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

Master the four basic behavior types and change the way you communicate!

After a disastrous meeting with a highly successful entrepreneur, who was genuinely convinced he was "surrounded by idiots," communication expert and bestselling author Thomas Erikson dedicated himself to understanding how people function and why we often struggle to connect. A runaway bestseller in Sweden with over 1.5 million copies sold, Surrounded by Idiots: The Four Types of Human Behavior and How to Effectively Communicate with Each in Business (and in Life), offers a simple yet groundbreaking method for assessing the personalities of the people we communicate with—in and out of the office—and explains how to identify and interact with each type of person.

According to Erikson, there are four types of people: Reds are ambitious, boisterous, and commanding; Blues are quiet, analytical, and precise; Yellows are social, creative, and optimistic; and Greens are calm, reliable, and considerate. The simple color system is easy to remember and, with a bit of practice, even easier to apply. Instead of getting 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. 

Sending an email to a Red? Skip the formalities and get straight to the point, because Reds don't value small talk the way Yellows and Greens do. Need someone to bounce ideas off of? Find a yellow—they are idea making machines! Have a quiet employee who is all about the details? More than likely they are a Blue, so be patient and rest assured that report they're working on will be accurate down to the very last decimal. Surrounded by Idiots evaluates the strengths and weaknesses of each color using comprehensive info charts and real life examples, and in turn offers practical advice we can use to give positive and negative feedback, collaborate on projects, and ultimately understand and be understood by those around us.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas Erikson is an expert on communication. He works with developing organizations from a leadership perspective. In the past eighteen years he has trained more than five thousand executives to be better and more efficient leaders. Thomas has written several popular science books on communication and human behavior. Surrounded by Idiots is one of Sweden’s best-selling non-fiction books with over 450,000 copies sold in Sweden alone. The book is sold in 21 other languages around the world.

This giveaway is brought to you by St. Martin's Essentials, a division of Macmillan Publishers. They have made 20 copies available.