Out of
the Box Coaching and
Breakthroughs with the Enneagram,
Mary R. Bast, Ph.D.
Copyright © 1999. All rights reserved. Revised:
May 19, 2010
Teamwork with the Enneagram:
A "Seamless Weave"
"We're going to be executing some major changes in the next few months," said Dick Malone, "and there may be some psychological effect on the people here. Our whole organization is undergoing restructuring and there'll be an announcement of my re-assignment around the time of the team session. But I'd still like to go forward with it. Can we learn about the Enneagram and help prepare for these changes at the same time? Oh, and can you do that in one day?" Phew! I sometimes tell clients I forgot to put my magic wand in my briefcase... But Dick and I, both Nines, were abundantly optimistic and eager to collaborate. His team members turned out to be good natured, flexible (they'd been through many changes already), and earnestly interested in learning about themselves.
I'd never met the rest of his team, though, and I don't use Enneagram tests, so I sent my Leadership Styles handout before the session along with a summary based on Robert Kaplan's Beyond Ambition: How Driven Managers Can Lead Better and Live Better. (I wish this book were better known among O.D. practitioners. Kaplan provides excellent developmental case studies of a One, a Three, and an Eight, as well as a rationale for knowing ourselves better that's appealing to business executives.) Along with their pre-readings, I sent participants a form to return indicating their level of certainty about their Enneagram style. I also asked Dick for a thumbnail sketch of each of them. This input helped me design a session to meet their particular needs. Below are some highlights:
Unlike the diversity of most groups, this team had several clusters -- four Sixes, three Nines (including Dick), two Sevens, a One, and a Two. Exploring their MBTI preferences explained some variation within Enneagram styles: all but three were Extroverts and almost half had a Feeling preference.
This team attributed their cluster of MBTI extraverted/ feeling preferences and Enneagram styles Six and Nine to their consulting role with other corporate functions. Most had a collaborative/ democratic style and a group orientation that served them well in their job responsibilities. The two Sevens were the visionaries. The One (Two wing) and Two (One wing) wanted to help their internal customers solve problems.
We started the day examining their general coping style and strengths with The Hero's Journey, each describing the most difficult situation they'd ever encountered and what they learned from it, particularly about their own coping capabilities and their ability to elicit and accept support from others. Individual Enneagram dynamics began to emerge as they shared their difficulties with each other and how they overcame them. One of the Nines, for example, recognized her pattern of tamping down her concerns -- only to discover herself suffering a multitude of physical problems under stress.
Next I asked them to assess their current process of transition, using a graph from Managing Change at Work by Scott and Jaffe. This simple but powerful model emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and working with internal processes that enable effective change, and outlines strategies to help individuals and teams move through the four stages of transition. The authors give examples of signs for each stage:
DENIAL (e.g., numbness, minimizing, refusing to hear new information)
RESISTANCE (e.g., stubbornness, illness, blaming others, doubting your ability)
EXPLORATION (e.g., chaos, indecisiveness, seeing possibilities, unfocused work)
COMMITMENT (e.g., focus, teamwork, balance, visioning)
Most members of this team found themselves in the exploration stage, with occasional lapses back into resistance (the Nine mentioned above began to label her physical problems as a form of "resistance" to change, and set a personal goal to use her physical symptoms as clues to what was really going on with her). They talked about the importance of harnessing the energy available in Stage 3 by focusing as a group on priorities, setting short-term goals, and conducting visioning and planning sessions. And at my request they each listed on a flip chart what kind of support they needed from each other during the upcoming period of change.
A good opportunity for group learning came at this point when the Two described the "support" he needed as asking that "subordinates come to me if they have concerns" (two of his subordinates were in the team session). He was the only member of the group who was unable to identify a need of his own. He and the others discussed how his helping behavior played out in the group, and he received some useful feedback about how he helped to create this pattern.
It's common practice in team-building sessions for team members to give each other feedback to identify strengths and barriers to full team effectiveness. There's something magic about giving feedback in the context of the Enneagram in that once individuals have placed themselves by "number" and explained why, they're able to hear without defensiveness how their style plays out on the team. Jack, for example, a Seven, had a strong Five component. In the context of the Enneagram he could laugh as his boss said, "You've got to quit going to school and concentrate more on your job!" (There was a hidden message here in that Dick knew Jack would be his interim replacement and the company needed his full attention.)
Their feedback was invited first for Dick, their boss, in a segment based on the old title of Michael Goldberg's The Nine Ways of Working -- which was Getting Your Boss's Number. For this team it was "Getting Dick's Number." In two subgroups they discussed their organizational climate and Dick's style, determining an Enneagram point for each and why they chose that number. The two groups then reported out and compared their analyses. Dick was prepped for this ahead of time (and because I'd worked with him before we were confident he was a Nine). One group saw the corporation as a "7"; the other as a "5," which led to an interesting discussion about how the two points interact and how each team was accurate in terms of their focus.
