What is The Enneagram? 

The word Enneagram is pronounced any–a–gram. It’s Greek in origin, meaning nine point diagram. The Enneagram has three components: 1. Enneagram Model of Nine Personality Types or Styles. That is nine different lens on the world, nine distinct ways of being, nine ways of thinking and feeling. The model applies in all cultures for males and females alike. 2. Enneagram Test: (also called a quiz or survey). There is no failing grade and no right or wrong answers. You simply select statements that best describe you and in that way you select your profile.  It only takes a few minutes to complete.  See how to get started 3. Enneagram teachings delivered through group education and one-to-one coaching. The focus is on learning to manage reaction, improve relationships, and identify and grow your gifts. Compared to other personality systems, the Enneagram seems to make an immediate emotional connection for people. Perhaps it is because it is based on archetypes to which we can all relate and it uses language that is easy to remember. The Enneagram is “one idea with many applications”. Learning to apply the Enneagram can be a life long journey. The Enneagram System has grown in popularity in recent years. It is widely used today as a coaching tool and is increasingly being used by leading organizations for leadership development. Today the strategic goal is to make work a place where a person can grow their gifts and learn to manage their blind spots and weaknesses.

The Enneagram Concept

The Enneagram identifies nine personality types. Each one possesses its own set of characteristics and its own way of looking at the world. It’s as if each personality type has its own pair of lenses with its own special color. Under these circumstances, and without noticing that we wear those filters, most people go through life fighting with one another to try to establish “who’s right.”  This is similar to the situation of a fish in water. If the fish could answer the question, “What’s life like in the water?” it would respond, “What water?” That’s how we perceive the world when we are on autopilot or in reaction, completely taken over by our type, without even knowing that it exists. Why is it so important to discover our type in autopilot? 1.  It is key for living life from a place of true freedom. 2. It helps us to uncover the real reasons behind our lack of satisfaction and fulfilment. 3. It helps us to achieve lasting change by setting realistic expectations of the world, ourselves and the people in our lives by defining challenges in solvable ways for both psychological and spiritual growth for attaining our potential. 4.  It helps us to conserve our energy by avoiding pointless struggle to be right. 5. It helps us to accept and ‘respect’ other people’s view of the world. 6. It helps us to identify and unleash our true gifts and make our best contribution to the world.

Why the Enneagram?

The growth in popularity of the Enneagram parallels the accelerating pace of change. Change triggers fight/flight defences causing stress and shutting down creative capacities.  We all need to upgrade our mental and emotional software to manage our reactivity and be in our best state more of the time.  Arguably the biggest factor in quality of life is our relationships. The key to relationships is understanding personalities. Yet our education system doesn’t include this topic. As a result most people associate the word ‘personality’ with simplistic notions of introvert or extrovert and worse yet with ‘disorders’ requiring treatment. Our inability to understand personality dynamics within ourselves and others carries huge personal costs in terms of stress, unhappiness, and relationship breakdown. Similarly in organizations the costs are departmental conflict, lost customers and bad decisions are high and turnover all contributing to lost productivity. Leaders are turning to the Enneagram as a practical way to improve their understanding of personality dynamics and avoid these costly problems.

Using the Enneagram

Perhaps you heard about the Enneagram from a friend. You go on line and complete one of the Enneagram questionnaires and you get a printout that tells you your personality type. That can be fun and interesting. Nothing wrong with that. However, you might be left with a question. “So what?”  Knowing your personality type is not going to give you much value by itself. The benefits come from discovering what it means.  There is a rich and powerful body of Enneagram teachings and tools for change that is growing every day. The coaching process tailors those teachings to fit your needs. The coach is a learning guide. Your motivation for change is the cost of your current way of being. Suffering, unhappiness, stress, lost relationships and financial losses all come back to your personality patterns. No one can rescue you. We each have to save ourselves. The hard way is to go it alone. A coaching partnership makes it easier and more reliable. Leaders of major organizations invest significant time to learn to use the Enneagram System to understand themselves better and to understand others. Relationships are the priority for organizational effectiveness. They use the Enneagram as a lens for understanding the needs of people in relation to policies, strategies, structures and other key aspect of leadership and management. They see more clearly and therefore make better decisions. Unlimited growth: Many people feel relieved with they discover their personality type. It’s like coming home to who they really are. However a few people feel that the Enneagram labels them and boxes them in. Really the opposite is true. If you look at a map you can locate your current position in relation to where you want to go. If you don’t know where you are, you are lost. The Enneagram doesn’t limit you. On the contrary, it enables you to remove the limitations of perceptions that now limit you. The Enneagram liberates you from the box you are in and opens unlimited possibilities to grow. Validation: Some people question the apparent lack of validation studies for the Enneagram.  The proof is in the pudding. Clients typically say that the only meaningful validation is their experience. Does it ring true? For most people it’s a discovery process. Most people have to keep coming back to it and asking – where is my home base?