Why it’s great to be blue during a coronavirus pandemic

Chances are if the thought of anymore time away from the office has you raging, you’re probably red, or maybe yellow (or both), while those peace could either be blue or green.

In his book Surrounded by Idiots, Thomas Erikson, who is a guest speaker at this year’s Emirates Festival of Literature to be held from January 29 to February 13, describes one of the world’s most common methods to sort out the differences in human communication. It is a method coming from the famous DISA profiles, which use a colour scheme of red, yellow, green and blue as a base to describe different behaviour and personalities.

In part two of his exclusive interview with Arabian Business, the author behind the best-selling book, which has sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide, looks at the impact of the pandemic on personality types which are labelled by colour.

Tell me about the process of colours and have these been blurred over the last 12 months because of coronavirus?

The four colours is the DISC model, which is spread all over the globe. It’s not new, the only thing that I did was put it out in a book in a way that’s easier to, let’s say, you can retract the basics and the most important stuff out of the book.

You have four variants: reds are dominants, fast forward thinkers, they are very decisive and action-oriented and they like to compete; then you have the yellow ones who are smiling and are very visionary thinkers and positive, extremely creative – some of them haven’t touched the ground since the early 90s; then you have the green ones looking for stability, good listeners, really friendly, caring, sharing, but very conflict-avert; then you have the blue colour and these are the analysts, the engineers, the brain surgeons, the tax sheriffs.

You have these four fundamentals and you can, of course, combine them in 20,000 different ways probably. These are the basics, you can put the cake together in different ways.

When it comes to lockdowns, when it comes to what the Covid-19 situation has taught us, some of these behavioural traits are more ok with what’s happening. Usually the introverts are basically ok with the situation, let’s say the blue ones, they’re introvert and task-oriented. They love this because finally they can just sit at home and do a proper day’s work without getting distracted by anybody who is talking too much. They feel fine, better than ever.

Then you have the green ones and they are ok with staying at home, they’re also introverts so they like it when the tempo is going down a little bit, but they are missing their friends. They’re a little bit depressed right now I would say.

Then you have the red ones who are task-oriented and extrovert. They are really frustrated because there is too little action right now; too many people are complaining and telling everybody, ‘the vaccine hasn’t arrived yet’ and it’s more like ‘shut up and do whatever you can do’.

Erikson’s best-selling book Surrounded by Idiots has sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide

Then you have the yellow ones, they are extrovert and people oriented. They are really, really struggling. Everybody with a relation-oriented manner are struggling right now because you can’t hang out with your buddies any more, you can’t see your family or visit your grandfather. They are severely struggling.

Social isolation is the worst thing you could do to 40 or 50 percent of the population all across the globe and that is not related to countries or cultures, usually people are more relation-oriented, they like to hang around with people, so they are suffering. That is definitely for sure now.

In terms of the business world and the people who are the reds, has coronavirus turned that slightly in the way people deal with each other, how bosses deal with employees? Do we need more of a coach these days?

When people are struggling with a situation, the management within any organisation, doesn’t matter if it’s run by the government or if it’s a really tiny, private corporation, it doesn’t matter because we are all humans, people will always be people, and they need you as a leader to pay attention to them on an individual level.

You cannot say to ten guys, don’t do this or don’t do that, especially now because they are reacting maybe in ten different ways in this situation during the pandemic. During the lockdown people don’t react the same way, so you can’t say ‘you should think like this’ or ‘you should think like that’.

You need to bring everybody into the room and get the individual’s thoughts and find out how you can help them still be productive because the job has to be done, that is not negotiable.

Some managers, especially here in Sweden, are very polite and too much listening. Some managers that I meet they are too tolerant so they let people do whatever sometimes, that is not a solution. You need to be there but you can’t negotiate what the demands are. I’m talking about how you can provide better motivation.

Erikson looks at the impact of the pandemic on personality types which are labelled by colour

Is it more the carrot or the stick that’s needed in a post-Covid world?

I don’t believe in either or, it’s a combination. I believe in the stick to a certain extent, you have to push people and say ‘my demands are here, you have to produce, you have to contribute to what we are here for’. You can’t take that away, but maybe more than ever people need the carrot.

In the post-Covid world that we’re all dreaming about, will there be a more prominent colour coming out than there was before?

Well, in the post-Covid situation, I’m not sure. Right now it’s the blue factor. These are the people who are moving faster than ever because they really like the situation we have here. How it will be in the future? I would say the red people will probably be dominant in the future, pretty much the same as it is right now, but maybe even a bit more because they are action-oriented; they will take up the stick and they will run like mad because they will feel the need to do as much as possible.

They will probably be the first in all directions compared to everyone else and they will compete, they have strong elbows and they will put themselves wherever they want. My money’s on red.