Liz West's Agility Narrative on the enneagram

Thanks Liz. In this podcast, you helped us embrace a world that is changing. You've introduced us to a tool, the Enneagram, a very ancient tool that helps us develop personal insight to our defenses and our essential selves. It is a slow burn which takes time, as people doing personal work create deeper connections and relationships with themselves as well as others.

You led us into a secret, which is yes, we can also learn about and empathize with others' natural patterns. While it is discouraged to type others, people learning the enneagram sometimes see things about another, great things not known before, and some of the things that have been bugging them for a while. And when they understand the natural defense mechanism behind those behaviours, they are more able to understand and empathize. 

Liz describes the journey of discovering that the Enneagram is a portal to learning more about oneself, to learn about one’s internal self. In this journey, there are all kinds of ways to approach that. It's a circle, with a nine point perspective on the world. And there are all kinds of lines that connect us all together. As we dive deeper into it, we can each reach our full potential, which is important for individual and organizational agility. 

Dive into the Enneagram - seek out the Enneagram Narrative - Learn more about Liz West at https://enneagramtraining.co.uk/who-we-are/. If you are looking for a book, search for Beatrice Chestnut. Check out her channel and the type panels on youtube.com.

Want to learn more about the co-hosts? Visit Martin's LinkedIn Profile and Janet's LinkedIn profile to know more about them, and what they do. 

00 - Welcome to The Agility Narratives Podcast
0:42 - Liz's personal journey - was introduced to the Enneagram during a personal tragedy and it provides an anchor for navigation
02:59 - Earlier leadership work

05:47 - What is the Enneagram?
08:15 - What is it about the Enneagram that links us into learning about our inner part of ourselves?
09:45 - What is it that aligns the Enneagram to be an agent of change?

13:10 - So in your application of the Enneagram, as you work with organizations and change, who is the protagonist?
16:23 - You've chosen the narrative tradition of the Enneagram. Why that choice?
19:10 - Liz's journey with personal growth with the Enneagram

22:11 - A description of a client situation with the earlier stages of a journey
24:26 - The challenge with adopting the Enneagram in organizations
26:27 - The inner work - the journey to become your true self - to live from your essential self - understanding the head, the heart, and the gut

37:45 - What does it take to move beyond where we are today?
38:42 - Excited to see how this knowledge can help them with relationships
39:37 - Some types find it difficult to take it on

41:34 - The Enneagram is a three-fold journey - the psychological, the somatic, and the spiritual. Liz outlines working with these three elements
44:00 - Building awareness and commitment to overcoming traits and behaviours that hurt others and themselves. They work on their relationships... and see its impacts
44:40 - What is lost if this challenge is not taken up? Emotional intelligence - why not invest in personal development?

47:03 - Liz's call to action - get involved with Enneagram, see how it benefits you.
50:25 - Developing relationships, and a community - of trust, understanding, sharing each other's joys and struggles
52:55 - About the learning journey of the enneagram and thank you

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to the Agility Narratives Podcast series. We hold this space so that as a community, we can listen to leading change makers, and enterprise agile leaders talk about their agility narrative. Each narrative we hypothesize gives us an insight into part of the whole. Liz works as an Enneagram trainer and a coach in the narrative tradition. She's been highly involved in leadership development much of her life, working with both youth and adult leadership. To learn more about Liz, Janet, or myself, please see the show notes. 

Hi, Liz. Welcome.

Liz: [00:00:41] Thanks, Martin.

Martin: [00:00:43] Let's start with your personal journey. What in your personal journey over the last 20 years made the Enneagram a great fit for you?

Liz: [00:00:52] Okay, so it was a very personal journey, because my husband had just died very tragically, and I was all over the place. And I was so grateful that I was introduced to the Enneagram, because it explained in our family why it was that my three children who were in their twenties reacted so differently to what had happened to them. And we found it very difficult to be together at that time. And I had learnt, with my younger daughter actually, about the Enneagram the year after he died, and we had some understanding, although you're not meant to type other people, but you know, when you live with them you kind of know what they're like. So I dived into the detail of the different types of my children and learnt so much, and gradually over time we reconciled. We came together, and so I could see the power of this tool just in helping me to understand my own responses and those of my children at a time of crisis in our family life. So that that was the beginning of my journey. I then discovered that the Enneagram had application into all sorts of different areas. So I went ahead and started running an Enneagram group in the town where we lived, and gathered people who were working in all sorts of different settings. So, they came for personal development, but saw how this could apply to their workplaces. So, the people were changing as a result of this knowledge. And so eventually I went to California to be trained by the narrative Enneagram, and have been working with it ever since ten years now.

Martin: [00:02:48] Thanks for sharing your personal journey, especially about the tragedy of losing David, and his role as a husband father to your family of young adults. It is illustrative of the power of the Enneagram that helped you make sense of the relational dynamic that was created in response to the tragedy. Can I ask you to go back to the stability of before David's passing? Can you talk to the leadership work that you did then?

