Surrounded by Idiots

by Thomas Erikson

  Though individual actions can, of course, be right or wrong, there is really no pattern of behavior that is right or wrong. There is no such thing as proper behavior or incorrect behavior. You are who you are, and there’s no point in wondering why. You’re fine no matter how you’re wired. No matter how you choose to behave, no matter how you are perceived, you are fine. Within reasonable limits, of course.

  In a perfect world, it would be easy just to say, “I’m a particular kind of person and it’s okay because I read it in a book. That’s just how I am and this is how I act.” Sure, wouldn’t it be great not to have to mishandle your own behavior? To always be able to act and behave precisely as you feel at the time? You can do that. You can behave exactly as you wish. All you have to do is find the right situation in which to do so.

  There are two situations in which you can just be you:

  The first situation is when you’re alone in a room. Then it doesn’t matter how you speak or what you do. It doesn’t hurt anyone if you scream and swear or if you just want to sit silently and ponder the great mysteries of life or wonder why fashion models always look so mad. In your solitude, you can behave exactly the way you feel. Simple, isn’t it?

  The second situation where you can completely be yourself is when all the other people in the room are exactly like you. What did our mothers teach us? Treat others as you want to be treated. Excellent advice and very well intentioned. And it works, too—as long as everyone is just like you. All you need to do is make a list of all the people you know who believe, think, and act exactly like you in all situations. Now just give them a call and start hanging out.

  In any other situation, it might be a good idea to understand how you are perceived and to learn how other people function. I don’t think I will make headlines by saying that most people you meet aren’t like you.

  Words can have incredible power, but the words we choose and how we use them vary. As you have seen from the title of this book, there are different interpretations of—yes, you got it—words. And when you use the wrong word, well, maybe then you’re an idiot.

  Surrounded by Idiots—or Not?

  What does this actually mean? As I was writing, the following analogy hit me: Behavior patterns are like a toolbox. All types are needed. Depending on the occasion, a tool can sometimes be right and sometimes be wrong. A thirty-pound sledgehammer is great for tearing down walls, but it’s hardly the thing if you want to hang a picture in the foyer.

  Some people are opposed to the idea of sorting people into different behavior types. Maybe you believe that you shouldn’t categorize people in that way, that it’s wrong to pigeonhole people. However, everyone does it, perhaps in another way than I do in this book, but we all register our differences nonetheless. The fact remains that we are different, and in my opinion, pointing that out can be something positive if you do it in the right way. Improperly used, every tool can be harmful. It’s more about the person using it than the tool itself. This book is your introduction to human behavior and dialogue. The rest is up to you.

  Parts of what you are going to read I have gathered from TTI Success Insights. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Sune Gellberg and Edouard Levit for so generously sharing both their experience and their training materials.

  No Matter How Strange It Might Seem, in Theory, Every Kind of Behavior Is Normal

  Normal Behavior …

  … is relatively predictable.

  Every person reacts in a habitual manner in similar situations. But it’s impossible to predict every possible reaction before it happens.

  … is part of a pattern.

  We often react in consistent patterns. Therefore, we should respect one another’s patterns. And understand our own.

  … is changeable.

  We should learn to listen, act, speak openly, and reflect in order to do what is relevant right now. Everyone can adapt.

  … can be observed.

  We should be able to observe and consider most forms of behavior without being amateur psychologists. Everyone can take note of the people around them.

  … is understandable.

  We should be able to understand why people feel and do what they do—right now. Everyone can think about why.

  … is unique.

  Despite the conditions that we have in common, each person’s behavior is unique to him. Succeed in your own conditions.

  … is excusable.

  Dismiss personal jealousy and complaints. Learn to have tolerance and patience, both with yourself and with others.

  2

  Why Are We the Way We Are?

  Where does our behavior come from? Why are people so different? Search me! Very briefly, it’s a combination of heredity and environment. Even before we’re born, the foundations for the behavior patterns we will exhibit in adulthood have been laid. The temperament and character traits we have inherited affect our behavior, a process already begun at the genetic stage. Exactly how this works is still a bone of contention among scientists, but all are in agreement that it does come into play. Not only do we inherit traits from our own parents but also from their parents—also in varying degrees from other relatives. At some point or other, we have all heard that we speak like or look like an uncle or an aunt. As a child, I resembled my uncle Bertil—something to do with my red hair. To explain how this is genetically possible would take a tremendous amount of time. For the moment, let us just establish that this inheritance lays the foundation for our behavioral development.

  What happens once we are born? In most cases, children are born impulsive, adventurous, without any barriers whatsoever. A child does exactly what he wants. The child says, “No, I don’t want to!” or, “Sure I can!” He is immersed in the thought that he can manage just about anything at all. This kind of spontaneous and sometimes uncontrolled behavior is, of course, not always what his parents wished for. Then, hey presto, what was once an original pattern of behavior begins to transform, in the best/worst-case scenario, into a copy of someone else.

