The Enneagram in Business + Work

The Enneagram of Personality Typology is a profound tool for business and work-based relationships. It helps people gain a sense of clarity about themselves, their strengths and potential weaknesses, giving them a non-threatening "common language" to describe issues and problems, discuss reactions and investigate solutions.

​A growing number of organisations and businesses are discovering the Enneagram approach to understanding human beings  — their behaviours, motivations, values, thinking styles, ways of problem solving — and it is giving them a competitive edge in forming effective individuals and teams by improving their performance and competency in workplace relationships. This system identifies the dynamics of personality with startling clarity, making applications precise and useful. It is a tool for anyone who either seeks professional improvement or works with the variety of human relationships (that we encounter in our daily lives). 

Management and Creating Productive Working Relationships

The Enneagram is being increasingly used in human resources and in the management of employment practices. Different people need to be managed differently. And yet, without an adequate idea of what those differences actually are, it is difficult to manage people as individuals. Once differences in types are taken into account, solutions grow out of insights about the nature of each type and its motivations. The Enneagram also helps quickly identify underlying issues so that the focus shifts away from "problem bosses" or "problem workers" to the "problem behaviour" itself. People in the workplace can be freed of unnecessary and negative labelling. It identifies the variety of different working styles and creates empathy and appreciation for the diversity of workplace practices present in people. Organisations that have used the Enneagram report on its ability to foster cooperation and partnerships. 

Communication

The Enneagram helps organisations understand what their employees really need. Underlying motivations and values become clearer to everyone. Employees can also learn to communicate in ways that make it easier to break through barriers and defences of all kinds. They can also bring more focus to their colleagues' capacities and natural gifts. This can strengthen harmony and trust, as well as minimise misunderstanding and conflicts in the workplace. 

Strategic and Future Focused

It suggests specific action plans and is empowering to individuals. The Enneagram helps everyone have a clearer idea of what they need to do to improve their performance and increase job satisfaction and "bottom line" productivity. Thanks tot he specificity of the Levels of Development, people can have a much clearer idea of what issues they need to change or improve. People can also be motivated by having a positive, healthy vision of their type and the high functioning person they can become. 

Professionalism and Integrity

The Enneagram System is structured in a way that makes it respectful of the uniqueness of individuals. It calls upon people to be courageous in professional and personal development and provides an action plan for becoming more effective at achieving personal and career goals. The Enneagram is challenging and provocative in the way that it calls for a commitment to personal excellence in all spheres of life. The skills that participants learn in understanding both themselves and others better enables greater personal resilience and flexibility. 

Results Focused

Unlike most typologies, the Enneagram predicts growth and deterioration, and specifies different pathways for each type. Thus it is able to build workplace capacity and greater responsiveness in organisations in the obstacles it encounters. The Enneagram is open-ended and does not put people into a box. It is a "fulfilment model" that shows them the way out of the limitations of their personalities and promotes positive change at both a personal and organisational level. Management and skill development is stressed but not at the sacrifices of people seeing the larger perspective. The Enneagram can give people a greater sense of clarity of their own leadership style and management preferences.

The Enneagram is a contemporary tool for business and organisations that want to foster and generate the competency and capacity of its employees, managers and leaders. It will bring workplace relationships to a new level of proficiency and professionalism.

Written by Dominic Braybon