Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behavior and How to Effectively Communicate with Each in Business
Thomas Erikson
Rating: 1/5
Rating: 1/5
A book that describe different types of people, the author categorized human being into 4 groups with color as indicators - Red, Yellow, Green and Blue. And each person maybe combination of these colors. Example a Red is a critical person that wanted the outcome and speed without concern too much about your feeling.
You may notice a bug here - human are so complicated that how can it categorized into single color? Yea that's why author mention we most probably is a combination of multiple colors. But if it's multiple colors then how does the grouping make sense? I'm not convinced.
This book is not trying to blame others are idiots as the title. But he is trying to tell that each human have own preferences, perspectives, thought processes, those who are not matching yours will be categorized as idiots by yourself. This is what I agreed - And it's the reason I picking up this book for more interesting info. The author also shared the way to communicate with these different type of people, example if you are with Red, over speed driving will not be blamed. However, I couldn't stand these advices that trying to change my own behavior to please the person - If I'm not speed driving person, I will not speeding to make you happy.
My take away from this reading is there are lot of different patterns and people in this world, everyone behave as how they want to. Accept people's personal thought or behavior, communicate, and stay away if they can't fit into yours. That's all.
I used to reject books with these eye-catching and rude titles, but after reading the description, it seems like something what I want to improve for the aspect towards each individual. Unforunately I never expect the book description is already 80% of the contents, not too much unique knowledge offer by the book to my current thoughts. But as I always remind myself, even it's for business purpose, get the right clients that appreciate your designs or works, engage to the correct person/company, that's how your creations should aim the correct target audience.
Quotes:
- DISC—an acronym that stands for Dominance, Inspiration, Stability, and Compliance ability—system.
- It’s wrong to pigeonhole people.
- BEHAVIOR = f (P × Sf) Behavior is a function of Personality and Surrounding factors.
- Nothing is impossible. The impossible just takes a little longer.
- Not having full control is the same thing as not having any control at all.
- Life consists of so much more than learning from your mistakes. Some mistakes you can avoid altogether.