You are not alone. After a disastrous meeting with a highly successful entrepreneur, who was genuinely convinced he was 'surrounded by idiots', communication expert and bestselling author, Thomas Erikson dedicated himself to understanding how people function and why we often struggle to connect with certain types of people.
Originally published in Swedish in as Omgiven Av Idioter, Erikson's Surrounded by Idiots is already an international phenomenon, selling over 1. Stream and download audiobooks to your computer, tablet and iOS and Android devices. All books are in clear copy here, and all files are secure so don't worry about it. Surrounded By Idiots written by Thomas Erikson and has been published by Vermilion this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on with Communication categories.
Surrounded By Idiots written by B. Goodwin and has been published by this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on with categories. If the content Surrounded By Idiots not Found or Blank , you must refresh this page manually or visit our sister site Clasificados gratis microeconomics david besanko and ronald braeutigam riposta o iubesc pe easter kba gutachte. Or tried to reason with your partner with disastrous results?
Do long, rambling answers drive you crazy? You are not alone. It offers a simple, yet ground-breaking method for assessing the personalities of people we communicate with — in and out of the office — based on four personality types Red, Blue, Green and Yellow , and provides insights into how we can adjust the way we speak and share information. Erikson will help you understand yourself better, hone communication and social skills, handle conflict with confidence, improve dynamics with your boss and team, and get the best out of the people you deal with and manage.
He also shares simple tricks on body language, improving written communication, advice on when to back away or when to push on, and when to speak up or shut up.
Do you ever think you're the only one making any sense? Or does your colleague's abrasive manner get your back up? After a disastrous meeting with a highly successful entrepreneur, who was genuinely convinced he was 'surrounded by idiots', communication expert and bestselling author, Thomas Erikson dedicated himself to understanding how people function and why we often struggle to connect with certain types of people.
Originally published in Swedish in as Omgiven Av Idioter, Erikon's Surrounded by Idiots is already an international phenomenon, selling over 1. You are not alone. After a disastrous meeting with a highly successful entrepreneur, who was genuinely convinced he was 'surrounded by idiots', communication expert and bestselling author, Thomas Erikson dedicated himself to understanding how people function and why we often struggle to connect with certain types of people.
Originally published in Swedish in as Omgiven Av Idioter, Erikson's Surrounded by Idiots is already an international phenomenon, selling over 1. It offers a simple, yet ground-breaking method for assessing the personalities of people we communicate with - in and out of the office - based on four personality types Red, Blue, Green and Yellow , and provides insights into how we can adjust the way s we speak and share information.
Erikson will help you understand yourself better, hone communication and social skills, handle conflict with confidence, improve dynamics with your boss and team, and get the best out of the people you deal with and manage. He also shares simple tricks on body language, improving written communication and advice on when to back away or when to push on, and when to speak up or indeed shut up.
Packed with 'aha! And with a bit of luck you can also be confident that the idiot out there isn't you! Charming, charismatic, and delightful or manipulative, self-serving, and cunning? Psychopaths are both and that's exactly what makes them dangerous. Bestselling author of the international phenomenon Surrounded by Idiots, Thomas Erikson reveals how to identify the psychopaths in your life and combat their efforts to control and manipulate. Using the same simple four-color system of behavior classification that made Surrounded by Idiots so popular, Surrounded by Psychopaths teaches readers how to deal with psychopaths in their lives by becoming aware of their own behavior and their weaknesses.
Vivid example stories illustrate ways that psychopaths can take advantage of various behavior types, helping readers identify their own weaknesses and be proactive about protecting themselves. Erikson outlines some of the most common forms of manipulation used by psychopaths--and others--to influence those around them.
Since manipulation can often be a feature of ordinary, non-psychopathic relationships, the book also includes practical methods and techniques to help readers confront controlling people and rehabilitate negative relationships into mutually respectful ones. By understanding your behavior as well as the tendencies and strategies of psychopaths, Surrounded by Psychopaths will teach you to protect yourself from manipulative influence in your workplace, social life, and family.
Surrounded by Idiots Author : B. Do you feel like your friends, loved ones, or family go behind your back and apologize for you? While a Green will just go with the flow, a Blue has all the right answers. In the background, he analyzes: classifies, evaluates, assesses. Clear labels and names on each hook so that the children will know exactly where to hang up their jackets. Dinner menus, divided into six- week intervals to ensure a balanced diet, stuck on the refrigerator door.
A Blue DIY guy always puts things back where they belong. He is also a pessimist, sorry: a realist. He sees errors, and he sees risks. Reserved, analytical, and detail-oriented are some words you might associate with a Blue. Someone throws out a random comment.
