Surrounded by Idiots

by Thomas Erikson

  The whole point of the conflict outlook is to deal with every little dissentient issue as soon as it shows its head. Reds, and also some Yellows, do this naturally. When they see something that doesn’t work, they say that it doesn’t work. This means that problems can be resolved at an early stage. But you have to deal with the issue before it begins to stink.

  The conflict approach usually creates harmony.

  But a Green will just turn a deaf ear. He’ll do everything in his power to maintain that magical feeling that everyone is in agreement. It’s nicer when everyone agrees, isn’t it? Wouldn’t the world be so much better if there were no conflicts?

  Consider a situation all of us have experienced at some point. We’re in a meeting at work. There are maybe ten people present in the room. Add or subtract from this so that you recognize the situation. Someone—the boss or anyone at all—has just completed his presentation and now asks what everyone is thinking. Full of expectation, he looks around, waiting for feedback.

  If there are any Reds or Yellows in the room, they will speak about their views on the proposal they’ve just seen. The Reds will love it or loathe it. The Yellows will speak about their own reflections on the proposal. One or two Blues might have a few questions.

  What do the Greens do? Absolutely nothing. They just lean back in their chairs and let themselves absorb the proposal. They say nothing at all unless asked a direct question. They look anxiously around, hoping that someone will say that this proposal is, in fact, an incomprehensible mess. The group is too large for them to trot out any dissenting opinions. To say something truly dramatic or negative would mean that everyone’s eyes will be on you, and that’s not going to happen. If they say what they are really thinking, a heated debate will erupt, and since a Green doesn’t want to take part in heated debates—he doesn’t even want to be in the same room as one—he simply keeps silent.

  How will the speaker respond? He’ll assume that everyone is in agreement, right? What he doesn’t know is that half the people in the room think it was the stupidest thing they have ever heard. When the truth creeps out—it has to, sooner or later—guess what happens then? Exactly—conflict.

  You can be certain that while you are standing at the coffee machine and maybe even while visiting the restroom the truth will come out. When Greens need to relieve the pressure of not speaking out, they talk behind your back. In small groups of two or three people, they will gladly vent their displeasure. And they’re good at it. As long as they think they can escape your gaze, they’ll backbite you in ways you would never expect from a Green.

  How Blue People Are Perceived

  Even perfectionist Blue individuals receive criticism. It can be about how they are perceived as evasive, defensive, perfectionist, reserved, fastidious, meticulous, hesitant, conservative, lacking independence, questioning, suspicious, tedious, aloof, and coldhearted. Ooph! The list of shortcomings found in these bastions of bureaucracy often tends to be quite long.

  But mainly, Blues find it difficult to begin anything new because they want to prepare very thoroughly. Everything involves risks, and Blues can be almost obsessed with details. Never place too many Blues in the same group. They’ll plan into the next century without ever putting a shovel to the ground.

  Furthermore, many Blues are perceived as highly critical and almost suspicious. They miss nothing, and they have a tendency to deliver their observations in an insensitive fashion. They create quality work, but their hairsplitting, critical approach to almost everything lowers the morale of those around them to dangerously low levels. These are people who consider themselves to be realists. When they—in everyone else’s eyes—are, in fact, pessimists.

  “Ninety-five Percent Right Is Actually 100 Percent Wrong.”

  Let’s be honest from the start. All this keeping track of facts and focusing on details can go too far. There are limits to when it’s reasonable to keep researching. Do you remember the CEO who wanted to buy leadership training? He never left the starting block.

  Blues want to have all the information on everything, and this can lead to problems with those around them. People who would be satisfied with good enough simply can’t cope with hearing all those questions and all this relentless poking into details. A Blue believes that good enough is never really good enough.

  I enjoy working around the house—changing the decor, hanging wallpaper every now and then. A few years ago, we remodeled our kitchen, and even though I got tremendous help from my family, I did quite a lot myself. I worked and toiled and was quite happy when it was finished. For a DIYer, I thought I managed it quite well.

  Hans, a good friend of mine, came by. We’ve known each other for many years, and he’s very much on the ball. He knew that I’d worked very hard and that I felt quite pleased with myself. When he came into my kitchen, he looked around and said quietly, “New kitchen? Looks good. That cupboard door is crooked.”

  Okay, so maybe it wasn’t nice to hear that. But for Hans, it was the highest form of logic. He observed a mistake and his sense of perfection meant that he couldn’t ignore it. Besides, he is not a typical relational person, so he couldn’t help saying things as they were. He wasn’t directly criticizing me, only something I had done. Namely, not fitting the cupboard door straight.

  Fastidiousness can be expressed in various ways: It can be a person who can’t cope with papers that aren’t perfectly aligned on a desk, who rewrites an email about fifteen times to get it truly perfect, or who works for hours on a simple Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation, just giving it the finishing touches.

