Enneagram for TEAMS
“At the heart of it, a successful team is about healthy relationships.” – Donald Miller
Enneagram for TEAMS
“At the heart of it, a successful team is about healthy relationships.” – Donald Miller
The people we hire and work with are human beings with dreams, insecurities, passions, and scars. The better we understand this the more we’ll impact the lives of our employees and grow our businesses.
So how can we understand and build better relationships with the people around us?
A power tool for understanding those around us is the ENNEAGRAM – a personality framework of 9 CORE TYPES. As children, we gravitate towards one of these 9 types as a means of coping with and showing up in the world (and our jobs) as adults.
Other personality typing systems focus on traits and behaviours, whereas the Enneagram goes beyond that and focuses on the motivations for those very traits and behaviours, which is caused by a core fear.
Below is a short summary of each type’s core motivation and fear. Reading through the nine types, it is clear that not only the potential for great group synergy, but also the potential for severe conflict, exist among team members.
THE 9 CORE MOTIVATIONS OF EACH TYPE
To Be Good/Right
To Be Good/Right
Perfectionists aim to be principled, good, controlled, and intentional. Not having high standards or being unexceptional is unacceptable to these individuals. They can be expected to overextend themselves to achieve, and to steer away from what is wrong towards what is virtuous.
To Be Appreciated/Wanted
To Be Appreciated/Wanted
Helpers feel that they need to be strong and generous towards others. They prove themselves worthy by taking the responsibility to help and support others to the point of sacrificing their own needs.
To Be
Appreciated/
Wanted
To Be
Appreciated/
Wanted
Helpers feel that they need to be strong and generous towards others. They prove themselves worthy by taking the responsibility to help and support others to the point of sacrificing their own needs.
To Be Valued/Successful
To Be Valued/Successful
Achievers or Performers strive to achieve success and recognition by being ambitious, competitive, persuasive, and adaptable. They feel that they will earn the admiration, trust, and love of others through their reputation, image and self-image, and impressive achievements.
To Be Authentic/Significant
To Be Authentic/Significant
Romantics or Individualists avoid being boring, normal, superficial, uninteresting, average, or mediocre. They seek depth, meaning, intimacy, and self-expression and earn love by being emotionally intense, creative, expressive, artistic, or dramatic. They may also come across as temperamental or spiritually inclined.
To Be Competent/Capable
To Be Competent/Capable
Observers or Investigators aim at being in control by understanding their world. They are ruled by the head as opposed to the heart, seek learning and insight, and avoid feeling ignorant, inadequate, helpless, and clueless. They earn the respect and acceptance of others by being competent and effective.
To Be Secure/Safe
To Be Secure/Safe
Loyalists or Guardians deeply engage with others and their environments to ensure that all is well. They have a strong sense of responsibility and respond to their inner distrust and doubt by being vigilant, supportive of others, and controlling. They are loyal and strive for security and connection with others.
To Be Satisfied/Content
To Be Satisfied/Content
Enthusiasts seek sensation, fun, stimulation, variety, and fulfilment to avoid disappointment, pain, sadness, and/or helplessness. Their spontaneous and versatile behaviour is aimed at pursuing desires that they fear will not be fulfilled by others.
To Be
Self-Governed/
Independent
To Be Self-Governed/Independent
Challengers come across as assertive, wilful, self-directed, and confident. Their core fear is to be controlled, violated, betrayed, and/or limited by circumstances. They avoid this by taking control in a powerful and self-sufficient way to ensure they get what they want.
To Be At Peace/Harmonious
To Be At Peace/Harmonious
Peacemakers are fearful of conflict, disharmony, and being disconnected from others. They therefore refrain from questioning or challenging themselves or other people and instead accommodate others to maintain peace, harmony, and stability.
