Surrounded by Idiots

by Thomas Erikson

  What would have been the correct answer to Bjorn’s question about my daughter?

  “Great.”

  It would have been enough.

  “It Takes Strength to Be Alone, and I’m the Strongest of You All.”

  The word “egotistic” comes from the Latin word “ego,” meaning “I.” My I is, therefore, my ego. Linguistically, we have consequently chosen to put some kind of equal sign between people with strong egos and being selfish. Naturally, there are many people in our world who are selfish and egotistical. The world is teeming with them. Again, I want you to remember that we are speaking here about perceived behavior.

  If we look at how a Red communicates, we can understand why many perceive him as egotistic:

  • “I think we should accept this proposal.”

  • “I want that assignment.”

  • “This is what I think about it.”

  • “I have a good idea.”

  • “Will we do this my way or the wrong way?”

  Add a sharp eye and distinctive body language and you will see someone who will take what he wants. He will fight for his interests. He will tell everyone who will listen that he is capable of doing whatever he undertakes. Some people, especially Greens, find that this “I” form of speaking is unsettling. A Red’s “I” message occupies their minds. (They share this trait with Yellows, who also have strong egos.)

  But we’ve learned to take care of one another. We know that being solitary is not the same thing as being strong, that we need one another to survive. Cooperation is the model, and I’ve preached this for over two decades. So we think it’s egotistic when Reds speak only about themselves. They make sure to help themselves before helping others. They are often willing to trample on someone else if they see an opportunity to advance themselves. They may not do this consciously, but the effect is the same.

  Reds often come out the winners in discussions. They see this as a natural part of a conversation. They always know best and will assert that everyone else is wrong. It suits their ego to behave this way. The aftermath of this method is that they lose friends, people can dislike them, and they are cut off from information because no one wants them in the group. Once they’ve noticed this, they may well just decide that all the other people are idiots.

  A few years ago, I was one of six people who was seated at the table having an evening meal. In some anguish, a man, Green-Blue, told me he was not feeling well. He couldn’t live up to the responsibilities his employer laid on his shoulders. He was hard-pressed by his burdensome workload, and he found it difficult to sleep at night. This caused even more stress for him because he knew that if he didn’t get a good night’s rest it would be even harder for him to perform at work. His wife, sitting beside him, tried to hide her discomfort. The situation was certainly not comfortable for anyone in the room. Everyone at the table offered encouraging remarks along with cautious questions about how he thought he might be able to reverse the difficult situation. We all expressed our support as far as we could.

  Except for the Red. After ten minutes, the only Red at the table finally had enough and tore into the distraught, stressed-out little devil.

  The Red’s analysis was as clear as day: “I think you complain too much. You’re just earning your salary. I’ve never been sick, and I think people worry too much; I would never end up in your situation, and I really think you should pull yourself together.”

  What a dinner that was! Let’s be honest—Reds are the ones who always believe they are surrounded by idiots.

  How Yellow People Are Perceived

  Funny, entertaining, and almost divinely positive. Absolutely. Again—this is their own interpretation. If you ask other people about Yellows, you may well get a somewhat different picture. Many people will agree with what you have read up to now, but you will also hear other comments. It’s especially fun to ask the Blues. They will say that Yellows are selfish, superficial, and overly self-confident. Someone else will say that they talk too much and are bad listeners. Combine that with the observation that they can be distracted and careless. Suddenly the picture is not as flattering.

  When a Yellow hears these comments, one of two things can happen. Either he gets deeply distressed and genuinely hurt, or he sets off a ferocious argument. It depends. What’s striking is that, over time, none of this criticism will really torment a Yellow very much. On the one hand, he’s a bad listener, and on the other hand, he has what some psychologists might call a selective memory. He simply forgets the difficult bits, and with his positive ethos he finds it easy to say to himself that he doesn’t have any faults or shortcomings.

  Let’s have a look at what Yellows struggle with—even if they don’t always know it.

  “Hello, Anyone There? Listen to What Happened to Me! You Want to Know, Right?”

  At the beginning of this chapter, I pointed out that Yellows are very good communicators. I would like to repeat that now.

  Yellows are very good communicators. With an emphasis on “very.” None of the other colors come close to the Yellows’ ease in finding words, expressing themselves, and telling a story. It comes so easily, so simply, so effortlessly, that you can’t help being impressed. It’s common knowledge that most people don’t like speaking in front of others. They get heart palpitations and sweaty palms, terrified of making fools of themselves. This is totally alien to Yellows. Making fools of themselves isn’t part of the deal, and if the improbable were to happen you could always laugh it off with another amusing anecdote.

  However, it may be too much of a good thing. Regardless of what you are good at, there is a limit, a time to break off. Yellows, especially those without self-awareness, don’t have such a limit. It would never even occur to them to wrap up; if they have something to say, out it comes. The fact that no one else thinks it’s important is neither here nor there.