It may be your Red friend who claims that the Patriots have been to the Super Bowl eleven times; it can be the Yellow who cheerfully claims that as a child he lived in the same block as Will Smith in West Philly. Your Blue buddy clears his throat and in a gentle voice says that the Patriots have actually only been to the Super Bowl ten times—with their first appearance after the season and eight times since —and that Will Smith actually grew up in Wynnefield, which is well north of the block in question and a half-hour walk from the lovely Centennial Arboretum.
And based on past statistics, the winner of the coin toss is slightly less likely to win the game overall. This guy simply knows everything. He knows where he found the info and can go fetch the book to prove it. They know how things stand before they open their mouth. He has no need to tell everyone about what he knows. But you can usually bank on the fact that what he says is correct.
Did you notice anything about the art above? Of course you did. This time I listed the different characteristics in alphabetical order—something a Blue would certainly appreciate. There are downsides to this modesty. On one such occasion, a Blue came forward after two hours and casually pointed out the answer.
For him, it was never really a problem at all. But at the same time, I understood him. He knew that he knew the answer, and that was good enough. But he may well wonder what the fuss was really all about—he was only doing his job. And What Edition Was It? People say that God is in the details, and I can imagine that it was a Blue who first said that.
No detail is too small to be noticed. Cutting corners is simply not an option for a Blue. What do we get by cutting corners? How can you possibly justify it? He would rather burn the midnight oil checking all the facts of the case than miss the slightest detail. A few years ago, I tried to sell a leadership program to the CEO of a company in the packaging industry. He was Blue; there was no doubting that. His emails were long-winded and a little dry, and for our first meeting he had set aside fifty minutes.
Not an hour, not three-quarters of an hour, but fifty minutes. There was a reason for this: After the meeting he would have lunch, and the dining room was eight minutes away. Plus a visit to the gents for about two minutes. A fifty- minute meeting would get him there right in time. He examined my business card very carefully. Once back at my desk, I brooded about how I should go about it. Instead, I put my nose to the grindstone and wrote over thirty-five pages.
I mailed a hard copy of the quote to him, since for a Blue the written and printed word means much more than the spoken—or digital. After a week or so, I followed the whole thing up with a phone call. They were interesting ideas, the CEO said, but he was ready to go further. Could he now get the full quote? In my opinion, I had described the program rather well in the proposal. Each stage had an agenda, a clear goal, and a defined purpose.
The second time, I put together at least eighty-five pages: each item broken down into two-hour intervals, even more background, sample exercises, analysis tools, templates, the works.
Details on a level that would have made a Yellow throw up. Pleased with myself, I sent over the whole caboodle. It took several weeks before I heard from the CEO. For ninety minutes, we sat on the same side of the table in the conference room at my office and went through … the table of contents in the proposal.
He had drawn up the general terms and conditions read: the fine print on legal paper, and each section was full of questions and notes. More material? No problem. I shared the whole training folder this was before e-learning and virtual classrooms , at least three hundred pages covering every fifteen-minute session during the fifteen days of training in five different stages of leadership. This was all the material there was, even with information about when coffee breaks should be slotted in, exactly what questions should be asked of the individuals during training, how the room should be furnished, the works.
I can certify— there were no gaps. I thought that if I took all this and rammed it down his throat he would be satisfied at last. After a month, he asked if there was any more material. There was not. He simply had no need to decide. For him, the process leading up to the decision was significantly more interesting. And he just wondered if there was any more material. They often think safety first.
Where a Red or Yellow would take a wild chance, a Blue will hold off and consider everything one more time. There may be more factors to take into account, right? You need to get to the bottom of things before you act. This can manifest itself in various ways. Obviously, this amount of caution can result in no decisions being made at all, and it also means that Blues rarely take any major risks.
Never taking any risks ensures a predictable life; we can probably agree on that. I once met a Blue seller who had trained as an engineer. Risk assessment is a complex thing, and who knows what dangers are lurking out there?
A Blue generally solves everything by creating advanced systems that manage the possible risks that may arise. They set three alarm clocks. They leave two hours early when one would be enough.
They triple-check that the keys are in their pocket and, of course, they are. Where else would they be? The benefits of this are evident. And in the long run, they save a lot of time.
Quality is all that matters. When a Blue individual thinks his work runs the risk of being shoddy or low quality, things come to a standstill. Everything must be checked out. Why has the quality declined? Running the risk of generalizing, I would say that a fair number of engineers have distinct Blue traits. Accurate, systematic, fact oriented, and quality conscious. I would say that this is a typical Blue approach in addition to the Japanese mentality, which is very long term and rather Blue in expression.
