Your colleague spends meetings aimlessly. Another seems obsessed with trivial details. A third constantly gives their unsolicited opinion. Sometimes annoyances in the workplace can run high. And then a little help with collaboration is welcome.
The book Surrounded by idiotsby Swedish behavioral expert Thomas Erikson, tries to help you with that collaboration. The author, who has a background in management consultancy, divides people into four behavioral types based on a personality test, each linked to a color. The book would be a useful tool in the workplace. According to Erikson, frustrations do not arise from the ‘idiot’ people of the title, but from different behavioral types that sometimes clash with each other.
In her dental practice in Groningen, No Boring Dentist, Loes Meijerink (44) uses the color profiles every day, within the team and with customers. “It has made my work so much more enjoyable.”
By understanding other ‘color types’ there is less mutual frustration, says Meijerink. “If someone is a green type, I know: they need more security. For example, I can then provide more explanation. A red person often has no patience for all kinds of details. This way you can better respond to someone’s needs.” Surrounded by idiots is full of advice about dealing with certain ‘colours’. It evokes recognition among many readers: you soon picture a colleague describing a color profile.
The book has been a success since its publication in 2014. The CPNB foundation, which encourages reading books, reported last month that 200,000 copies have now been sold, for which it received the Golden Book Prize. Internationally, this already amounts to one and a half million units.
The author bases his book on the DISC theory of human behavior, developed almost a hundred years ago by the American psychologist William Marston. People are divided into four main types: dominant (red), inspiring (yellow), stable (green) and conscientious (blue). If you know which color – or two colors – someone suits, you can tailor your communication accordingly. The idea is that that helps collaboration.
Yet there is also criticism from scientists. The book is said to paint a wrong picture of how people work and, based on this, advises how best to communicate with colleagues, friends and family. Is that criticism justified, if you keep in mind that readers regularly indicate that the book has helped them?
Exclusion
“I’m surprised how much impact the book has,” says Veerle Brenninkmeijer, industrial and organizational psychologist at Utrecht University. Numerous training and coaching practices in the Netherlands offer the DISC method for personal and team development. But: “There is insufficient scientific basis for the classification into the four behavioral style types. While such a categorization does have all kinds of consequences for practice.”
For example, the DISC method is sometimes used in recruitment and selection, Brenninkmeijer explains. For example, a team is looking for a ‘red’ person: someone who, according to Erikson, is action-oriented and likes a bit of pace. But the applicant who does not fit that red profile may be wrongly excluded. “Other aspects of someone, such as substantive knowledge, can be at least as crucial. Take a broad look at who you need for your organization.”
Another danger is that the color profiles create incorrect expectations. This classification sometimes gives you properties as a ‘gift’. For example, the book gives an example of a meeting in which the entire group is asked for feedback. Then it says: “What are the Greens doing? Nothing at all, they sink into their chair and stay that way.” Brenninkmeijer: “Those types of descriptions encourage stereotyping. You don’t give people the chance to show who they really are. Moreover, someone may be passive or wait-and-see, out of uncertainty. Something like that can change enormously over time.”
Trainer Dion Jespers, from Magna Trainingen, is also familiar with the risk of thinking too much in boxes. “You can treat someone according to their color, and not as a much more complex person.” His company provides training for successful collaboration and personal development for all kinds of organizations, from companies to healthcare institutions. “That is why I always present the DISC method with a wink and in a playful manner – those colors are not a hard truth.”
Jespers explains. “For example, if you are stressed because your child is ill, you may have a short fuse at work and behave more dominantly – more ‘red’ – while you normally have little of that color in your profile. That is why I always say to the students: a color is not your personality, but you behave like a color at a certain moment.”
Brenninkmeijer believes that the DISC method and its elaboration in the book are not scientifically substantiated. While there are good standards to assess the reliability and validity of such a method. For example, you measure at different times to see whether you get the same results. Or you can see whether the DISC actually says something about personality. There is currently insufficient evidence for this. “But I do see that the DISC is applied at universities and in talent or leadership programs.”
Horoscope
“I don’t know how well versed Erikson is in scientific research, but there is quite a consensus on how to properly measure personality,” says Brenninkmeijer. “For example, you test whether the division into four behavioral types is correct. You do this by checking whether the answers to the questions in the case of the DISC questionnaire consistently fit into a certain color profile. And you also test to what extent that classification predicts work performance. But because there is no scientific evidence for either with the DISC method, the status of the test remains questionable, and the test has more of the status of a horoscope.”
In Germany, the DISC method has been assessed by a testing body, says Brenninkmeijer. There she was assessed as very mediocre.
Reinout de Vries, professor at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam and researcher in the field of personality psychology, is also critical of the book and method. “There are so many errors in the entire conceptualization of the DISC, in the measurement, the naming, and the descriptions of the colors, that it is tiresome.” There are not four behavioral types, the researcher explains. For example, people are not either relationship-oriented or task-oriented, qualities that are opposed to each other according to the DISC. You can also be both.
De Vries: “It is an illusion that you have to simplify the functioning of personality to four colors. Explaining how personality does work, based on scientific evidence, is not that complex. The average kitchen recipe is more difficult, I would say. The author actually underestimates the intelligence of people.”
For example, there are not four behavioral types, says the researcher, but personality is divided over six independent, cross-cultural dimensions. In the Netherlands, these dimensions are named as follows: integrity, emotionality, extraversion, tolerance, conscientiousness and openness to experiences. People can have more or less of these qualities.
Marketing phenomenon
Although many people know that the book has no scientific basis, it is still often used, the scientists see. They strongly advise against that. De Vries: “Use reliable methods that do not distort reality through incorrect behavioral characterization. Why would you spend money on a DISC training or book, while you can spend the same or less on a much better and scientifically substantiated personality mapping instrument?”
The idea is that a method is good because it is widely used, says the researcher. While ultimately you pay for a marketing phenomenon, not for the content.
Brenninkmeijer: “I understand that it can be valuable to reflect on why we click better with some people than with others. But make sure you use a model that is correct – there are good alternatives. Think of ‘Hexaco’ and ‘The Big 5’.” An enormous amount of research has been done into these tests, based on the five or six cross-cultural dimensions to map personality. De Vries: “Not only are the questionnaires reliable, they actually measure what they say they measure: personality.”
Alternative models that provide meaningful insight are not always so sparkling. Moreover, they lack juicy anecdotes, incorporated into an accessible book. According to Brenninkmeijer, there lies an opportunity for science: to make existing, scientifically proven instruments accessible to a broader audience.
Puzzle piece
Author Thomas Erikson would like to personally explain what you can and cannot expect from the DISC method. “The goal is to give people more self-awareness. Of course, a person or personality is much more complex than a color profile, as I also mention in the book.”
Although Erikson is aware of the limitations of the method, he says he is happy that he can provide at least a few pieces of the puzzle of how people work. He trusts that people do not base their entire lives on such a method. The test, like many other personality questionnaires, is intended to increase your self-awareness, he says.
Ever since his book came out, Erikson has been receiving responses from people who indicate that the method has helped them. “For me it is no problem that psychologists or professors think differently about DISC profiles than the average person. I prefer to work with a practical tool that really helps people, than with something that may be 100 percent accurate according to psychology, but less useful in practice. Psychology is also not an exact science, because research is never exactly repeatable. The human brain is incredibly complex.”
Dentist Loes Meijerink is also aware of the criticism, but continues to use DISC. “For me, a method does not have to be scientifically sound to be responsible. In healthcare we often use methods that have not been scientifically proven. Statistically proven or not, I think that any drug is allowed if it can only help 1 percent.”