  A Yellow behaves exactly like most people—he does what he’s good at. And he is good at talking. There are countless examples of Yellows who completely dominate a conversation. Then add a hefty dose of poor listening and an interesting (read: one-sided) communication takes place.

  Many people become hugely frustrated by this limitless verbosity. It’s often perceived as egocentrism. The terms “windbag,” “verbal diarrhea,” and “motormouth” were more than likely coined with Yellows in mind.

  Countless times I’ve experienced the following: A group of people are sitting around a boardroom table. The top dog in the room expresses an idea; it can be about anything at all. When the time comes for comments, all the Yellows will reinforce the idea by repeating the exact same thing, possibly with their own words. (I would like to say to the women reading this that I am aware of the fact that this is more male behavior than female.) Why do they do that? Well, first, it’s important to signal when you are in agreement, and second, they can say it so much better.

  A few years ago, I was with a management team studying group dynamics. I had just purchased a cell phone with a stopwatch. Using this, I could time who had spoken in the group and for how long.

  In the room were the CEO and his seven closest associates. Peter, the sales manager, was really Yellow and he had only had one point of the nineteen on the agenda. Take a good look at the ratio 1:19. This represents around 5.3 percent of the agenda.

  The CEO opened the meeting, but pretty soon a clear pattern emerged. Peter had opinions about every single item on the agenda. I used my stopwatch and was fascinated by what I saw. He spoke 69 percent of the time. Yes. It’s true. Thirty-one percent went to the other seven, including the CEO himself.

  If you’re Yellow, you may have already charged on ahead in this book, because you possibly recognized yourself and thought that this was a very unfair example. Everyone else is wondering how that’s even possible. How can one person dominate the conversation so fully? It’s possible because Yellows have no problems delivering opinions, views, and advice regardless of whether they know anything about the subject or not
. A Yellow has a generous approach to his own ability—when an idea pops up in his head, he simply opens his mouth.

  People say that for Reds thought and action are the same thing. For Yellows, I would suggest the idea that thought and speech are interrelated. What Yellows share is often completely unprocessed material that just tumbles out of the big opening on their faces. Sure, it might be well thought out, but it’s usually not. What’s most deceptive is that, almost without exception, it sounds very good. Yellows know a thing or two about presenting an idea so that it always sounds fantastic. If you’re unfamiliar with this particular person, you may very well take everything he says as true—a serious mistake.

  Very often a Yellow is both entertaining and inspiring, and as I said, they can inspire people to new ideas. But should you get into a conversation with a Yellow, you need to be observant so that when he catches his breath you can quickly insert a comment. Or simply close the meeting.

  “I Know It Looks Messy, but There’s a Method to the Madness!”

  A Yellow would hardly admit that he’s careless. But he has no natural way to keep track of things. He finds working in a structured way boring. Then you have to fit the mold and follow the template. If there is anything that Yellows avoid, it’s feeling controlled by fixed systems.

  The solution is to keep everything in your head, which doesn’t work. It’s not possible to remember everything. So inevitably the Yellow forgets and those around him think he’s careless. Missed appointments, forgotten deadlines, and half-finished projects all because once his mind has finished the task he doesn’t go backwards. He goes forward. Leaps to the next project. Deals with other things.

  Details. To complete a project, you usually need to be precise about details. Yellows don’t like keeping track of details. I would even venture to say that they’re not interested in details. They paint with broad strokes.

  Generally, Yellows are very good at launching things. They’re resourceful, and with boundless creativity at their disposal, they can kick off various kinds of projects. But they’re not as good at finishing things. Finishing anything 100 percent requires an ability to concentrate that a Yellow rarely possesses. He gets tired and moves on. And so we think that he’s careless. He thinks that his work is good enough. My goodness, why worry about trifles? This turned out quite well, after all! The fact that threads are hanging from the shirt or that the document is full of spelling errors is not as important as thinking up new things.

  This is repeated in many different spheres. I have a few acquaintances who are hopeless at keeping time. They are always pleased and excited to think things up, but they are optimists when it comes to time. It makes absolutely no difference what time you suggest; they will not be on time. Seven o’clock, half past seven, or eight. It’s unimportant. They’re late regardless. And when they talk about it, they haggle down their late arrival from forty-five minutes to a little over fifteen minutes. After a while, they actually believe it themselves. But it doesn’t matter—the rest of us wait patiently because their presence will be the highlight of the evening.

  “Look, I Can Juggle All the Balls at the Same Time!”

  We need to talk a little about Yellow’s inability to concentrate. He’s always prepared for new experiences. This is the downside to the incredible openness Yellows have for new things, ideas, and impressions. There are so many new things!

