What’s With the Enneagram?
The Enneagram - sometimes referred to as the Enneagram of personality - is far more than a tool for understanding personality. In some ways it gives us the tools to see behind the personality - the architecture of your character. While many find the Enneagram to be incredibly accurate from a typing or diagnostic perspective - the real value of enneagram thinking is in the field of thinking it offers to those who are interested in real transformative growth - in discovering a deeper sense of who you are and what you are capable of. It can be transformative not only for yourself but for your many relationships - at home, at work and in whatever purposeful endeavour you find yourself drawn to.
There are hundreds of psychological tests used by organizations to understand how you deal with people, how you cope with stress, your approach and how to build the most effective teams etc. You may have done some of these assessments before. Usually people interested in self knowing are on a journey of learning and discovery. Many of these tests are very helpful and provide insight and opportunities for reflection on how we think, feel, believe, or perceive ourselves in our world, relationships and in our context. Most offer a narrow snapshot of your way of being with respect to a particular element - and many of them used, at some level, the enneagram as a foundation for getting there. The Enneagram can be used this way - and many offer simplistic typing profiles to tell you what ‘type you are’. The real power of this tool is to treat your type as the beginning of a journey into a profoundly rich exploration of who you are and how your purpose is shaped.
“Introspection is the first step toward toward transformation, and I understand that, after knowing himself, nobody can continue being the same.” Thomas Mann
Types of Change
There are different kinds of change. A simple way of looking at it would be to see that there are incremental changes, transitional changes, or transformative change. Of course as categories these are all up for dispute and are disputed but today were going for the short form discussion. Incremental change is just that. It’s the progression of slow improvement. This is where organizations talk about continuous improvement. It’s about understanding where you are - usually with respect to how you perform a certain skill, habit or function. Making improvements or subtle changes that result in slightly better outcomes. This is the world of practice. This is the world of analysis and reflecting on particular behaviours or movements. This is how you go from the couch to running a 5K. You start small, you push the limit a little every day, and eventually you begin moving the needle towards the end you want to see.
Another kind of change is transitional this is where we make transitions and so this can be a change in circumstance or a change in context-where we make change to the structures around us and this can have an impact on our inner world and this can be shaping the long-term but doesn’t sort of change are internal how are wired kind of stuff so. For example if I have a job as a waiter and I get really good at it I make transition into a job as a host. As a host I maybe feel I have more power or status and so I begin to show up differently at the restaurant maybe with more arrogance or maybe with more humility but it hasn’t really changed me it’s just changed how others see me and this can have some temporary changes in who I am and how I show up. If I focus on using this position and the rewards that come with it in a disciplined way, I can begin to make incremental changes - say in my bank account. Working together, these two types of change can in the long run make a huge difference in where my life goes.
When people are interested in change or improvement, they often start by looking for a plan they can implement and see the changes they want. Starting here is great, but most of us find that a generic plan won’t get us what we really want. We do a blend of reflecting on what we like and dislike about ourselves, contrast it against an image we have of some more ideal or future state - way to reflect and understand their personality or how they cope with stress or adversity and how they relate in certain situations. Organizations do all kinds of testing on their people to understand how to best facilitate their performance and build effective teams. Beyond organizations, many people reach for a broader understanding of themselves for a few key reasons.
The last kind of change is transformational. When I speak of transformation change, I am almost always referring to a shift in our inner world. The way we see the world, ourselves, and the meaning we make - and how we relate to, our lives. For me, the idea of transformation gets at the idea of consciousness in addition to the realities of body, mind and heart. Now, like most other words that people use, the word transformation is maybe over used - and can be used to refer to some dramatic outward change - like weight loss, or a makeover or something like this. While this may be a dramatic change, what was required for that change would have been attention to diet and habits over time. While it is significant change, change of habits and time did the work. We talk about transformational change that requires not only time, and habit but as also something that requires a kind of co-creating or cooperating with the broader context or the broader horizon of what’s going on in your life.
