“Surrounded by Idiots”: A Not-So-Good Book, but an Amazing Product
Overview
I read the book ‘Surrounded by Idiots’ written by Thomas Erikson. Initially, I was impressed by how the author successfully classified people based on human behavior. However, upon reading his other book, ‘Surrounded by Psychopaths,’ my perception shifted. I felt that the book wasn’t focused on understanding behavior but seemed more like a product written for commercial purposes.
In this post, I will discuss both books to provide insights into their classifications. Following that, I will share my feedback on how the book leans towards a commercial orientation.
Thomas Erikson Books: A Brief Recap
Surrounded by Idiots
“The Runway International Bestseller” is the first line that you read on the book’s cover. The book is about classifying people into 4 patterns, or we can say colors, based on personality and behavior.
Red Behavior: The Assertive One
Beginning with the first color, Red represents the dominant personality. This individual excels at navigating towards goals and achieving results. Throughout the book, the author frequently portrays these individuals as leaders, using the metaphor ‘Alpha’ (where Alpha symbolizes the leader of a wolf group).
Yellow Behavior: The Dreamer
The second color, Yellow, embodies the influencer personality. This individual possesses the ability to inspire belief, whether it’s making you feel like you can fly or earn one million dollars through network marketing. Additionally, the author associates creativity with this color.
Green Behavior: The Introverted One
The calm one is Green. This personality seeks stability and prefers less change in life. The author presents this individual as the ideal team player.
Blue Behavior: The Perfection Seeker
The final color is Blue, the perfection seeker. This individual focuses on details, and every point matters to them. The author emphasizes in the book that this personality strives for accuracy in the work environment.
Surrounded by Psychopaths
The author continued with color classification, introducing the term ‘Psychopath’ in this instance. Throughout the book, he clarified that the term denotes negative aspects within each color category, influencing behaviors in other colors. Additionally, the author suggests that individuals who frequently change their colors may be identified as psychopaths in certain contexts.
The book doesn’t present an approach on how to handle this category but provides some basic instructions to identify and distance oneself from individuals within this category.
“Surrounded by X” Plan
After the successful release of his first book, ‘Surrounded by Idiots,’ the author continues a five-book series, delving into topics such as “surrounded by psychopaths”, “surrounded by setbacks”, “surrounded by narcissists”, and “surrounded by bad bosses”.
What It’s Really About?
Communication: How to convey your message smoothly
We’re all heroes, but every hero has a dark side
Everyone likes to be a leader. If I call you an alpha and tell you that your leadership will require you to make some tough decisions, you may feel like Winston Churchill in the Second World War. Additionally, I will say that you are hyper-motivated and an inspirational person. However, sometimes your creativity and love for taking risks may prevent you from seeing the real state of the world, and you might end up liking the thrill of being a gambler.
If I describe you as the calm one and express my appreciation for seeing you as a team player, be cautious — sometimes, your personality tends to make you closed off. Nevertheless, you will likely appreciate your stable personality.
Furthermore, if I mention that you are a perfection-seeker and express my admiration for your attention to detail in your way of living, be mindful that, at times, your pursuit of accuracy may lead you off the path to your real goals.
Sorry, you are not a hero!
Now, let me talk about the same people but using other words. First, someone who often seems a draining person or an energy vampire and can be hard to be around. Second, a person who is really tough to deal with, having them on a team feels like trying to surf without a map. The third one is quite hard to talk to, and if we need to remove someone, they might be the first to go. The last person tends to make things boring, and sometimes, getting things done doesn’t need too many details.
First or second list?
For sure, you might like being like the people in the first list, maybe all of them. But you probably wouldn’t want to be like the people in the second list, that might feel a bit mean. It’s like saying the same thing but in a different way! The first way talks about good things about you, with a bit of not-so-good stuff said nicely.
That’s what the author did in his book. He made everyone seem like heroes, even though heroes also have some not-so-great parts to them.
A product is all about communication. How you choose to communicate your product determines your success in the market. (I will use the term ‘market war’ for Reds, and for Yellows, I prefer to use the term ‘market challenge’ 😛 ).
Content: Stating and Selling Facts
What’s a fact?
If we refer to the Cambridge Dictionary, a fact is something that is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information. That means a fact represents reliable and accurate statements in reality.
Facts in the book
The book explores human behavior and delves into various personality types. The author has carefully crafted a set of words to cover every category, capturing how people both feel and act. A notable aspect is the simplicity of focusing on fundamental human parameters. For instance, in detailing approaches to actions, the author connects each behavior to a specific time frame: blues reflect on the past, yellows contemplate the future, while greens and reds are oriented towards the present. Additionally, in describing everyone’s orientation, the author uses the classic life cycle of a plan. Reds prioritize results, yellows focus on inspiration and imagination, greens emphasize maintenance and support, and blues prioritize quality.
