Enneagram

The Enneagram is a profound, elegant, and pragmatic approach  to understanding people and their relationships. It describes nine basic world views, nine different ways of doing business in the world. Each of the nine styles has its own natural gifts, limitations and blind spots; each has its own distinctive ways of thinking, acting and being. The Enneagram points to the unconscious assumptions that drive the way you see yourself, do your work, relate to your team and colleagues, and make decisions. Instead of operating on automatic, from ‘comforting convictions,’ you can, with clear intent, invoke your natural talents and hard-earned skills.

The Enneagram teaches us in practical ways to see the world as others see it. You can then appreciate what others value and what they do not, and why they think, feel and act the way they do. When you know the Enneagram style of the people in your life, you can respond to their intent, instead of getting caught in their sometimes difficult or confounding behavior. You can nurture their fundamental strengths, and know in what situations they are likely to be rigid or unskillful.

When you know your own Enneagram style you can make conscious choices instead of acting on automatic. You can draw from each of the nine styles as appropriate. Most importantly, you can now act with passion, compassion and clear intent.

Though none of the types is bad in itself, being unconsciously wedded to an Enneagram style limits flexibility, imagination and choices. Caught up in habitual ways of perceiving, we miss important pieces of the whole. Knowing your vantage point and the positions of those you work with builds more than perspective: It clears the mind so that discernment is possible. It loosens the heart to the experience of others. It focuses the will, so that you can get out of your own way and act with concentrated intention, power and effectiveness.