Incremental change is about practice, habits, and activities. Transition is more a process of moving gradually from one stable way of being to another stable way of being. Education can be like this. Transformation is about moving to be a different kind of person - with a different awareness, different priorities and values, - a different way of being in the world.
As a writer, coach and consultant, I’m interested in the how, why and what of all types of change. But what most interests me is this last kind of transformational change. For me this is where we find our reason for being, our continual expanding and deepening - some might say awakening or unfolding into who we really are meant to be in the world.
Where we live in a particular landscape or within a certain horizon we find ourselves contained by the limits, values, or relationships that make up our lives. Many of us live in these containers or landscapes for years, quite content to be there. Then one day we grow tired of the limits - the borders we’ve been living within. Sometimes this happens gradually sometimes suddenly. Sometimes it happens through a critical illness, a divorce, some kind of real loss or even taking on a new role in life - maybe as a parent.
One reason for seeking of a deeper self understanding is we have a sneaking suspicion that we’ve been here before or repeated this pattern in relationships before- we wonder is there another way or a different way to do this? We sense that there is more to life and to us. When you hear yourself talk and you either don’t recognize yourself or you keep hearing the same old stuff…It’s time to shake things up.
Another reason you might seek this deeper understanding of yourself is because you want to grow or change. You want more depth in your relationships and connections with others. Or you want to create more of an impact around you through your career or in your community. Most of us have a kind of abstract sense of the change and growth we are seeking. What we really hope for is that those around us would change but really, the change we seek is only possible within ourselves.
What I’ve learned is that no matter the change you seek, how you listen and how you pay attention are at the core of the process you are looking for.
“The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. No one is master of himself if he have it not. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.” William James
Building Attentional Muscle
My type - my way of being in the world has lead me to develop a good deal of attentional muscle. I have been described as “cerebral” or “thoughtful”. I spend a great deal of time thinking or lost in thought. One of the most profound - unconscious - mistakes we make - I make - is giving into the false belief that I know myself - even with all my thinking.
Knowing ourselves is a lifelong journey and the result of constant practice. It requires ongoing attention and just when we think we have it, there is more to uncover and learn. This is one of the gifts of life.
Without developing our capacity to bring our attention to our thoughts, behaviours, reactions, feelings, - our body- we live largely out of habit. This habitual way of living is sometimes called a kind of waking sleep. You can still be successful in the state of waking sleep but you will miss out on a truly fulfilled life. A conscious and intentional life.
One thing that contributes to the intentional practice of you is building attentional muscle. This happens through a consistent effort to notice where your attention goes; make some sense of this and then pull yourself back to a particular focus.
The development of your “inner witness” or learning to pull yourself into a process of “self-remembering” is critical. This is how we build our capacity to more fully develop our selves.
It is the misalignment of our asleep / habituated way of being and the craving for authenticity, vitality, and presence that causes much of our dissatisfaction / unhappiness and suffering. What I mean by this is that, for most of us, our attentional habits - at least where they come to our selves - have by and large been formed without our conscious involvement. They have been adaptive or reactive - and so we have little natural skill at reorienting ourselves and illuminating our shadow or blindspots. We can also feel like we are less than empowered to deal with the dissatisfaction that comes from living out of this place.
Beginning to build your attentional muscle isn’t rocket science, but it can help to have a process to hold to. David Daniels - suggested a simplified “Universal Growth Process” which has some alignment with others like Otto Scharmers work on his Theory U. These and many others try and capture this idea that finding effective or lasting change requires - in some form or another - a process for continually developing self-mastery.
For ease - I’ll quickly remind you of these which Daniels describes as,
Awareness- practices that increase our capacity to see beyond ourselves. Self observation and becoming present.
Acceptance - moving into an open place. Understanding that our reactivity - tension, anger, defensiveness, reactive action, complaint and criticism are most often adaptive strategies structured into our ways of relating - not who we are or who we are invited to become.
