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Office Politics

By Paperstone on October 30, 2013 in Office Workers

`Office politics

British working culture rewards psychopaths, narciccists, and devious personality types, according to a top author.

Psychologist and broadcaster Oliver James says that in modern workplace, ruthless, dysfunctional personalities easily rise to the top.

In his book, Office Politics, James says that nice, normal people need to learn how to handle people with these dark traits, otherwise “they will eat you for breakfast”.

The author identifies three “dangerous” types among white collar workers: psychopath, Machiavellian, and narcissist. The fourth type is “triadic”- a scary mix of the other three deviant personalities. These are people who won’t hesitate to trample all over colleagues, and who plot and scheme their way to the top.

Workers like this show a lack of empathy, self-centredness, deviousness and self-obsession which can propel them to the top of the organisations.

Fictional examples of “triadics are Gordon Gecko, the trader played by Michael Douglas in Wall Street, the fictional Mafia boss Tony Soprano, and Stalin.

James warns that people with normal personalities can be damaged by these dominant types.

If you want to learn how to survive, Office Politics is published by Vermillion.

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