the dark triad and the definition of success

i'm going to be talking about one of the dark triad personality traits in this post. reading that wiki entry would be helpful if you aren't familiar, but to sum it up, there are three personality traits that are generally seen as coming with negative consequences, but are also exhibited by a lot of "successful" people. the three traits are narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy.

the disturbing truth about these people, is that the traits actually have short-term positive qualities that cause us to discount the negative consequences in our more gullible moments. this is true even when we are fully aware of the negative traits. but what is clear to long-term thinkers, whatever short-term benefits are brought through the dark triad traits are far outweighed by the mid/long-term negative.

a few months back, Harvard Business Review did a blog post talking about the dark triad and why those negative personality traits seem to be heavily represented by people who seem to be "winning" in the workplace. The blog post was appropriately titled Why Bad Guys Win at Work.

some quotes:

Previously, an impressive 15-year longitudinal study found that individuals with psychopathic and narcissistic characteristics gravitated towards the top of the organizational hierarchy and had higher levels of financial attainment.

...

there is clearly a bright side to their dark side. As found in a study examining the overlap between positive and negative personality characteristics, extraversion, openness to new experience, curiosity, and self-esteem are generally higher among dark triad personalities. In addition, dark triad traits tend to enhance competitiveness, if only by inhibiting cooperation and altruistic behaviors at work. In addition, studies have shown that psychopathic and Machiavellian tendencies facilitate both the seduction and intimidation tactics that frighten potential competitors and captivate bosses.

...

Yet it is important to understand that all these individual gains come at the expense of the group. 

Although there is clearly an adaptive element to the dark triad – which explains why bad guys often win – their success comes at a price, and that price is paid by the organization. In evolutionary terms, dark triad personality characteristics constitute the essence of the freeriding. And the more polluted or contaminated the environment – in a political sense – the more these parasitic personalities will thrive. 

where i work (Zappos.com), we often turn candidates away because of "culture fit." in my 6 years here, i've interviewed many dozens of software engineering candidates. part of our interview process includes a compete culture review with a culture reviewer who is not in tech and will give a broader company view of how well the candidate exhibits all ten core value traits. beven though it's someone's job to do the culture review, that doesn't obviate the responsibility of culture fit from other interviewers. every interviewer is expected to give a core values assessment which includes any concerns you may have around core values for the candidate.

when i do core value assessments as part of my interviews for software engineers, i can't do a full assessment because i don't have the time (i also have to assess coding, object oriented design, creativity, algorithms, and problem solving skills).

as such, i only focus on negative core value traits that i think have the highest chance of being disruptive for our engineering team. top of the list is "be humble." you don't have to work long in software before you are exposed to "diva politics." every place that doesn't careful sift out bad actor divas will experience the morale hit that comes from having narcissistic colleagues who are constantly denigrating people's work and value. they are toxic to the overall environment no matter how much they contribute technically.

those environments are even more toxic when upper management is not mature enough to understand the true cost/value ratio of the diva. thankfully, the toxic costs of coddling divas has been well studied and established for many years now and any manager interested in the long-term will understand that their organization simply cannot tolerate the divas (see the HBR blog post i referenced above for a start).

in my own experience, i have seen many of the ill effects of tolerating divas: good people leaving, decreased trust in the company and management, colleagues focusing on the internal threat created by management instead of the external threats to the company, disengagement and lost efficiency, low morale, et al.

and even when companies are careful about their culture fit screening, the divas can still slip through sometimes. the question is what to do about it?

obviously, that depends on your environment. if you are in an environment that really doesn't care about the core values they espouse, then i suggest looking for work elsewhere that has more integrity.

in most companies that actually do care, you would just report the culture violation to management and HR and then it should get fixed (either through better behavior or termination).

my personal preference is a mature workplace that has healthy peer feedback. i really like amazon's leadership principle of "have backbone; disagree and commit" that encourages direct conversations among thick skinned colleagues.

with peer feedback, just let the divas know about the negative impact of their behavior, but do it with enough humility to acknowledge that your perspective may have just been skewed. i've experienced these conversations clearing things up and helping create a bond with mutual humility.

in the worst cases, the bad actor will refuse to even discuss their poor behavior and will get condescending and insulting. that's usually a sign that termination proceedings need to start since the narcissist will most likely never adjust their toxic behavior when they are unable to even acknowledge the issue.