Appreciation - having the mental and emotional capacity to realize the gifts / strengths that are revealing themselves in the moment. Appreciatively presencing
Action - Noticing | Creating Space | Containing not suppressing; Inquiry to discover, discern and work with whatever reactivity arises; Developing an inner coach.
Adherence -Committing to regular habits and building supporting systems.
The key in all of these parts of the growth process is to hold your attention in ways that make the work possible and even effective.
What is the Enneagram
So what is the Enneagram? The Enneagram is a symbol and a system that encapsulates a way of thinking and working and relating to keep us on a path of transformational change. It is a psychological and spiritual system that goes beyond personality into the nine descriptions of human architectures of the human ego. The Enneagram roots are some thousands of years old and its foundations are rooted in some ancient traditions.
The word Enneagram comes from the Greek words “ennea” which means nine and “gram” which mens something drawn. This refers to the 9 basic personality structures and the paths of development on the Enneagram symbol. Don’t let the 9 types fool you into thinking it is simplistic. Human beings are anything but. Individuals of the same type can behave quite differently depending on their level of development, their sub types, their core types and level of self mastery. However, the Enneagram system is a wonderful foundational system to contribute toward transformational change and growth.
Working with the enneagram can mean making incremental changes or it can result in making transitional changes. But…. with the right level of attention, it can also provide the framework for doing the work it takes to discover real transformation, deep awareness, and deeply compassionate way of being in the world.
The ways of thinking about human psychology, human relating, conflict, anxiety, the Enneagram has its roots in some ancient traditions. Many of our world’s religions philosophers have always had groups of people-usually on the margins-think about, worked through, teach and explore the depth human psychology and potential
Personality and How to Think of Type for the purposes of this course we are not going to go too deep into the science or the different ways of thinking about personality. For now we are going to talk about personality as a structure of identity, and an energetic system. A core idea of the Enneagram system is that personality is a kind of blueprint or foundation for how an individual expresses him or herself. The blueprint is just one way of understanding the different components of how we think feel and act and how these different parts of our way of being connect to one another. The blueprints include a number of elements such as one’s preferences, behaviours, desires, focus of attention and fears, many of which we are not consciously aware of on a day-to-day basis. On a given day we might be aware of some or parts of these elements but most of us experience this as a kind of passing awareness where there is little that we attend to.
I also refer to personality as a kind of energetic system or a way of saying that like any system the more the elements or the dynamics within the system are reinforced or allowed to go uninterrupted the system continues to build on itself. So in the sense of personality - in terms of how an individual sees things or how they maybe prefer to relate to others - the longer these things go uninterrupted the more rigid, inflexible or less adaptive they become.
Another key point about personality which we’ll talk about it at a number of different points in this short course are how these structured ways of being or habitual ways of being may look different when we function at a higher or lower level of conscious awareness. We all shift “up” or “down” throughout our day depending on many factors such as levels of energy, focus or just how we are feeling overall.
Tests.
Typing, or determining one’s category is a bit of art and science. It is important to remember that tests are fallible and human beings don’t fit neatly in boxes or categories. We are unique and individual. While it is true we are individuals, many people find the enneagram “types” incredibly helpful in providing insight and opportunity for reflection and growth.
Most people I do this with report the results are super helpful but the debrief is where the value is. I/we love having these conversations so any time and in any form I am happy to connect if you want to understand or talk it through more. Plus it helps us out as we are both trying to get great at doing this with people :)
This is one of the better ones and the one we use with our coaching and in communities/organizations. I always recommend reading the descriptions for your top few highest scores. Most feel they get pegged with one description. Just remember that type is nuanced by wings and instincts so its like choosing best fit and then discovering how it shows up for you in particular.
Conclusion
Take some time to think through what kind of growth you’re interested in. Has the landscape you’re in - the container that you live with - inviting you to move beyond its current limits? Do the descriptions above seem to get at how you maybe experience the world? I hope you stick with this as we cover more over the next few days.
