Skip to main content

The Corporate Psychopath

I could not agree more with this analysis of the corporation as a person. Seeking therapy for just three of the whole bunch of character flaws could put Gartner, Forrester, Giga et al out of business.

- They are impulsive, and show poor control over their behaviors
- They cannot form long-term plans that are realistic
- They are impulsive, and irresponsible

The whole slew of high-end management consulting firms who thrive primarily because corporations have

- Grandiose sense of self-worth
- Need for stimulation, with a proneness to boredom

Kamikaze mammoth projects are untaken, millions are burnt and lessons are not learnt because

- They do not accept responsibility for their actions - another caused it

I wonder how psychopathic character would map to Gartner Hype Cycles in technology services and development which supposedly goes through Technology Trigger, Peak of Inflated Expectations, Trough of Disillusionment, Slope of Enlightenment, Plateau of Productivity. I have rarely if ever seen the last two phases of the cycle come to pass. That sounds like a manic-depressive to me.

Labels:

Comments

Mindsurfer said…
With not much special respect for corporations, I have to say this in their defense, though -
The psycopath does all that has been mentioned in the quoted comparison simply because of a sick urge. The corporation behaves this way in order to survive. A corporation that does not exhibit these tendencies is seen as not having potential, and investors WILL pull the plug on it. Funny little comparison on that site, but utterly baseless. IMHO, the blame game on corporations is just a way for people who make money off of them to refocus the guilt elsewhere.
My 2 cents, and strictly IMHO.
6:54 PM
Heartcrossings said…
SSM - I guess what I found disturbing about the analysis is the instinct to do wrong habitually and instinctively comes with psychopathic territory. They don't know better or different.

Explains the relentless blood-letting that always accompanies a merger/acquisition deal. Outsourcing follows soon after.

Promiscuity and multiple short marital relationships at work. Ominous parallels !
12:03 PM
Anonymous said…
The analysis hyperlink shows a 404 error now! I searched the site for the article but could not find it! It's ok. You can't do anything about it.
6:24 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cheese Making

I never fail to remind J that there is a time and place for everything. It is possibly the line she will remember me by when I am dead and gone given how frequently she hears it. Instead of having her breakfast she will break into a song and dance number from High School Musical well past eight on Monday morning. She will insist that I watch and applaud the performance instead of screaming at her to finish her milk and cereal. Her sense of occasion is seriously lacking but then so is mine. Consider for example, a person walks into the grocery store with the express purpose of buying detergent because they are fresh out of it and laundry is only half way done. However instead of heading straight for detergent, they wander over to the natural foods aisle and go berserk upon finding goat milk on sale for a dollar a gallon. They at once proceed to stock pile so they can turn it to huge quantities home-made feta cheese. That person would be me. It would not concern me in the least that I ha...
5 comments
Read more

Part Liberated Woman

An expat desi friend and I were discussing what it means to return to India when you have cobbled together a life in a foreign country no matter how flawed and imperfect. We have both spent over a decade outside India and have kids who were born abroad and have spent very little time back home. Returning "home" is something a lot of new immigrants like L and myself think about. We want very much for that to be an option because a full assimilation into our country of domicile is likely never going to happen. L has visited India more often than I have and has a much better pulse on what's going on there. For me the strongest drag force working against my desire to return home is my experience of life as a woman in India. I neither want to live that suffocatingly sheltered existence myself nor subject J to it. The freedom, independence and safety I have had in here in suburban America was not even something I knew I could expect to have in India. I never knew what it felt t...
111 comments
Read more

Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...
6 comments
Read more