The Skinny: Enneagram

This past week at work has been a little hectic, but smack dab in the middle of the week we had the opportunity to work with Leslie Kontz, a consultant that specializes in team-buildling exercises for small to mid-size offices like ours. Leslie had us all take a test to find our Enneagram type. A little bit of background about the Enneagram personality test: it was developed in the 1950s by Oscar Ichazo, a student whose practices in meditation and philosophy brought him to develop the enneagon - a regular polygon with nine faces. The Enneagram itself deals with nine different personality types falling under three centers (also called "the triads").

Types 8, 9, and 1 fall under the "instinctive center" which uses the gut as the focal point for decision-making. Types 2, 3, and 4 fall under the "feeling center" which uses the heart as the focal point for decision-making. Types 5, 6, and 7 fall under the "thinking center" which uses the brain as the focal point for decision-making.

Kontz started our discusion by introducing the five levels of consciousness - at the upper-most level, we are most concerned with issues, which sit atop a belief system. Our belief system's foundation are our ideals. Beneath our belief system are our strategies and defenses against the item which lays at the very core of our consciousness - fear. When people are not self-aware and allow themselves to act in a categorically reactionary fashion, their level of functioning drops and they project onto others what they most fear might be true of themselves.

The nine personality types on the Enneagram are not static and allow for both growth and deteroration. In period of high functioning, individuals move toward integration and are able to let go of old patterns that work against their overall best interest and well-being. In times of stress or anxiety, individuals move towards disintegration and can act out based on old habits.

Out of our group, the majority of folks were either type 1 (the perfectionist) or type 2 (the giver). Kontz said that this is commonly observed in a field like healthcare. We also had a small percentage of people who were type 6 (the loyalist) in our group. After talking a bit about each personality type, our team was really able to delve into pressure (or conflict) points that may arise between type 1 and type 2 personalities. Understanding each type's underlying motivations and basic needs was surprisingly useful when we attempted to tackle some of the break-downs in communication and workflow that occur with our teammates.

If anyone is interested in taking the test you can find it here! I found it really helpful to think about the potential positives and negatives for each personality type. It was healthy (and cathartic) to accept the fact that we can each move towards integration or disintegration depending on how cognizant we're being of our behaviors. My goal for the next few weeks? Own the positives, iron out the negatives, and try to practice mindfulness on the day to day!