Some time ago, a great friend and mentor of mine asked me to take the Enneagram assessment to see what my number was. This one request set me on a course that has surprised even me!
Working as a scrum master, agile coach and on agile teams for many years, one of the greatest challenges I see within many teams is team dynamics. Whether it's internal team struggle or external forces, this one thing can be the difference between a team succeeding or failing. I'm a firm believer that Happy People make Happy Products so I have done a lot of research focusing on team health, improving team dynamics, team building, etc... so when I spent some time with the Enneagram and dug into the history, exploring details and discovering the benefits we can derive from it, I fell in love with the possibilities.
About 6 months after I first took the test and really began my Enneagram journey, I had a team mate who was really struggling with other team members. We had talked several times about their challenges. He knew his challenges and he wanted to work on it, make it better, etc. and so did the team. But repeatedly we would come back to what seemed to be personality differences that honestly were just natural ways of being, or of preferred ways of doing work. Part of it was he didn’t like the work culture. - that in itself was not something the Enneagram can help with Haha! - But the way he reacted to other people and how he chose to conduct himself was something the Enneagram is designed to help with!
When I saw the opportunity to test out my theory here with applying what i had learned from what number I believed him to be, I took it. Within 2 months, this team mate was able to maje HUGE strides in improving his performance, his relationships and overall, was able to make some decisions that were what was best for him overall. THIS IS what Enneagram is for: helping, improving, making decisions to pull the best out of yourself and surprising triggers - or fining outlets for them that are not detrimental to yourself or others.
This was by far one of my greatest moments as a Team coach. And one of my greatest moments at that place of employment. Because I knew if I could help someone like that in this kind of environment, imagine what I could do in a healthy environment...
The Enneagram has helped me overall with my work life, with my family life, with being able to know when I need to find time with my friends, my kids, my husband, with understanding if I’m really experiencing parental guilt or am I really just working too much. I’m checking in with my husband more, my confidants to ask for sanity checks when I can’t see above water. It has helped me to gain perspective I haven’t had... not that I’m "there yet" but I’m so far from where I was and that itself is good.
If you really value being able to improve... this is your place to start... KNOWING YOURSELF. You can’t help others if you’re not able to help yourself. Same applies with knowing oneself.
Comment with what you want to know more about. I’m going to blog about my speaking experience at my first conference, because it was awesome. But: tell me what you want to know about.
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