  And because “new” is synonymous with “good” for a Yellow, it’s best that something new happens all the time. Otherwise, our Yellow friend will lose focus. He can’t be bothered listening to the whole story, the background, and all the details and facts that may actually be relevant. It’s not interesting to him, and he will lose his concentration.

  What does he do then? Simple. Something else. He throws up another ball to juggle. The problem with all these balls is that he might be able to keep them in the air for a while, but he can’t get them down into the right box at the right time. Instead, he leaves the room and the juggled balls tumble down right into someone else’s lap. In a meeting, he may very well start playing with his mobile phone or his computer or will start chatting to the person beside him. Softly at first, thinking that no one will notice anything. It’s not true, of course; everyone gets quite irritated. But if no one says anything he’ll just continue. Here Yellows are like little children. They are good at testing the limits. They continue until someone becomes too angry and puts his foot down. And, of course, then the Yellow feels hurt. He just wanted to …

  The way Yellows often quickly get bored can have far greater consequences than a little disruptive behavior during meetings. They’re not good at everyday trivial things like administration and follow-ups. As usual, most Yellows would contest what I just wrote. In their own eyes, they are the masters even here. But if we consider the ability to follow up, this could be a serious threat to the effective implementation of a project.

  New project—great! Put together a new and dynamic team full of interesting people—check! Get everything going and develop ideas and concepts—are you kidding? Already done that! Working like crazy in the beginning to really get things sped up? Yup. But then? Following up on what is actually happening or not happening in a project is extremely boring. That means looking backwards; that’s dull, and it won’t happen. A Yellow can’t keep his concentration long enough to follow through. He would rather persuade himself that it’s important to have confidence in people and just trust that the project gets done

  A funny example happened once when I coached sales reps at a large commercial TV channel. I sat with a female seller, a clever young woman who made big business deals. We had identified some weaknesses in her behavior profile—after she had struggled to convince me that even bad traits could be quite good—and now started to make a plan for how she would proceed in her personal development.

  It began to fall apart on the first point: When would she begin?

  She couldn’t start that day because it was already past three in the afternoon. And tomorrow was full of meetings. It had to be next week. But she was away then. Maybe the week after that; she would check her calendar and see.

  She had lost the match before she had even begun.

  “Me! Me!! Me!!!”

  Yellows aren’t necessarily more selfish than others, but they always seem to be. Why? Mostly because of their dialogue, since they primarily talk about themselves. And when other people are not sufficiently interesting and exciting, a Yellow will interrupt and guide the topic towards something far more interesting—not infrequently himself.

  I remember a seller I encountered during a conference with a pharmaceutical company a few years ago. Gustav exhibited all of the less successful aspects of Yellow behavior, and the problem was that he was completely unaware of it. He very rarely spoke about anything but himself and the things he had done, and he behaved as if he were the one who was leading the conference and not me. I have my methods to deal with those boys. But it’s amusing to study them for a while before I adjust their behavior with a few choice words during the first break.

  A few examples: Every time I put a question to the group, Gustav answered. His quick answers would have indicated engagement—if it had not been for the fact that he was often actually spewing nonsense. He simply said the things that popped into his head. He couldn’t keep his thoughts in his own head, and everything just tumbled out. When I directed my attention to one of Gustav’s colleagues instead of him, he simply leaned into my field of vision and continued talking.

  When I began directing questions to specific people in the room—simply calling them by name—Gustav answered anyway. Pretty impressive, right? He would speak for a while and then ask Sven, “That’s what you were going to say, right, Sven?” Sven just shook his head. He was used to this. Gustav continued like that the whole morning before I could rein in him. He just charged in whenever there was a gap or a few seconds’ silence.

  He never allowed anyone to speak and everything he said was to be take
n as gospel truth. He dominated the room without even thinking about the other nineteen people. The funny thing was that everyone was aware of what was going on. But no one had the energy to stand up to Gustav. They just stared at me with slight desperation in their eyes, hoping that I had some way of silencing him.

  During lunch, he proclaimed far and wide, so that everyone heard it, that he thought the conference was going very well. By that point the majority of the group hated the very sound of his voice. They could barely put up with him. To save them from their suffering, I had to have a quick feedback intervention with him during the coffee break—something you’ll learn more about when I discuss giving feedback.

  “You Never Told Me That, I Would Remember!”

  If a Yellow is anything, it’s a bad listener. They’re really miserable at it, in point of fact. Many Yellows I have met say that they are very good listeners—and of course supplied entertaining examples of this undeniable fact—but maybe it could be their memory that was at fault. Basically, they believe that they listen very well, but somewhere along the way to the brain’s storage shelves whatever they heard simply gets lost—poof!

  No, it’s not about memory. It’s about how a Yellow is often uninterested in what others say because he knows he could say it so much better himself. He doesn’t stay focused; he begins thinking about other things, begins doing other things. He does not want to listen—he wants to talk.