Also, he used opposite words to make sorting things easier. For your listening skills, I’ll use just two words: a good listener or a not-so-good listener. But, like I mentioned in the communication section, it doesn’t want to upset readers. So, he uses positive words and changes the not-so-good listener words into talkative. He did this a lot: independent and social, or helpful and self-centered.
The way he studies things is by comparing and benchmarking facts. If we’re talking about time, there are only three: past, present, and future. Everyone falls into one of these categories. You can’t be something else.
Fact market
In book market, there are many interesting topics like science, history, literature, or economics. But have you heard about the fact market? For instance, in history, a book that talks about actual events is a fact book. But a book that shares opinions about people or events in history is not a fact book. This is not only in the book market, the news is also a fact market.
In this book, the author sells facts by pretending it’s a book about mental health. When you read all the parts and look at the shared graphs, it feels like you’re taking a multiple-choice test, trying to figure out where you fit in. And in every part, you won’t find the author saying his words can’t fully describe you. He even mentioned that you can be multiple colors at the same time, so there’s no way to escape the classification.
Approach: People Want to Understand Everything!
Feeling insecure about the unknown
In general, people have shown that they are afraid of things they don’t know. All our technological progress is about taking steps to find out more and more. We make rockets to explore space and the outside world. We build ships and submarines to discover the seas and oceans. We even talk and write a lot about aliens, even though there’s no proof, and many people believe in them. Similarly, people see others as unknown. So, many authors write books in psychology, philosophy, and sociology, just trying to give a definition or a description of the other.
From the start of the book, the author tells a story about someone who calls everyone different from him an “idiot.” Imagine being mean to everyone different from you. This represents the insecurity that humans feel towards others while also being curious to understand them.
Sorting things out for clarity
When you’re trying to explain or understand something with a lot of information, it can be tough to get it done. Even for simple decisions, like buying shoes, having a reference makes it hard. You won’t just grab the first pair you see. You’ll check different ones, comparing prices, colors, styles, and comfort. These are called parameters, and the whole process is called classification. It’s a way we use to make things clearer and help us make decisions.
In the book ‘Surrounded by Idiots,’ classification is everywhere. You’ll notice four colors all over the visual interface. Even in graphs and tables, each of them has four elements. The author has used this simple method to organize the book.
“Make it easy” as an approach
The author writes the book in a way that’s a bit easy because he uses our curiosity about things we don’t know in a very clear manner. Also, he adds a clear classification to the recipe to make the book a big analytic paper. No plot twists, no labyrinths, and no hard definitions — just four big classes and various stories, making the book feel like gossip between people.
Targeting: Eliminating People Who Don’t Accept My Product
Why every product needs a target
My product is for everyone. This might sound silly, unless you’re buying oxygen. But a smart product knows its target. Every part of the market has its purposes. For example, some people like to read about mental health, but in a scientific way. Others want to explore the same topic but through a historical lens. Your product’s target defines who you’ll sell to. To meet your target’s demands, you need to identify what the audience is looking for.
In this book, the author clearly knows who the book is for. As mentioned in other parts, the author aimed for a specific community that wants to classify themselves and others using certain tags.
How the author defends his target market
The author began his book ‘Surrounded by Psychopaths’ with a story about someone approaching him while discussing ‘Surrounded by Idiots,’ claiming that no color could represent them well. Dramatic scenes were added under the title ‘An Unpleasant Experience’. As you read other parts of the same book, you consistently find that the person not accepting the first book is labeled as the real psychopath.
Here, the author introduces another targeting approach — building a community and excluding those who don’t accept it. Additionally, the suggested way to deal with psychopaths is to distance yourself from them. The author employs a clever strategy to defend his community that will continue to follow his works, even when the content is controversial. The traditional way of targeting is to join the product’s club, like the luxury club of Apple. But in this scenario, the targeting involves creating the bads club. If you don’t like the job, you can always join the other club.
Thomas Erikson is a Smart Person
To make your book series join the best sellers club, you need to be a good author. Even when your content isn’t top-notch, being in the club requires some smarts.
The author communicates really well with the audience, using a refined vocabulary. He knows how to convey his message in a smooth way. Additionally, the content about facts is quite easy to handle. Despite some negative feedback from mental health experts who find the topic complex to describe in that way, the book doesn’t say anything incorrect. What it does is provide a simple classification for basic human behavior. When we look at the book’s target, we see a clever way to build a community and shield them from other opinions.
All that Thomas Erikson achieves with his book series and the success he attains makes me think he’s a product manager. It’s not that easy to do all of that with luck.
If Your Team Is Winning, Don’t Change the Plan! That’s exactly what Thomas did with his book series. The first book was a huge success, becoming one of the best sellers. He stuck with the same template for all the subsequent books. There are always the 4 colors, a simple way of communication, and content based on some simple life stories.
Building a product is somewhat similar to what the author did with his books. Communication, content, approach, and target all play a crucial role in its success.