  They Never Finish Anything. There’s Always More to Do.

  Once, I was holding a communication training program for a group of people, all of who were working in the same room. The group consisted of about twenty people. The first afternoon, I handed out the results of the behavior analysis that each of them had taken earlier. Everyone read about themselves with increasing fascination, and most of them seemed very satisfied.

  Except for one lady. She was extremely upset by her analysis. It was, in fact, completely incorrect. After confirming with her that it was okay to discuss it in front of the whole group, I asked what it was she was displeased with.

  “There’s so much that’s incorrect,” she told us. For example, the analysis revealed that she could be a perfectionist. She wasn’t like that at all. I noticed the tiny smiles appearing on people’s faces. Apparently, her colleagues knew something she didn’t.

  I asked her why she thought that the analysis maintained she was a perfectionist. She had no idea. The whole thing was a complete mystery. It was a totally useless tool.

  Realizing that the woman was Blue, I was careful not to argue too much. She wouldn’t take me at my word. I was just some random consultant who had been working with this tool for a measly twenty years. What did I know?

  Instead, I asked her to give an example showing that she was not a perfectionist. No problem, she had plenty. For example, she had three children, each of who had three best pals. When she came home in the evenings, there were so many shoes piled up inside the front door that she had to do the high jump to get in. She began by shaking the dirt off the doormat and putting the shoes in order. She confided in me that she used to put size 10 at the back, as those guys went home last, so it seemed most logical. She placed the smaller sizes closest to the door in neat rows.

  Then she went into the kitchen. What did she see there? Crumbs everywhere. All of these youngsters had been eating sandwiches, and the kitchen looked like a war zone. It took her twenty minutes to sanitize everything, put everything back in place, sweep, wipe the tables and worktops. Only then could she take off her coat and relax a little.

  Her colleagues were in stitches. The woman looked around, not understanding what the excitement was all about. That any of this could even be remotely obsessive was beyond her. Her house was so untidy, that was her point.

  The funny thing about this story is that a few years
later I met the same woman but in a totally different context. She gave me a big hug and said that the analysis of her behavior was 100 percent correct. Stunned, I wondered how she arrived at that conclusion.

  It turned out that she had kept the behavior profile in her purse for a while; the analysis had a list of behaviors and qualities, and every time she found herself doing one she ticked it off on the sheet. In the end, she had ticked all of them off. She liked the profile. An amazing tool, on the whole.

  “I Don’t Really Know You, So Keep Your Distance.”

  You’ve done it. I’ve done it. We’ve all done it. Gone up to a person who seems to be a decent fellow and started talking about this and that thinking you’re going to have a nice chat. After a while, you realize that you’re the one doing all the talking. If you have Yellow traits in your behavior, you may notice that there are strange pauses in the dialogue. If there really is a dialogue. You may notice that the other person fidgets a bit, signaling that he doesn’t want to be part of this conversation.

  “What’s going on? We’re just talking about the game yesterday, or about what the family did last summer, or where you intend to go on vacation. Do we have a problem, or what?”

  Yes, in fact we do, because this person doesn’t willingly speak with strangers. “Wait a minute,” you may say. “We’ve been working together for three months, and by now it should be perfectly okay to ask what his dog’s name is.” But this guy requires a lot of personal space, both physically and psychologically. He needs to know a person extremely well before opening up. Not like a Red, who lets out with whatever he feels; not like a Yellow, who reveals his darkest secrets because he assumes that everyone is interested; or like a Green, who can be personal, but only in small groups and in a controlled environment.

  A Blue doesn’t need small talk. He can easily give the impression that he doesn’t care about other people, because he doesn’t cultivate any relationships. Sure, he cares, but his needs are on a different level than everyone else’s. He likes being in his own company and with immediate family.

  The consequence is clear for those around him: They find him coldhearted and distant. That personal bubble is obvious, and it can be very chilly, particularly for Yellows and Greens. And so they call their Blue friend a bore. Blues can easily make us feel ill at ease. “Why is he so cold and dismissive? Doesn’t he care about me at all?”

  “Better Safe Than Sorry. Think About it—Preferably Three Times.”

  A good family friend couldn’t leave her house without first checking to see if her keys were really in her handbag, even though placing them there was the last thing she had done before going to the front door.

  Back in the 1980s, when I worked as a teller in the bank, I served people who had waited thirty minutes in line for just one single reason: to check that the balance printed on the ATM receipt really was correct. Much anticipation. The same computer. The same balance. But you never know. Best to check. And double-check. If a triple check had been possible, they would have done it.

  Where does this need for control come from? Why can’t Blues trust what other people say or just accept the information they hear? Answer: They can, of course. But if they also check themselves, then all the risks will be eliminated, right? But the fact remains that they don’t trust others. Everything has to be confirmed. And recorded, and documented properly.