They struggled with whether Dick was an "8" or a "9." They saw his orientation toward others and his tendency toward collaboration, but they had understood from their reading that a Nine's always placid. When Dick got angry (which was rare) his anger was Eight-like, which provide the opportunity to discuss wings in the context of Dick's Eight wing. They saw he was more of a take-charge person than the stereotyped view of a Nine would suggest and that his anger had a "bull in the china shop quality."
Getting Dick's Number was followed by a panel discussion of all styles represented on the team, somewhat reminiscent of Helen Palmer's oral tradition workshops and somewhat reminiscent of Oprah Winfrey:
In the oral tradition people learn about the Enneagram by observing and listening to a panel of exemplars. It's a great way for team members to learn about each other instead of listening to a lecture.
With an ongoing team, there's also the opportunity to others sort out their primary style by offering observations that confirm or challenge each other's choices.
So, for example, I could bait a Seven a little by commenting: "Sevens are said to have a rich fantasy life--tell us about yours" (this was especially effective in one session where spouses participated).
On the more serious side, when I ask a One, "tell us about your inner critic," it's invariably touching for team-mates to hear the answer. Typically they've only seen the external manifestation of pushing for perfection and/or lashing out at someone who falls short of the perfection.
So the panel discussion is an opportunity for self-disclosure and for feedback from others. With the Enneagram this is always simultaneously relationship-building, fun, and only a little bit threatening. I remind my clients that change occurs most rapidly in relationship with others. It shows true courage to open yourself up at least a little bit in spite of your anxiety, discomfort, or fear.
These sessions can be serious because people face up to impact on others, so when coaching a team I make sure we have fun while learning. With one team I awarded T-shirts to the best exemplars:
On the One's shirt two buzzards were sitting on a branch, one telling the other, "Patience, my ass, I'm gonna kill somebody!"
The Three's shirt depicted a showman with a hokey smile tipping his red, white, and blue top hat and saying, "Trust me!"
The slogan on the Eight's T-shirt: "I love animals...they're delicious!"
For this group I found a variety of Slammers. These "beanie"-type toys say something when thrown on the table or floor. When I introduced the panel discussion after lunch I sat nine Slammers in positions around the table and asked people to group themselves behind "their" Slammer. They had great fun with these, sometimes slamming them on the table to make a point during the discussion. Some examples:
The Six Slammer was a puppy dog that shouted "Oh, no!"
The Slammer for the Two had a big puckered up mouth and when the Two threw it down (or at someone) it made the sound of a big smacking kiss.
When the Nines threw their Slammer down it was totally silent!
I once worked with a colleague who described his ideal workshop as one with a "seamless weave." That idea is very appealing to me. It seems important to hold an atmosphere of integration when working with teams: connecting the parts to the whole, connecting theory with experience, connecting their understandings from one segment to those of another so that learning and gaining self-knowledge are constantly reinforced.
Each team session will have its own underlying theme grounded in the current experience of participants. The theme of this particular session was "transitions." We had started by looking at their own experience with change and had woven observations of their own strengths and needs into their growing understanding of their Enneagram styles. At each point along the way we talked about the potential impact of their styles on upcoming changes in their organization.
The final segment brought all of this together in a more conscious way by looking at the points of "disintegration" for each of the Enneagram styles -- the theoretical predictions of how each might behave under stress. The arrows in the model below (borrowed from a site called Awakenings) indicate the point whose weakest aspects are likely to show up in us under difficult circumstances:
I encouraged them to look in both directions, because in my experience we sometimes show the best and worst of both our connecting points. As a Nine, for example, I'm somewhat anxious under stress (my Six connection and point of "disintegration"); but I'm also a bit driven to seek recognition for accomplishments when feeling insecure (my Three connection).
The review of these points led to even more self-disclosure and openness to feedback because of the trust and understanding that had been building during the day.
The Two, for example, acknowledged and had confirmed that he became bossy and controlling under stress (the down side of the Eight) -- in fact, he and his two subordinates created an impromptu analogy of "the Mentor vs. the Beast".
The Sixes shared the observation that their fears for their job security in the face of potential corporate cut-backs led them all to focus overmuch on "looking good" (the down side of the Three).
I'm happy to report that all team members kept their jobs after the restructuring. Dick left for another location only weeks after the session, but their transition went smoothly because of their mutual understanding and emotional preparation for the ensuing changes. I haven't heard much about their new boss, but you can be sure he's being educated about the Enneagram!
