Surrounded by Idiots

The Four Types of Human Behavior and How to Effectively Communicate with Each in Business (and in Life)

By: Thomas Erikson

Narrated by: David John

A runaway best seller in Sweden that has sold more than a million copies worldwide, Surrounded by Idiots shares a groundbreaking new method of understanding the people around you that will change how you interact with everyone from your coworkers to your spouse.

Author Thomas Erikson explains that there are four key behavior types that define how we interact with and perceive the people around us. Understanding someone’s pattern of behavior is the key to successful communication. Erikson breaks down the four kinds of behavior types - Reds who are dominant and commanding, Yellows who are social and optimistic, Greens who are laid-back and friendly, and Blues who are analytical and precise - and explains how to identify and interact with each type of person. Instead of being bogged down with overly technical categorizations, the simple four-color system allows you to speedily identify a friend or coworker and adjust how you speak and share with them.

Surrounded by Idiots is full of practical information for interacting with people based on their color, including the strengths and weaknesses of all the profiles, how to give positive and negative feedback to each, and the best way to word an email when writing to someone with a different profile.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Text copyright by Thomas Erikson; Foreword copyright by David Bonnstetter (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Good book

I’ve already read about different personality types and their traits so the beginning part of the book was more a review.

My favorite sections of the book were the interviews with different colors as well as the quiz to test your knowledge.

Overall good read!

Useful

I found this book very useful in understanding a base to people. I don’t agree with some of the material, provided I’m still new to behavior Analysis. But very good book

Aaahhh nope

Oversimplification of the neuance of human behavior. We all behave differently, on different situations, at different points of our lives. And people should approach other people with empathy as first principle and build the relationship from there.

Great

Good presentation dealing with situations we face daily. Will be of great use in the future

White collar

I’ve been in, what society labels as blue collar job my whole life. This book, in my opinion, is geared for the white collar, sales positions and such would probably benefit the most. The concept is a bit generalized. Putting people into 4 different categories. Not sure if it’s gonna be applicable in my situation as far as understanding peoples behavior.

Interesting

Had a lot of information. Helps in identifying and how to deal with all the different personalities. A must read for everyone

A must read (listen)

I loved this book, I've been wanting to read it for a while and it was better than expected. I'm al ready recomending it everywere.

Read or listen with an open mind when thinking you've identified yourself, it can only help you be better and about others it will help you understand why people around you are the way they are, even your family.

Helpful

Quick pace but easy to follow.
Interesting to discover the thoughts behind some behaviors and traits in myself and people around me. Helpful to get insight on why collaboration is more challenging with some and gave me ideas on how to be a more successful teammate.

Right on time!!!

I just gots new position and this was in my archives for one of my next to read, so luckily for me bye listen to this before I actually started my position. I gave a great perspective on the different types of workers as people instead of just what they can get done for me speaking from a RED perspective, obviously!! So how to engage more with other people once in my head they have been categorized, I don’t have certain expectations for certain individuals as much anymore. This will absolutely be recommended and listen to more than twice! GREAT READ!

It’s an oversimplification

I found it hard to identify with any of the colors, I thought it to be an oversimplification and usually oversimplifying things is dangerous. But I’m not a psychologist so what do I know.