A Red approach might be to lambast the person closest to him and then order him to mop up the stain. A Yellow sees the stain and then forgets it but two days later is surprised when he slips on it. The Green also sees the stain and feels a little bit of guilt because it poses a problem and everyone is ignoring it.
This answer, of course, is unsatisfactory for a Blue. We bought cheap gaskets instead of tight-sealed gaskets. Maybe the problem will resolve itself. In the end, the Blue solution might be to review our purchasing strategies instead of just mopping up the oil on the floor. My point is this: A Blue is prepared to dive deep to get everything exactly percent correct.
Furthermore, because Blues usually find it difficult to lie, they will always point out the defects they uncover—even defects that may reflect poorly on them. I clearly remember discussions my parents had when I was a child.
We moved from time to time, and usually our house had to be sold, with everything that entailed. Dad—the engineer—would, of course, do all the work himself, and he managed the viewings personally. My mum was always upset that he began each viewing by pointing out all the flaws and shortcomings of the house. It leaked here and there, and some paint had flaked off behind the sofa. Now they may never want to buy the house! He could live with the fact that we rarely made a huge profit on those deals.
Out with all the feelings as much as possible and in with logic. And depression has nothing to do with logic and everything to do with feelings. Few people can repeat the same task an infinite number of times in exactly the same way like Blues can.
They have a unique ability to precisely follow instructions to the letter without questioning, provided they understood and approved of it in the beginning.
How do they do this without getting bored or careless? If a particular method works, why change it? While a Yellow or Red would find new ways of doing something simply because they were bored, a Blue repeats the same thing time and time again. They put each part together a little bit haphazardly, without much effort. A Green DIY guy leans the enormous box against the wall and has a coffee break.
What does a Blue do? He reads the instructions twice, examines what everything looks like, and confirms that the different pieces of the new cabinet match the pictures in the instructions. With a slightly damp—not too wet—cloth, he carefully wipes down all the different parts because they are likely to be dusty. He tallies the number of screws in the box so that he will not be surprised at the end if anything is missing and if there are any parts left over, he may very well take the whole thing apart again.
Because I like working with my hands, in contrast to just talking each day, I thought I would do the job myself. Or at least part of it. My dad, well over seventy at the time, was going to help out because he knew that I was pressed for time. Easier said than done. To provide a sturdy foundation, we were going to lay down gravel.
Dad arrived a few moments before the dump truck with all the gravel. He had his own wheelbarrow with him, specially designed to maneuver gravel, and a special shovel that he always used for similar purposes. Everyone knew that you had to use special shovels for things like this. The truck came and dropped a hefty pile of gravel in the driveway. I imagined a few days of shoveling before me, and to be honest, it made me feel a little tired.
But I was still ready to take on the challenge. My old dad? He picked up a bit of gravel between his fingers, smelled it, felt it, and assessed its quality. After grunting somewhat, which I interpreted as approval, he began to assess the pile itself.
He measured the height of the mound with his hand; he paced how large the circumference was. I asked him what he was doing. I confided to him that it was actually nine cubic meters. Dad asked rather skeptically how I knew that. I pointed. Dad was mildly impressed. I asked if he wanted to count each piece of gravel individually.
For hours, he walked around the site and packed and pressed, raked the gravel, smoothing everything until he thought that everything was in order.
He used a level, plumb line, water, all the means at his disposal, so that nothing would go wrong. The gravel needed to be laid at an incline of exactly one centimeter per meter. Why, you ask? One centimeter per meter. Who knows what terrible consequences could result if you were careless about that? Consider the difference between one centimeter and roughly one centimeter. The former is precise; the latter is imprecise.
Roughly one centimeter—it could be up two centimeters if things went bad. The funny thing about this story is not really the event itself, but what happened when Dad read about it in the first edition of this book.
He corrected the story on several points and claimed that the truck had held twelve cubic meters—not nine. At home, if there are any technical questions about a television, a car, a microwave oven, or a cell phone, out comes the manual. How do you argue with the instruction manual?
The great value of this approach is obvious. He will never be fooled; he will always get what he paid for. It gives him an inner peace because he knows he has checked everything out very accurately. If you know any Blues, I am sure you will agree with me.
Probably because they keep tabs on everything. Enough said. I could stop there. Does that mean they have nothing to say? Not at all, they are just very, very introverted. Blues are the calm, stable individuals the Aztecs equated with the sea, the element of water. Quiet on the outside, but under the surface anything could be happening. But the effect of this is often quiet. So why are they so silent? Sitting in a corner and not being seen or heard makes no difference to them.
