The Enneagram In Business

WHY TRAINING

• We all have strengths, skills and attributes to bring to learning situations.
• We all have resistances, blind spots, and limitations resulting from our habits of mind and from our life experience which need to be overcome.
• Effective organizations depend upon: --healthy relationships characterized by trust, respect, and open communications.* --shared or mutual goals and a common vision.* --good management practices including effective leadership, decision making, and problem solving skills.* --efficient systems and procedures. --sufficient resources and technical skills. --a creative, "growth" orientation with openness to change. * The Enneagram is of exceptional benefit in the first three of these.

  WHAT IS PERSONALITY

• All the characteristic and habitual behaviors of a person.
• In Enneagram terms, the nine particular patterns into which attention is organized and the corresponding mental and emotional preoccupations.

  WHAT IS THE ENNEAGRAM

  The Enneagram is a powerful and dynamic personality system that describes nine distinct and fundamentally different patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting. Each of the nine patterns is based on an explicit perceptual filter. This filter determines what you pay attention to and how you direct your energy. Underneath each of the nine patterns is a basic proposition, or belief, about what you need in life for survival and satisfaction. Each one of us developed one of the nine patterns to protect a specific aspect of our self that felt threatened as our personality was developing. As you discover your Enneagram personality type, you will discover more about your original whole self. You will also understand more about the unconscious motivation from which you operate. Discovering your Enneagram personality type can change your life, not only in the way you relate to yourself and others, but also in the way you deal with all of the circumstances and issues facing you.

  WHY THE ENNEAGRAM: VALUE

• Represents a profound and powerful way to understand personality which shows --the basic proposition from which each type operates --the basic pattern of attention --the underlying motivations
• Provides practical applications for personal, relationship, and leadership development
• Lends itself at psychological level to scientific psychology--is based on observable data
• Connects the psychological level and the spiritual level of life and shows how to integrate these
• Is a dynamic system--accounts for changes under various circumstances and why we are all uniquely different
• Recognizes three centers of intelligence of the mind, heart, and body
• Helps us understand the personality "box" we are in and how to get out of that "box"

  USES OF ENNEAGRAM IN BUSINESS

• Executive coaching and leadership development
• Team building, project management
• Interpersonal relationships and communications
• Skill development/learning styles differences
• Decision making and authority relationships
• Supervision: strengths/weaknesses
• Counseling: HR domain
• Conflict resolution: blame and anger
• Building corporate culture
• Dealing with change, risk, fear
• Whole life effects--better human beings

  THE ENNEAGRAM AND MODERN INTEGRATIVE MANAGEMENT: SHARED PRINCIPLES

• Both have the ultimate consistent purpose of transformation of the system and person to a best self, to joy in work, to becoming a whole human being.
• Both share the philosophy that improvement is a lifelong process. Conscious awareness never becomes habitual; it requires a lifelong commitment.
• Both believe in self responsibility and the potential in each person. Each person must learn who she/he is to herself/himself and recognize that there is variation in all things and people.
• Both recognize that we operate in a dynamic system of interrelationships of elements that include the larger world. Both recognize the "Law of Reciprocal Influence."
• Both require knowing and serving your relationships, including your customers or clients.
• Both realize that relationships are either win-win or lose-lose necessitating the philosophy of cooperation. Ultimately we all are one.
• Both deal with emotional habits which must be transformed, especially fear which needs to be "driven out."
• Both recognize that we all have barriers to change that must be confronted.
• Both recognize that the means (methods) determine the ends, that is, the "means are the ends in the making." Hence both emphasize quality and process over measurement.
• Both focus on conscious conduct springing from conscious awareness: modern integrative management from conscious awareness at the system's level, the Enneagram from conscious awareness at the personal level.

Value of Self-Observation in Discovering Your Type Ultimately, you discover your Enneagram personality type by observing how your mind works, what your heart feels, and what your body experiences. A crucial way to develop your ability to observe yourself is through centering yourself by concentrating on your breathing. Then you can notice where your attention goes and what thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations you experience. In this way, you can begin to discover your habitual patterns and preoccupations. Observing these will greatly help you discover your Enneagram personality type, because these patterns and preoccupations are what distinguish one personality from another. As you develop the skill of observing how you habitually use your attention, you can learn to direct your attention to where you really want it to go. Self-observation skills are fundamental to developing self-awareness and conscious conduct. Developing these skills gives us the ability to see ourselves and others more clearly and kindly.

--David Daniels, MD, Clinical Professor of Psychology, Stanford University