  Remember, we’re talking here about behavior as perceived by others. A Blue checks everything one extra time because it’s possible to check everything one extra time. When everything has been confirmed, then you just have to make a decision.

  I have a good friend who uses Excel diligently. But not like the rest of us. This guy has a special method. He writes a formula and inserts all the data. Before he sends any important files to his senior managers, he does a control check of everything using a calculator.

  Why does he do that?! If you were to explain this to a Red, he would declare that guy an absolute idiot. Explain it to a Yellow and he would laugh himself to death. Any Blue will understand the whole thing immediately. There is a theoretical possibility that there could be errors in Excel. Even though he has typed the formula himself, something may still go wrong. Better to be on the safe side.

  How do others perceive this? Read on!

  “The Only Thing I Can Trust Is Myself and My Own Eyes.”

  The guy who questions Excel has, of course, a problem explaining himself. Many people around him have their views about his method of always having to double-check and triple-check everything he does himself and everything everyone else does. They get furious when he, through his actions, clearly shows that he doesn’t trust them.

  The other tiny little problem is that everything takes a terribly long time. This can be managed by working more hours. What’s more problematic is the way relationships can suffer because of this habit. How demoralizing is it when you go up to someone to tell him about a possible breakthrough and the first thing the person does is isolate all the different components and call into question every single point?

  Of course, if everyone looks long enough they will find mistakes.

  Nor is it even sufficient to be right. You have to prove yourself to a Blue. If he considers you an authority in a particular field, he’ll be better at listening to you. The road, however, can be tricky.

  I’ve held many training courses and lectures on this subject, and if there are people who ask complicated questions they’re usually engineers, technical sales staff, or financial controllers. Maybe a handful of tax lawyers. Oftentimes their color is Blue, and they’re not impressed with me. Just because I have made my living doing this for twenty years doesn’t mean I know what I’m talking about. (Remember the woman who was accused of being a perfectionist.)

  The only thing you can do is accept that among these people, the standard of proof will be much higher. Facts always remain, as we know: If I have prepared well enough I can prove that what I am saying is true. In time, they will trust me.

  9

  Learning New Things

  How to Use What You’ve Learned

  Learning something new isn’t always the easiest of tasks. It may seem simple, but it’s not easy. There’s always so much to do, so much to read, and so much to learn. Where do you start? This is almost always determined by your personal interests. Naturally, it’s easier to devote more time to what you’re curious about and what you’re interested in. Nothing strange there.

  For me, it was hearing Sture’s assessment of people—his thesis on all the idiots at the start of this book—that became the impetus for me to learn about people and how we relate to one another. But it’s taken me many years to acquire this knowledge. I’ve read books, attended training, and been certified many times in different subjects. Furthermore, I’ve led thousands of courses on the subject. So now, as a middle-aged man, I believe I have a decent grasp on how people function. But, in all probability, I’ve only scratched the surface.

  If We Had Endless Time, There’d Be No Problem

  All of this learning has taken time. Maybe I don’t have the natural instinct that many others have. I don’t really know. But I do know a bit about teaching methods and how we learn new things. And for me, it’s difficult to think of any subject more important than people. No matter what job you have, where life may take you—you are going to meet other people.

  For example, you can be:

  • an employee with work colleagues

  • a seller with customers

  • a project manager who leads people with different expertise than your own

  • a managing director with employees

  • a middle manager with people both above and below you in the organization

  • a self-employed entrepreneur finding your own sales and orders

  • a parent with teenagers in the household

  • a spouse

  • a coach for the football team

  • a chairperson of the local home and school associ
ations

  There’s no limitation to how this knowledge can be applied. Understanding people will always remain a crucial factor in achieving your goals in life as smoothly as possible, no matter what these goals are.

  Take a look at the diagram on the next page. This isn’t a new model, but it says a lot about how theoretical knowledge is transformed into real competence. Reading a book is one thing—I’m glad that you are reading this one. It’s a great way to kick off your own learning, but it’s only the first step in learning something.

  A New Approach

  My mission is clear—I want more people to understand this method of classifying behavior. So much conflict could be avoided if we just understood why the people around us behave the way they do. I have nothing against conflict; it usually doesn’t bother me, because I know how to handle it. But when people tear down and destroy more than they build up, I believe that we should be able to find other ways forward. Life consists of so much more than learning from your mistakes. Some mistakes you can avoid altogether.

  A Language like Any Other Language

  The “language” this book discusses—DISA-language IPD (the Institute for Personal Development) which is the official name—works like any other language when it comes to learning. If you’ve ever studied Spanish or German in school, then you know what I’m talking about. To study for your exams is one thing. To be able to really speak fluently is a different matter. It’s not enough to refresh your knowledge once a year just before a trip to Spain. If you really want to be able to speak Spanish (more than just ordering food at a restaurant) whenever you run into a Spanish speaker, you need to practice. It’s a perishable commodity. There are no shortcuts.