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Dr. Grier blogs about Narcissism and other current topics.>
Part Two -- Origin of the Mini-Series
November 7, 2009
We are in uncharted waters.
Let’s see why I say that’s true:
• Change is accelerating, and the stress and accompanying psychological pressures that change brings with it can have significant impact on the workplace whether we like it or not. As uncomfortable as it may be, mental health issues have become an integral part of the workplace.
• Experience is no longer synonymous with competence. Competence has as much to do with how one fits into the office environment as it does with how well each person does his job.
• The number of qualified people looking for work far exceeds the number of good jobs available. Many good jobs have disappeared and are unlikely to return.
• We are on the cusp of a generational change. Many Baby Boomers are retiring, and Generation X is flooding the workforce and bringing with it new demands for how the workplace should function. Generation Y, half again as large as “Gen X”, is close behind and bringing its own expectations for the workplace.
• Finally, we need to recognize that the normal hiring process aimed at finding the most qualified person to do the job is no longer good enough for the 21st century work environment. Many men and women spend more of their lives at work than they do at home, and the workplace is inheriting all the benefits and challenges that reality brings with it.
My last book, Narcissism in the Workplace, told the story of how a coworker afflicted with a Narcissistic Personality Disorder damaged our organization and brought misery to everyone around him.
A close friend of mine who runs a large organization told me about his own brush with narcissism. His organization is broken into teams, and he talked about how a young woman was able to turn her team into an unhappy and exasperated group unable to perform its assigned task. About how he personally had to devote hours to investigate, interview and finally fire the young woman.
“How,” he asked after reading my book, “can I avoid hiring someone like her the next time?”
His question gave birth to this mini-series.
I suggest that by conducting the right kind of interview, we can avoid having to “discover” whether destructive narcissists have slipped into our midst. People who require that we spend days, weeks and even months trying to rid ourselves of them and the problems they create.
Together in this series we will look at some general principles that will help us navigate the uncharted waters in which we find ourselves.
We will talk about how to conduct an interview that creates the framework that lets us find the right person to do the job. We will follow that with a discussion about what questions we need to ask if we are to identify the right person from the many who enter our door.
Afterward, we will apply these principles and the interview process to the interview that I had with Ken in my book Narcissism in the Workplace. We will look at how I might have been able to discover Ken’s personality disorder during our discussions and in turn never given my endorsement to bring him to our office.
We will end by drawing some conclusions, and I will close with some final thoughts and reflections.
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