Čeněk and HCP

It was a murky autumn morning. Čeněk, lost in his thoughts, looked out the window at the slopes rising steeply from the river. He put down the book he was just reading. On the cover, in large red letters, it said - “Why We Choose Psychopaths¹”.

It had been exactly half a year since he left a high managerial position at one multinational company. The departure wasn’t pleasant. He left on his own, but not voluntarily. He could no longer withstand the pressure from some “colleagues”.

His gaze returned to the book. The black letters seemed to tell his story as well. The rise of a high conflict people (HCP²), who creates an artificial, false crisis. Sometimes through well-placed manipulation, sometimes by releasing half-truths. Hand in hand with creating the crisis comes the accusations of a false villain. And of course the arrival of an equally false hero, who solves this supposed crisis and saves everyone. All of this is complemented by people who just blindly follows the would-be hero. And of course also those who see an opportunity in the hero. He’s not a real hero, so they don’t have to be good either.

Finally, the last few chapters – how to stop them? Empathy, attention, respect. Above all, don’t insult, just keep repeating the facts. But how to achieve this? Especially as Čeněk wanted to actually work and not just be constantly explaining? The more HCP attacks, the more assertive to be. Hmm, Čeněk didn’t handle that properly. His despair and frustration grew into aggression, albeit only verbal.

He finished the book, but didn’t feel enlightened. How not to let yourself be consumed by the hatred of someone who devotes their entire working time to feeding it? He didn’t feel that next time, when he meets other HCP again, he would know what to do. Maybe he’ll recognize them earlier and avoid them? Who knows.

Yesterday’s newspaper was laying on the table. The front page informed readers about yet another round of tariff changes. Nothing new. Trade wars as well as the real ones had already become part of everyday life. But that wasn’t the main thing. At the end of the issue was a half-page article³ about the collapse of a well known investment company. There were supposedly many reasons – poor communication, predatory behavior of middle and senior management, confusing work assignment and much more.

Ah, yes, good old communication…

However, the author of the article shed a new light on the case. A year ago, the company acquired an AI tool for email control. Hoping, to prevent leaks of internal information. Everyone got their personal censor. Only few people read the emails they wrote. And if they do read them, they only skim them as everyone remembers what they wrote. No one noticed that the AI not only read all the emails and sometimes returned them for rewrite. But also slightly modified them. Sometimes it changed punctuation, sometimes word order, sometimes it chose slightly different words, … a different tone. It learned quickly who is sensitive to what and what believes they hold. Everyone got their personal troll.

It was only a matter of time before people would start going after each other. No extra help needed.

The kettle clicked. Čenda got up from the table and went to make tea. How to defend against something like that? Isn’t it actually simple? Just remain human, maintain direct social connections, don’t replace them only with distant electronic communication. Maybe realize that while we have the means for globalized trade and collaboration, we forgot that people are actually different. They grew up and thus make decisions with different contexts. He remembered one corporate dinner. They didn’t really listen to each other, everyone was just as loud as the surroundings they were trying to out-shout.

Čenda put the empty tea mug back on the table. He knew what he wanted to do now. He tied his bow tie, took his raincoat, and stepped out into the heavy rain. He must continue looking for people and maybe in doing so he’ll find himself too.