Snakes in Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work | 
 enlarge | Authors: Paul Babiak, Robert D. Hare
Publisher: Collins Business
Category: Book
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Avg. Customer Rating:  37 reviews
Sales Rank: 30769
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 352
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 1
ISBN: 0061147893
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
EAN: 9780061147890
ASIN: 0061147893
Publication Date: May 1, 2007
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Product Description
Let's say you're about to hire somebody for a position in your company. Your corporation wants someone who's fearless, charismatic, and full of new ideas. Candidate X is charming, smart, and has all the right answers to your questions. Problem solved, right? Maybe not. We'd like to think that if we met someone who was completely without conscience -- someone who was capable of doing anything at all if it served his or her purposes -- we would recognize it. In popular culture, the image of the psychopath is of someone like Hannibal Lecter or the BTK Killer. But in reality, many psychopaths just want money, or power, or fame, or simply a nice car. Where do these psychopaths go? Often, it's to the corporate world. Researchers Paul Babiak and Robert Hare have long studied psychopaths. Hare, the author of Without Conscience, is a world-renowned expert on psychopathy, and Babiak is an industrial-organizational psychologist. Recently the two came together to study how psychopaths operate in corporations, and the results were surprising. They found that it's exactly the modern, open, more flexible corporate world, in which high risks can equal high profits, that attracts psychopaths. They may enter as rising stars and corporate saviors, but all too soon they're abusing the trust of colleagues, manipulating supervisors, and leaving the workplace in shambles. Snakes in Suits is a compelling, frightening, and scientifically sound look at exactly how psychopaths work in the corporate environment: what kind of companies attract them, how they negotiate the hiring process, and how they function day by day. You'll learn how they apply their "instinctive" manipulation techniques -- assessing potential targets, controlling influential victims, and abandoning those no longer useful -- to business processes such as hiring, political command and control, and executive succession, all while hiding within the corporate culture. It's a must read for anyone in the business world, because whatever level you're at, you'll learn the subtle warning signs of psychopathic behavior and be able to protect yourself and your company -- before it's too late.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 32 more reviews...
 Starts well, but very repetitive. May 12, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This book contains some good information, but it is very repetitive and includes a lot of superfluous information. The back-and-forth style (the book intermixes standard textbook-like prose with mini-stories and sidebars through-out) also makes it difficult read in multiple sittings.
 A Guidebook to a Strange World April 28, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Except for one brief, horrible period, I've spent most of my life
avoiding bureaucratic organizations of the sort where Snakes in Suits thrive. So I read this book with a fascination like you might bring to a National Geographic special about the grisly customs of some group on the other side of the world.
Apart from the sheer shock and porn value of the stories, the authors have done a great service. We need to bring an awareness of Psycopaths and Sociopaths into the foreground of public discussion. It would be especially important as we see the rise of the class known as 'political operatives'-a whole profession that seems rooted in mercenary immorality.
The book could have been better written and one wishes there were an editor more actively involved, but this is gripping non-fiction and very likely to change the way you think about things.
 One of the Most Essential Works on Psychopathy March 14, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
"Snakes in Suits" is one of the most essential works on psychopathy, as well gives the reader the working knowledge of how psychopaths operate in the job industry, especially in the corporate workplace. Not only will this book to help the reader to understand how corporate psychopaths operate, but it will give a great deal of insights and helpful tips on how to deal with them and how to protect oneself from them.
I give high praises to Hare for this work on the subject. This book is well written and easy to read as well an eye opening experience. I surly would recommend this book.
Psychopaths are ruthless, emotionless, and consciousness individuals to which they only serve themselves at the expense of others. All words coming out of their mouths would be lies, and if you are appeared as "important" or special to them, it is a safe bet that they are using you.
With this book as a tool and a guide, the readers would be able to identify each pathological individual and understand them more clearly as well to protect oneself from them. I would recommend the readers to study other works that discussed with the certain aspects of the study on the psychopaths, including Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us (by Robert Hare), The Mask of Sanity (by Hervey Checkley), The Sociopath Next Door (by Martha Stout), In Sheep's Clothing: Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People (by George Simon), and Andrzej Lobaczwski's Political Ponerology (A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes). With these works, one will have a good deal of working knowledge of the phenomenon of psychopaths in our world, in our governments, in our workplace, in our neighborhood, and even in our homes.
A must read for every working person December 30, 2007
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
This books gives a wealth of insight into how to deal with psychopaths in the work place. It clearly outlines how the psychopaths with the use of lying, manipulation and charm often easily manages to get pass the screening interviews for high powered jobs in the workplace. It describes the whole process by which the company and the whole workplace becomes toxic due to the psychopath's influence and it offers the steps and solutions to counteract in order to protect oneself and also for businesses to protect themselves.
Yes a powerful book, that adds to the other book by Robert Hare called "Without Conscience".
OK, so how do we deal with them? December 29, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
The book offers an in-depth description of psychopaths in the corporate workplace, and makes them easy to identify anywhere in fact. The advice given in this respect is indispensable. The authors advise that good Human Resource practices are the first (and possibly only) line of defense against allowing these monsters into companies and agencies. However, the book comes short on strategies for how to deal with the psychopaths already among us.
In fact, the authors' advice on dealing with psychopaths can be boiled down to these two tenets: be a good and ethical employee no matter what, and know when it's a good time to leave the company/agency. Being something of a fighter myself, I found this type of counsel unsatisfactory, but also very impractical. I believe that psychopaths may be even more prevalent than the authors intimate. They are indeed everywhere, and one can hardly afford quitting a job every time a psychopath is encountered. I realize that we can't bring violence to the psychopath for his/her actions, but as workers, we need real and practical strategies for dealing with this class of people. For this failing alone I am forced to give a 4 star rating to the book instead of a 5.
One good strategy for dealing with the few psychopaths I have encountered has been that of exposure, or bringing to light the underhanded actions of the psychopath. Avoid being alone with the psychopath. Whenever possible, have witnesses present. The authors recommend that you keep detailed documentation on everything that happens, but I would add that it is better if several people keep such documentation. Another strategy is to connect with other workers in the same situation. Psychopaths thrive on fragmenting workplace communities and isolating individuals. They try to make you feel alone when in fact you are not alone. Once you connect with fellow employees undergoing psychopathic manipulation/attack, and you decide on a plan of action, their game is nearly up. And their "game" is that of promoting themselves by using and discrediting the reputations of other workers. Once you can discredit the psychopath and cast a few, well-deserved aspersions on his/her character, you really have them where they live.
Depending on your situation, the methods and tactics of the criminal detective may apply--especially to any efforts that concern evidence gathering. If you wish to use recording devices, check the pertinent legislations for your state to make sure you are not breaking any laws. It may be illegal to use recording devices without notifying the parties concerned, but not always illegal in the same way or to the same extent everywhere, so check your local laws before you proceed in this vein.
The book focuses on the psychopaths' effects on the corporate and therefore private sector. As a public sector employee myself, it was easy to recognize a lot of the behaviors ascribed to psychopaths in some of the people I have worked with. I was left wondering if there is any literature on the prevalence or effect of psychopaths in the public sector. After reading this book, it is my "educated" guess that researchers may find a prevalence of the supposedly more rare female psychopath within public sector workplaces.
Female psychopaths may be found in roles that no one may have thought of, such as that of the social worker, teacher, nurse, psychologist, or education consultant--roles that have been traditionally associated with more caring and nurturing female professionals. At least, such has been my experience. If anyone knows of any book on the subject of the female psychopath, please drop me a line.
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