by J Clarke
Random House Australia, 2005
$22.95
Most employees are familiar with the ‘workplace psychopath’ in various degrees. However, HR is in a better place than most to recognise them – individuals who manipulate their way through their career, leaving a destructive mark on both their colleagues and often organisations. Their behaviour can make work a living hell for managers and employees.
With this in mind, author John Clarke provides an insight into the mind of the workplace psychopath in Working With Monsters: How to identify and protect yourself from the workplace psychopath. Clarke, who consults to law enforcement agencies on criminal profiling and companies on assessing psychopathy in the workplace, draws on this experience and his studies and research in forensic psychology to assist readers in recognising and managing a workplace psychopath.
He examines the different manifestations of psychopathy, from the organisational and occupational to the corporate and the criminal. Clarke is well versed in the strategies of the workplace psychopath, from the job application and interview process, through to organisational manipulation and controlling their damage. Interestingly, he looks at the line between what is considered ‘good for business’ and what is not.
Working With Monsters makes for interesting and sometimes disturbing reading that examines the extremes of human behaviour in the workplace.