I am fortunate to have had close encounters with psychopaths. Not once but many times. I said “fortunate” because every life experience is an opportunity for learning, which can be priceless. There are two direct benefits for me as a consequence of such experience.
The first benefit is that I have gained knowledge and developed expertise in recognizing psychopaths’ tactics, which is an extremely useful and, I believe, one of the most important soft skills everyone should have. The purpose isn’t necessarily to identify psychopaths, although beneficial, but to identify controlling behaviors most of us are engaged in without realizing it. The result can be increased self-awareness and ability for self-protection.
The second benefit is a new understanding of human nature. I realized that humanity is a spectrum with psychopaths on one end and people like Mother Theressa on the other end. The rest of us are somewhere in between. However, our true human nature is similar to that of Mother Theressa except we have forgotten it due to the toxic environment. Let me explain.
Psychopaths are human parasites who get what they want through exploitation instead of creation (Don’t hate them. They are here for a good reason, but that’s a discussion for another time). They achieve their goals by controlling other people. There are two ways to control. The first way is overt coercion – take possession of other people’s labor, land, and resources. For example, through slavery, colonization or war. Not surprisingly, most wars and mass killings throughout history were initiated by psychopaths. One has to have NO empathy to send other people’s sons and daughters to kill and be killed.
The second way is covert manipulation – through psychological warfare, authority, ideology, and control of money, power or information. It is the single most destructive yet invisible force against humanity. Not a single person could live his life on this planet without being directly affected by the actions of psychopaths. Psychopaths have infinite ways to brainwash and control our mind and turn innocent people into willing participants.
We participate as willing preys. This is why we can invade other people’s countries, even die because of it, yet believe we are fighting for our own freedom. We watch our hard-earned money vanish in fraud banking systems or corporate bullies climb to the top of corporate ladders, and believe our only choice is silence.
We also participate as willing predators. We are indoctrinated with the ideas that it is a dog eat dog world. If we don’t kill, we will be killed. The golden rule is whoever has the gold makes the rule. We believe it is acceptable to achieve success at the expense of the environment and other living beings. We think it is ok to push products to people even if it is not in their best interests. We construct organizational reward systems based on short-term gratification instead of long-term impact. We play mind games in business and in life to gain competitive advantages or to control the outcome in our favor. We learn to see other people as objects as psychopaths do, while often being treated as objects ourselves.
We adopt game rules of psychopaths and even emulate them because we mistakenly believe that is the only way to survive. To some extent, it is “true” based on our current reality. 4% psychopaths among us are actually controlling and influencing the rest 96% through politics, banking, economy, culture, religion and much more. The result is a society driven by fear and developed around control, competition, and problems. Machiavelli’s book The Prince and The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene have been used by many as manuals to achieve this.
In an informed and connected world, we become more in touch with our true human nature and our desire for a better society. This is evident by the fact that more and more people want to do meaningful work that positively impacts the world. The truth is, unlike the psychopaths, human beings simply cannot hurt other people without feeling remorse. We are miserable when our actions are not aligned with who we truly are. Teal organizations are a natural consequence of this heightened level of consciousness.
Transparency, social responsibility, decentralization of power and long-term holistic thinking that characterize Teal organizations are direct threats to psychopaths’ way of existence. Empathy, sharing, kindness, and desire to learn, grow and create are human qualities central and essential in Teal organizations, yet they are exactly what psychopaths lack. When we create Teal organizations honoring human nature, we have created the right conditions for that “Mother Theresa” inside of us to show up and for us to become Whole (ness) again.
What does it take for 96% of the population to live lives according to true human nature? Wake up, speak up, reclaim inner power, trust, and collaborate. In other words, stop participating in psychopaths’ games. In a way, going to Teal is about letting 96% of the population define how we live and work.
