On Monday 4th July 2022 PropelHer’s Book Club discussed Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behaviour by Thomas Erikson.

 

In this summary of Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson I’ll be briefly summarising the book to help you to make a decision about whether you should buy a copy of the book for yourself.

The book has an introduction and 27 chapters. The introduction sets the scene of why the book is called Surrounded by Idiots and introduces the reader to the human communication method that Thomas uses for the foundation of the book. That human communication method that Thomas uses is DISA (Dominance, Inducement, Submission and Analytic ability. The system is also commonly known as DISC where the C stands for compliance. 

The next few chapters of the book introduce the system and explain why it is important to understand the communication styles of people you are speaking to because communication happen on the listener’s terms. 

Then the book has a chapter dedicated to each of the behaviours in turn: Red, Yellow, Green and Blue. For each colour you learn how the colour sees themselves and how others perceive that colour. You learn about what is and isn’t important to them, especially in relation to what needs to be communicated. You’ll also learn about the strengths and weaknesses of each colour and how no one colour is perfect.

Once you are up-to-speed with the different colours you need to learn about how to know what colours other people are. Thomas shares the body language of each colour to help you to be able to identity the different colours. This is important as the next chapter teaches you how to adapt your communication style, but you can only do that when you actually know what the other person’s communication style is. 

The book then walks you through a few different angles of using this knowledge. It looks at delivering back news, combining individuals for good results, understanding different written communication styles, knowing what makes a colour mad and what stresses out the different colours. 

At the end there is a quiz so you can test your knowledge and see if you have absorbed what was taught through the book.

 

That’s it! You now have an idea about what you can expect to find inside of  Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson.

 

Like the sound of Surrounded by Idiots? Why not buy a copy of the book and read it yourself?

 

Buy your copy of Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erikson at the Bookshop (and support local bookshops) or Amazon.

Surrounded by Idiots was read as part of PropelHer’s Book Club. PropelHer’s Book Club is an online non-fiction book club for ambitious women that meet monthly. Every month PropelHer’s Book Club reads a different book to help ambitious women concentrate on their personal development and professional success. You can see what else we have read so far here. If you would like to join PropelHer’s Book Club you can find full details here.

And don’t forget to share your book pictures! Tag @Propelherorg or use the hashtag #PropelHer