Snakes in Suits summary

Unfortunately, sooner or later, you’re likely to meet a psychopath. When this happens, you’ll probably have no idea who you’re dealing with.

Most psychopaths wind up in prison because they lack the skills to manipulate people to get what they want, forcing them to resort to a more direct approach: violence. But psychopaths who are not incarcerated are much more subtle and capable manipulators. They often use the following three-stage process:

Just like any other predator, a psychopath also knows where to find his victims.

Favorite targets include affinity groups like charities or religions, because such groups are built on mutual trust, which is easy to take advantage of.

Once psychopaths have entered an organization, they start assessing the utility of everyone there. This is made easier by the fact that new employees are actually expected to actively seek out and meet everyone in the company in their first months. Psychopaths can thus easily assess the utility of coworkers, bosses and support staff, and then charm the relevant ones.

Of course, all new employees try to be charming when, for example, they meet their boss for the first time – that’s normal. The difference is that psychopaths have no intent of ever delivering any actual work.

In addition to pawns and patrons, psychopaths also put people in companies into other categories.

If a psychopath sees that an employee has no utility to offer, that person is deemed a low-utility observer, and ignored. This means that, in fact, such employees are in a uniquely objective position to observe the psychopath and realize that he’s manipulating others. Unfortunately, few voice these concerns to management because they fear the psychopath’s or his patron’s influence.

How can organizations protect themselves when psychopaths come charging at their gates?

Naturally, the best defense is to never let them in at all, so the interviewers who make hiring decisions have a great responsibility.

If you’re unlucky enough to become the target of a psychopath, you are in for a wild, emotionally draining and eventually devastating ride. Most likely, you won’t realize what you’re dealing with until it’s too late, but there are a few ways to prepare yourself.

First, know your enemy: learn about psychopathy. Understand the traits of a psychopath to see past their “mask” of normality. However, be careful you don’t start diagnosing people around you, especially not based on a mere few traits. It takes a qualified professional to make such judgments, and the “psychopath” label is too serious to be wielded carelessly.

Now that you know that corporate psychopaths exist, you may well want to know what you can do when you meet one at work? Besides the tips presented in the previous blink, the work environment presents a few additional considerations.

First, as always, relationships and reputation are important, but especially so when dealing with a psychopathic boss or coworker. You should also try to build a reputation as a high performer. By always doing your best, you build a solid reputation against any rumors the psychopath may spread about you, and also stop him from using any poor performance against you.

The key message in this book:

Not all psychopaths are in prison: many of them put on suits and roam corporate offices. They use their incredible impression management skills to charm victims and extract whatever favors they want, often rapidly advancing up the corporate ladder at the expense of their colleagues and the company. The only hope for those involved is to quickly spot these predators before they destroy the organization.