  How Are Children Influenced?

  Children learn and develop in multiple ways, but the most common is by imitation. A child mimics what he sees around him, the parent of the same sex often becoming the model for imitation. (This is clearly not an exhaustive study on how the process works, as this book is not about how we influence our children.)

  Core Values

  My core values are found deep within me, values so deeply embedded in my character that it’s almost impossible to change them. These are the things I learned from my parents as a child or that I learned in school when I was very young. In my case it was different variations of “study and do well in school” or “fighting is wrong.” The latter, for example, means that I’ve never laid hands on another person. I haven’t fought since third grade, and I seem to recall that I lost then. (She was really strong.)

  Another important core value is that all people are of equal worth. Because my parents demonstrated this to me during my childhood, I know it is deeply wrong to judge a person based on his or her origin, sex, or color. All of us carry many such core values. We know instinctively what is right and what is not. No one can take these core values away from me.

  Attitudes and Approaches

  The next layer is my attitudes, which are not exactly the same thing as core values. Attitudes are things I have formed opinions about based on my own experiences or on conclusions I have drawn from encounters in the latter part of my schooling, high school, college, or my first job. Even experiences later on in life can form attitudes.

  A relative once told me that she didn’t trust salespeople. She’s definitely not alone in having strong feelings about salespeople, but in her case it resulted in comical practices. She couldn’t buy anything without returning it. A sweater, a sofa, a car—the buying process was endless. Every fact had to be examined and explored. No matter how much research she did beforehand, she always wanted to return her purchases afterwards.


  Once I had observed the pattern, I asked her why she did this, and she explained the reasoning behind her attitude: Eighty-five percent of all salespeople were swindlers. Explaining that I too was a salesperson had little effect. To this day, I don’t know if I belong to the 85 percent or if I can count myself among the fortunate 15 percent. The important thing is that an attitude can change. My relative had probably been badly fooled a number of times and therefore learned to distrust salespeople. However, if she had a number of positive experiences her opinion could change.

  The Results

  Both my core values and my attitudes affect how I choose my behavior. Together they form my core behavior, the real person I want to be. My core behavior is how I act in complete freedom, without the influence of any external factors at all.

  You probably already see the issue here: When are we ever completely free from external influences? When I discuss this question with groups of people in different contexts, we all usually agree: only when we’re sleeping.

  But people are different. Some don’t care. They are always themselves because they’ve never reflected upon how they are perceived. The stronger your self-understanding is, the greater your probability of adapting to the people around you.

  How Do Others Really Perceive Me?

  The people around you most often see your moderated behavior. You interpret a specific situation and make a choice about how to act based on that evaluation—this is the behavior that others around you experience. It’s all about the mask you wear to fit into a given situation. We all have several different masks. Having one at work and one at home isn’t that unusual. And another one for visiting the in-laws, perhaps. This book is not an advanced course in psychology—but I am content to establish that we interpret situations differently and act accordingly.

  Consciously or subconsciously, surrounding factors cause me to choose a particular course of action.

  And this is how we act. Look at this formula:

  BEHAVIOR = f (P × Sf)

  Behavior is a function of Personality and Surrounding factors.

  Behavior is that which we can observe.

  Personality is what we try to figure out.

  Surrounding factors are things that we have an influence on.

  Conclusion: We continually affect one another in some form or other. The trick is to try to figure out what’s there, under the surface. And this book is all about behavior.

  3

  An Introduction to the System

  At the end of this book you will find a description of the background to how the DISA system emerged, but since you probably want to dive into its most interesting elements—how everything works in practice—you can just read on. Otherwise, you can always go directly to page 228.

  As you can see, there are four main categories of behavior types, each of which is associated with a color. This book is about how you can recognize them. Quite soon, as you start reading about the different colors, various faces will come to mind. Sometimes, maybe, even your own.

  About 80 percent of all people have a combination of two colors that dominate their behavior. Approximately 5 percent have only one color that dominates behavior. The others are dominated by three colors. Throughout the book I focus on the single colors individually because they are the fundamental components of a person’s behavior. It’s like a recipe—we need to understand all the ingredients before we bake the cake. Entirely Green behavior, or Green in combination with one other color, is the most common. The least common is entirely Red behavior, or Red behavior in combination with one other color.

  Many people you meet possess qualities that you sometimes wish you had—you may even feel jealous of these people. They easily master things that you struggle with. Maybe you’d like to be more decisive like Reds, or maybe you wish it were easier for you to interact with strangers, like Yellows. Possibly, you wish that you didn’t stress so much, that you could just take it easy like Greens do, and perhaps you wish that you could keep your schedule in better order, something that’s natural for Blues.

