unknown level of grave, dark despair, as well as like a complete outcast, the company provides the frosting and tells him he’s not even good enough for his job.
But just on the other side of the floor, the sociopath is feeling extremely high, as he just chalked-up another success. By manipulating his followers (company co-workers), the sociopath got them to do most of the dirty work of spreading his malicious character assassination against the unsuspecting and innocent man.
The results of such action are so truly heinous, as it would tear deeply at the man’s soul, leaving him to question his own being. By the time the man became aware of the way he was being treated by everyone, he was doomed. It was too late. There was nothing he could do.
The company’s management may have even interviewed others about this employee, and since management heard the same things from everyone, they were confident they were making the right decision. All based on the flawed Majority Rules, where everyone repeats the same hearsay — 100 lies do not equal even one truth. In the end, the sociopath created an environment where he got the management to fire someone who “bothered” him. Does that seem far-fetched? If it does, trust me: not even the Law will get in their way.
Hello?! You just phuqued-up and told the wrong guy to walk.
What does this mean going forward?
Short Term
The Ex-Employee: Devastated, not just by losing his job, but by the sociopath-induced, character assassination. Currently looking for a new job, but feels great despair due to believing it was all of his doing.
The Company: A positive feeling … got rid of “obvious” dead-weight. Not much more thought given to it.
The Sociopath: Another Win … chalked-up an additional, well-planned and executed success. No plans for retirement any time soon.
Long Term
The Ex-Employee: Doing much better. New job, positive environment, making new friends, likely works for a competitor. Big loss and oversight by the previous employer.
The Company: Long-since forgotten employee #1, though now dealing with more, and strikingly similar employee problems (“strikingly” to them if they just opened their eyes). Still unaware of the spreading “cancer” within.
The Sociopath: Continued successes. Has built a large following. Anyone — even just due to the sociopath’s paranoia — appearing to have the ability to expose the sociopath, or complicate his plans, is systematically added to the target list.
Longer Term
The Ex-Employee: Doing great. His new employer saw his potential and promoted him accordingly.
The Company: Never got a clue. Stock price did a major drop as many top-execs left. Employee moral at an all-time low. Lay-offs continued.
The Sociopath: He manipulated the company with precision, and was considered an excellent employee. Due to the problems he sees with the company, especially the lay-offs of his followers, he is planning a move to another company.
First and foremost, that person is a life with lots going on … secondly, that person has a job. The job is to support that life. If that life is having marital problems, as an example, coming down on that person hard, giving them warnings, or simply firing them, can contribute so much pain to their already difficult situation, that it could just about send them over the edge.
Take this from one who’s experienced both: marital problems can be devastating, but are usually no where near the grief in becoming a sociopath’s victim. Being a sociopath’s victim while having marital problems at the same time, though, really sucks — and yes, that comes from my own personal experience. I’m a sociopath magnet.
So, for my struggling employees, I’d greet them each morning with an encouraging look of an outlook … the one they’d come to realize that really said I did care about them. And since nothing lasts forever, once their “situation” got resolved, and they got back to their pre-stressed life, part of them would never be the same.
The most accurate analogy (though maybe not the best) I can think of is if you’ve ever rescued an abused dog, and spent the time teaching it to trust humans again. Just as in the canine, you know which part of that employee will never be the same again (and trust me on this, as I was a dog in a previous life). I wish more people were like dogs.
When I Changed Jobs
When I would get recruited by another company, and I told my staff I’d be leaving, I’d most assuredly have a stack of updated résumés on my desk the next morning. When I had openings, I never needed to advertise. I just made-the-day for one of my previous staff members by asking them if they happened to be looking for a change.
Some of my previous employers got very pissed-off since within 4-5 months after I left, half the department had followed me. What’s it feel like to have your staff follow you? It’s one of the most humbling and gratifying experiences I ever had.
The Hiring Challenge
When I needed to fill a position, but I didn’t have any more on my list to draw from, I reverted to Plan B — referrals. I’d ask my staff if they knew of anyone who was in the market for a new job, and possessed the required qualifications. By the next morning, I most assuredly had a stack of new résumés on my desk.
That was when my challenge began, because I figured my staff would have only contacted the best candidates they knew, so I could feasibly pull a résumé from the middle and make a good addition to our group. But I never saw it as that simple.
At that point, my responsibility was to my current staff. I needed to make sure that whoever I hired to join our team, would not turn out to be a bad apple … a sociopath would be a bad apple. I discovered long ago it’s relatively easy to find qualified candidates, but the difficult part is selecting harmonious candidates.
Hiring one bad apple can destroy an entire team in no time at all. Once I got it down to the group finalists, the final interview included each member of my staff interviewing the candidate alone, and then as a group.
I stressed to them that some very talented candidates may become unnerved by the large number of individual interviews, as well as the horrifying group interview. I said it was incumbent upon them to make the candidate feel at ease, as this was not about the job skills — this was about working together. The concept wasn’t perfect, but I believe our success rate spoke for itself.
The Next Challenge:
How do you Eliminate the Sociopath Candidates?
The very last thing you want is to let a sociopath sneak in with a job … the little faux pas could bring down a company, though that probably would not be the sociopath’s goal. If the success of your company, though, is based on valued, long-time dedicated staff, the damage a sociopath can do is enough to disrupt the balance of the glue that holds it all together.
###
