Introduction
The Man Who Was Surrounded by Idiots
I was in high school when I first noticed that I got along better with certain people rather than others. It was easy to talk to some of my friends; in any conversation, we always found the right words and everything just flowed smoothly. There were never any conflicts, and we liked one another. With other people, however, everything just went wrong. What I said fell on deaf ears, and I couldn’t understand why.
Why was speaking to some people so easy, while others were total blockheads? Since I was young, this certainly wasn’t something that kept me awake at night. However, I still remember puzzling over why some conversations flowed naturally, while others didn’t even start—no matter how I conducted myself. It was just incomprehensible. I began using different methods to test people. I tried to say the same things in similar contexts just to see what reaction I got. Sometimes it actually worked and an interesting discussion developed. On other occasions, nothing happened at all. People just stared at me as if I were from another planet, and sometimes it really felt that way.
When we’re young, we tend to think of things very simply. Because some people in my circle of friends reacted in a normal way that meant, of course, that they were automatically the good guys. And so I just assumed there was something wrong with the people who didn’t understand me.
What other explanation could there possibly be? I was the same all the time! Certain people just had something wrong with them. So I simply began to avoid these weird, difficult people because I didn’t understand them. Call it the naï veté of youth if you will, but it did give rise to some amusing consequences. In later years, however, all of this changed.
Life went on with work, family, and career, and I continued to pigeonhole people into two groups—good and sensible people and all the rest, the people who didn’t seem to understand anything at all.
When I was twenty-five years old, I met with a man who was self- employed. Now in his sixties, Sture had founded his own business and built it up for many years. I was given the task of interviewing him just before a new project was to be implemented. We started talking about how things were functioning in his organization. One of the very first comments Sture made was that he was surrounded by idiots. I remember laughing at the time because I thought it was a joke. But he truly meant what he said. His face turned crimson as he explained to me that the people working in Department A were complete idiots, every single one of them. In Department B you found only fools who understood nothing at all. And he hadn’t even come to Department C yet! They were the worst of all! They were so weird that Sture couldn’t fathom how they even made it to work in the mornings.
The more I listened to him, the more I realized that there was something very odd about this story. I asked him if he really believed that he was surrounded by idiots. He glared at me and explained that very few of his employees were worth having.
Sture had no issue letting his employees know how he felt. He didn’t hesitate in the least to call anyone an idiot in front of the whole company.
This meant that his employees learned to avoid him. No one dared to have one-to-one meetings with him; he never got to hear bad news because he would often shoot the messenger. At one of the offices, a warning light had even been mounted at the entrance to the building. Discreetly placed above the reception desk, the light went red when he was there and turned green when he was away.
Everyone knew about this. Not only staff but even clients would automatically cast a nervous glance at the light to find out what awaited them when they stepped over the threshold. If the light was red, some people would simply turn back at the door, deciding to come back at a more opportune time.
As we all know, when you’re young you are full of great ideas. So I asked the only question I could think of: “Who hired all these idiots?” I knew, of course, that he had hired most of them. What was worse was that
Sture understood exactly what I had implied. What I implicitly asked was: Who is actually the idiot here?
Sture threw me out. Later on, I was told that what he really wanted to do was fetch a shotgun and shoot me.
This incident got me thinking. Here was a man who would soon retire.
He was obviously a proficient entrepreneur, highly respected for his sound knowledge of his particular line of business. But he couldn’t handle people.
He didn’t understand the most critical, complicated resource in an organization—the employees. And anyone he couldn’t understand was simply an idiot.
Since I was from outside the company, I could easily see how wrong his thinking was. Sture didn’t grasp that he always compared people to himself.
His definition of idiocy was simply anyone who didn’t think or act like him.
He used expressions that I also used to use about certain types of people: “arrogant windbags,” “red-tape jackasses,” “rude bastards,” and “tedious blockheads.” Although I never called people idiots, at least not so they could hear me, I had obvious problems with certain types of people.
It was an utterly appalling thought to have to go through life constantly thinking that I was surrounded by people who were impossible to work with. It would make my own potential in life so unbelievably limited.
I tried to see myself in the mirror. The decision was easy to make. I didn’t want to be like Sture. After a particularly toxic meeting with him and some of his unfortunate colleagues, I sat in the car with a lump in my stomach. The meeting had been a total disaster. Everyone was furious.
There and then I decided to learn what is probably the most important knowledge of all—how people function. I would be encountering people for the rest of my life, no matter what my profession was, and it was easy to see that I would benefit by being able to understand them.
I immediately began to study how to understand the people who initially seem so difficult. Why are some people silent, why do others never stop talking, why do some people always tell the truth while others never do?
Why do some of my colleagues always arrive on time, while others rarely manage to? And even why did I like some people more than others? The insights I gained were fascinating, and I’ve never been the same since I began this journey. The knowledge I acquired has changed me as a person,
as a friend, as a colleague, as a son, as a husband, and as the father of my children.
This book is about what is perhaps the world’s most widely used method to describe the differences in human communication. This method is called the DISA—an acronym that stands for Dominance, Inducement, Submission, and Analytic ability—system. These four terms are the primary behavior types, which describe how people sees themselves in relationship to their environment. Each of these behavior types is associated with a color —Red, Yellow, Green, and Blue. This system is also commonly called the DISC system, where the final letter of the acronym stands for Compliance instead of Analytic ability. I have used variations of this tool for over twenty years with excellent results.
But how do you become really, truly proficient at handling different types of people? There are, of course, various methods. The most common method is to research the matter and learn the basics. But learning the theoretical part doesn’t make you a world-class communicator. It’s only when you begin using this knowledge that you can develop real and functioning competence in the field. Just like learning to ride a bike—you have get on the bike first. Only then do you realize what you need to do.
Since I began studying how people function and painstakingly strove to understand the differences in the way we communicate, I’ve never been the same. I’m not as categorical anymore, judging people just because they are not like me. For many years now, my patience with people who are the complete opposite of me has been far greater. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I never get involved in conflicts, just as I wouldn’t try to convince you that I never lie, but both these things happen very seldom now.
I have one thing to thank Sture for—he awakened my interest in the subject. Without him, this book would probably never have been written.
What can you do to increase your knowledge about how people relate and communicate? A good start may be to keep reading this book—the whole book, not just the first three chapters. With a little luck, in a few minutes you can begin the same journey I began twenty years ago. I promise you will not regret it.
One thing to note: To simplify reading this book, I have chosen to use “him” and “he” consistently when I refer to examples not associated with
any specific person. I know that you have enough imagination to insert a “her” or “she” in your thoughts where this may be appropriate