They are observers, spectators, more than central characters. They can find themselves at the edge of a group where they observe and record everything that is said. If you have nothing to say—keep quiet. Conclusions on Blue Behavior Do you know everything about Blues? Have you identified some Blues in your life? Bill Gates and Albert Einstein both used their attention to detail and meticulous nature to build their success.
And of course, from the fictional world, Mr. Spock from Star Trek is the perfect Blue—all logic, rationality, and intellect, even if a few of the jokes slip past him. The illustration on page 63 shows an example of how they differ. Some people are issue oriented, and others are relation oriented. While two of them Red and Yellow are quick to act, the Greens and Blues are reflective.
This is often the source of everyday misunderstandings, both large and small. I will come back to this on page , but I would like to take this opportunity to provide some nuances to the illustration of the different core behavior patterns that each color represents. So who decides what kind of behavior is right and wrong? There you go, a real platitude. But really, there are no perfect human beings; no one is without faults or shortcomings.
In my youth, I was constantly looking for a role model who could become my mentor in life—that person, a man or woman, completely free from shortcomings—but I never found one. We live with our shortcomings and make the best of things. On the other hand, when we think someone is an idiot is it really because of their faults and shortcomings or have we failed to understand them? An attribute that may be useful in some situations is unsuitable in others.
Regardless of what I really meant or intended. Good qualities can become drawbacks in the wrong circumstances, no matter what the quality is. They make things happen. However, when they get going, they become control freaks and can be hopeless to deal with. The friendly Greens are easy to hang out with because they are so pleasant and genuinely care for others. Unfortunately, they can be too wishy-washy and unclear. Anyone who never takes a stand eventually becomes difficult to handle.
The analytical Blues are calm, levelheaded, and think before they speak. Everything can become suspect and sinister. In the following sections, I deal with how people might perceive the weaknesses of certain behavior patterns. Naturally, this is a sensitive area and can be easily misunderstood. When I coach individuals, this is usually where things can get messy.
So as you read on be aware that much is in the eye of the beholder. Who is right and who is wrong? The behavior patterns I am talking about are described as other people may perceive them, even if the intention of the person who just made a fool of himself might have been completely different. One thing I know for sure regarding the different colors is that each color evaluates themselves in different ways.
Conversely, Greens and Blues usually exaggerate their weaknesses and in certain cases even ignore their strengths. The consequences are clear. When you give positive feedback to a Green or a Blue, they sometimes appear to be immune to it and change the subject to something that went seriously wrong. Obviously, this is highly unproductive. Well—are we ready to go? How Red People Are Perceived If you ask other people about Reds, you might get a different picture from the one the Red gives of himself.
What a surprise! My own private research shows that Reds are surrounded by more idiots than the rest of us. Many people will agree with what you have read up to now about Reds, but I have also heard other comments. Usually, they express this when the Red is not in the room because they are afraid of his fiery temper.
This means that what you are going to read now will often be completely new for many Reds. Not many of us have ever been able to make these points to a Red before. It takes way too much energy. Some people say that Reds are just belligerent, arrogant, and egotistical. They are perceived as unyielding, impatient, aggressive, and controlling. The born leader reveals his blemished side. First of all, let me say this: Nothing said previously would necessarily bother a Red, because he is more task oriented than relationship oriented.
Besides, everyone else is wrong. A person willing to step outside any regulatory framework to get ahead is nothing if not impatient. When the usual official channels take too long, a Red will scale over a few levels of decision makers and expeditiously look for the person who really calls the shots.
The first example that comes to mind was the traffic in my beautiful capital city. Sure, many locals are in more of a hurry than the national average when they sit behind the wheel— there are statistics about this. It simply took too long to use public transport.
He lived far outside the city, and the journey into the office, about twenty miles away, could take about forty minutes. That was on a good day; it could just as easily take an hour and a half.
His opinion was that there was no reason for him to follow every single traffic rule. The posted speed limits here and there—fifty, sixty, and so on—they were mostly recommendations. On one occasion I was sitting in the office with a few colleagues having a cup of coffee, discussing the rather serious traffic situation.
It felt as if the city was on the verge of a traffic infarction. When we questioned him a bit more, it turned out that he usually drove in the bus lane. All the way. For over twenty miles. It was so much quicker that way. You could even get a permit for the bus lane. About every four weeks the police stopped him, but it was worth it.
Just imagine how much time he saved! And all it cost him was the fines. He felt it was a good deal. This story illustrates quite clearly how Red behavior works. Reds are notorious rule breakers. Once again, I would like to remind you of their intentions—to get the job done. I would even say that a Red is often so fast that if something were to go wrong he would still manage to redo the project.
Just imagine. We want to have open and forthright dialogue. So who excels at frank communication? And can receive the same without getting cranky? Answer: No one. Besides Reds, of course.
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