Have you ever felt frustrated with a colleague, friend, or family member because you both seemed to be on different planets? Have you thought or said any of the following in your interactions with others?
Why are they not listening?
There they go again, making it all about them.
Are they stupid?
They are so rude.
Why can’t they just make a simple decision?
Why do I always need to push you to get anything done?
Why are they so pedantic?
Who cares about the data? Just get it done.
Why are you so standoffish?
You would all be nodding your head, right? I had heard about this best seller and when I saw it on display outside a bookshop on my way to my hairdresser; I popped in to buy it. Human behaviour has always fascinated me.
Written by Thomas Erikson, a Swedish behavioural expert and bestselling author. For over twenty years, he has travelled across Europe delivering lectures and seminars in Swedish and in English to executives and managers in companies, including IKEA, Coca Cola, Microsoft, Volvo, and KIA, to help them understand others and effectively work together.
In the book, the author explains that most of us fall into one of four types of human behavior, and each personality type is associated with a specific color. These four colours are red, yellow, green, and blue.
Red people are go getters. They don’t muck around. They are confident, assertive, quick thinking, efficient, and get things done. Others might describe them as rude, arrogant, impatient, and overbearing.
Yellow people are confident, friendly, outgoing, animated, creative, and full of bright ideas. Others might describe them as flaky, disorganised, and self centered.
Green people are friendly, caring, and easygoing. Others might describe them as indecisive, passive, and lacking drive or initiative.
Blue people are details orientated, like to research things thoroughly, and usually work well on their own. Others might describe them as pedantic, slow, and unfriendly.
Let’s look at a workplace scenario. A red CEO puts a yellow, a green, and a blue together to work on a project. At the first meeting, the yellow takes control because the green doesn’t really want to be there, and the blue needs explicit instructions and a systematic structure to work with before they can get started.
The yellow shoots off ideas, gets really excited about their ideas, but jumps from one topic to another with no clear direction. Because the yellow is a people person, they are engaging and make everyone laugh, but the green still doesn’t want to be there, hence they avoid getting allocated much to do and the blue fires questions at the yellow like.
How will that work?
How will we measure that?
That doesn’t seem doable at all.
The yellow gets slightly annoyed and says something like.
‘Oh. C’mon, where’s your sense of fun? Let’s give it a go. We will figure out the details as we go along.’
The yellow turns to the green and asks. ‘Well, what do you think?’
The green shrugs their shoulders and says. ‘I don’t really mind; you guys work it out.’
The meeting ends and all they have done is go around in circles. When the red CEO gets feedback from the yellow on where they are up to (because the yellow would be the first to want to step forward and tell the CEO all about their great ideas) they get frustrated and end up doing it themselves.
Do you ever feel like everyone else is stupid and you may as well do something yourself if you want it done right? Do you feel like other people stuff about and take a long time to get something done? If so, you are probably a red.
Were you a chatter box at school? Were you the first to volunteer to get up in front of a group? Are you a people person? Are you creative? If you said yes, you are more than likely yellow.
Are you a people pleaser? Do you like to keep the peace? Do you avoid conflict? If you are nodding your head, you are green, my friend.
Do you spend hours researching destinations, travel advice, and trip advisor reviews before booking your holiday? Do you like detail and are a bit of a perfectionist? Then you are a blue.
After reading this book, I discovered I am bright yellow with a dash of red thrown in. So, I guess you could call me orange. The book explains that some of us are a mixture of two colours, but we will have a dominant colour.
The book also gives tips on how to get the best out of different colours and play to their strengths. It talks about which colours work well together and which ones are most likely to clash.
It helped me better understand myself and how I may come across to others. It also helped me understand how to avoid conflict with others in my life. Now I know what colour they are and why they behave the way they do. They are not wrong; they just see things differently to me.
The only criticism I have is that fact that the author refers to every person as a male using he, him, and his. The author does, however, point this out at the very beginning of the book.
It’s a fascinating read and if you want to better understand yourself and the people in your life with whom you interact, I highly recommend this book.
I give it four stars.
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