  Naturally, it works the other way as well. You are going to read things that will help you realize that you too boss others around a bit too much, just like Reds tend to do. Or that you talk way too much, something that Yellows do. It might be that you take things way too easy, not getting involved in anything, the Greens’ weakness. Or you’re always suspicious of everything, seeing risks everywhere, just like Blues. Here you can learn to see your own pitfalls and how you can take appropriate measures to get around them.

  No matter what you learn about yourself and others, take notes, underline things, and engage with the material.

  4

  Red Behavior

  How to Recognize a Real Alpha and Avoid Getting in His Way

  What should we do? We’ll do it my way. Now!

  This is the behavior type that Hippocrates in his theory of human temperament called choleric. Nowadays you might call a Red person bold, ambitious, driven, but also potentially hot-tempered, rash, or dominant. You quickly notice a Red person because he doesn’t make the slightest effort to conceal who he is.

  A Red person is a dynamic and driven individual. He has goals in life that others may find difficult to even imagine. Since his goals are so highly ambitious, achieving them seems to be impossible. Reds strive forward, always pushing themselves harder, and they almost never give up. Their belief in their own ability is unsurpassed. They carry inside them the firm belief that they can achieve anything—if they just work hard enough.

  People who have lots of Red in their behavior are task-oriented extroverts and they enjoy challenges. They make quick decisions and are often comfortable taking the lead and taking risks. A common perception is that Reds are natural leaders. These are people who willingly take command and go to the fore. They are so driven that they will get through despite any obstacle in their path. Their disposition is ideal in competitive situations. It’s not unusual for a CEO or a president to have lots of Red in his behavior.

  This form of competition is present in everything Reds do. To say that they constantly want to challenge and compete is probably not entirely true, but if a chance of winning something arises—why not? The exact nature of the competition is unimportant; it’s the competitive element that keeps Reds running on all cylinders.

  Pelle, one of my former neighbors, liked competing so much that he developed entirely new interests just to compete. I like working in the garden, and so I spend quite some time doing so. Pelle didn’t like gardening, but when he had heard people commenting on my beautiful garden often enough he finally had enough. He started one project after another, always with a single but very clear objective: to outdo me. He confounded his wife by digging new flower beds, planting a rainbow of unbelievably fabulous plants, and cultivating the lawn to golf-course standard. The only thing I needed to do to keep him going was to merely suggest that I would purchase more plants. Then he would go to the local garden center quicker than you could say “bad loser.”

  You can also recognize Reds by other behavior patterns. Who talks the loudest? Reds. Who goes all out when explaining something? Reds. Who’s always the first to answer a question? Reds again. Who, during an otherwise pleasant dinner, makes categorical comments on just about any topic? And who will judge an entire country based on something he saw on television? Reds!

  Something is always happening in the lives of Red people. They can’t sit still. Idle time is wasted time. Life is short; better get going immediately. Do you recognize the type? Always on the go. So step aside; let’s get cracking!

  “Tell Me What You Really Think—Yes, for Real.”

  Reds have no problem being blunt. When asked a specific question, they often say exactly what they think, without any frills. They see no need to wrap things up in a bunch of empty phrases. When a thought pops into their heads, everyone knows it immediately. They have opinions on most things, and they trot their thoughts out quickly and efficiently.


  A common remark is that Reds are very honest, because they dare to express their personal truths to people. They don’t really understand what the fuss is all about. They’ve only said things as they are.

  If you need someone with extra energy, you may want to invite a Red into the team or project group. They fight tirelessly along when others have already given up—if they are determined to succeed, that is. A task that has become humdrum or meaningless could be totally ignored by a Red.

  I call this phenomenon slog or split. If the task is important enough, a Red will go through fire and water to complete it. If he feels it has no purpose, into the trash it goes.

  Can I Win Something? In That Case, I’m In.

  So Reds like competing. They appreciate the slight antagonism that is part of being competitive and the glorious moment of winning. They even enjoy winning competitions that probably don’t even exist, except perhaps in their own mind. It can be passing a slow walker on the street, finding the absolutely best parking spot, or dominating the family game of Monopoly—despite the fact that the purpose of the game is to entertain the kids and none of the other adults are actually competing. For a Red, this is all natural because he sees himself as a winner.

  Let me give you an example. I once worked for a company where the CEO was Red. He was energetic and efficient—and consequently incredibly dynamic. No meetings were as short and sweet as those run by this CEO. But his weak spot was the competitive element. As a young man he had played soccer, and every spring at this particular workplace they held a soccer tournament. It was very popular, even before he joined the company.