Liz: [00:03:17] So, prior to my husband's death, David's death, I was leading whatever situation I was in. That was just what I did. I was being an entrepreneur, and I was leading in the area of development of leaders, and I did that with tremendous energy and focus. The sad thing was the vision was so compelling for me, that I rather forgot about the individuals who were journeying with me, and used to get frustrated by their lack of ability to take on new ideas and to change. So, if you think of a compassionate leader and think of me at that time, I was probably pretty much the opposite of that. I'm good at giving vision, but not good at working with the reality of who people are. So, learning the Enneagram after David's death gave me a new space. I'd stop doing what I was doing. I was not in a state to to work for a while. But, after a couple of years, I took on the directorship of a small charity, Crossroads Retreats, for people who are at crossroads moments in their lives.

Liz: [00:04:46] And working alongside my growing understanding of the Enneagram, although that wasn't included at that time in Crossroads Retreats, I could see so much more the patterns, why people would start patterns, of why change was so difficult for some people. And the compassion that gave me, the understanding that gave me, changed the way that I worked. I hope it changed me as a person; from being task/vision orientated, much more to being involved with the reality of of people and enjoying that. One of my words is curiosity. I think that if you're involved with helping people to change, whether it's couples counseling or individuals or leadership development or team development, curiosity about the other is such an important word. And I would go as far as to say, if you are a manager or a leader of change, and you are not curious about the people in your team and where they're at, not just in their life's journey, but in their inner journey, I think that you're not going to get the best out of the people you work with.

Janet: [00:05:48] Curiosity is a great word, and I'm curious about what it is about the Enneagram that brings awareness to people, and there are likely a few foundational elements that are needed to be known. And so I invite you to describe what is the Enneagram in the best way possible, so our listeners can understand.

Liz: [00:06:16] And you would think that that's an easy thing to explain there, Janet. But what is the Enneagram? So, it's a tool. It's a tool that describes nine places, where people can sit at one of those places, around a circle on a diagram. So what? Well, these descriptions have been shown to be incredibly accurate. They explain how a person can know themselves to be this kind of a person, and yet at times they are quite different. And what is happening psychologically, within themselves, that make this wonderful combinations that go together to make an individual. The problem and the issue for us is that we come into the world and life happens to us. It doesn't need to be traumatic childhood. But it happens to us, and we develop defenses through our childhood. Some debate about the process of that. But usually, by about seven or eight, you can see something of the future in a child. By 25-30, the adolescent brain has stopped growing. So, this chain, this personality, has been formed around defenses. And subconscious drivers. And if we're going to be successfully working with other people, if we're going to be relating well, understanding what drives our choices, our behaviors, subconsciously, is where the Enneagram comes in.

Janet: [00:08:15] What is it about the Enneagram that links us into learning about our inner part of ourselves?

Liz: [00:08:27] The Enneagram begins to show us our seven habits that we have, which we develop subconsciously, in response to life, which affects us. But it also gives us some idea of what our essential selves are like. So what was it that we brought into the world? Who are we? Who are we really? And the Enneagram helps to describe that around the nine types, and the transformation journey is learning to live from that essential self, rather than the defend itself, or the type, as it's described- The type patterns. It's a lifelong journey, it's not a short, quick fix thing. You can't pick up the Enneagram in a day and work with it successfully. You can begin in a day, but it's a much deeper tool than that. It takes a lot more understanding. You're trying to build awareness of this defended type, in order to be able to move beyond it, because the defended type has kept us safe as children, as young adults. But actually, it's limited and it affects our relationships negatively, or can do.

Janet: [00:09:47] What is it that aligns the Enneagram to be an agent of change? You've mentioned it's a tool. What other kinds of things would you bring into the change arena to describe the Enneagram?

Liz: [00:10:02] When we live consciously, that means when we are aware of the things that are driving our choices, our reactions, our understanding of ourselves and other people. When we become aware of these things, we initially start by noticing the limitations of the way our psychological makeup works. Also, we have a habit of thinking, which I would never know I had a habit of, but I also have a habit of emotional response as well. And these affect the way I am, without my realizing it. I have a way of living in the world where I have a focus of attention. I walk into a room and what I will see will be different from what you see, because of the focus of attention. The Enneagram also describes the way we like to live out in the world. So we have our type. There are also these things called subtypes, which is the way that we choose to live our type out, subconsciously. So all this knowledge, which builds our awareness, creates the opportunity for change in the individual. I don't have to go down that pattern anymore. I don't have to be fearful like I have been. I don't have to get angry by those things. I don't have to feel shame that there's something deficient and missing in me. I don't have to do that anymore.

Liz: [00:11:31] I now have a choice to react differently. And we call that actually responding to the situation consciously, rather than reacting subconsciously. Then you get a conscious individual within a team or an organization, and their awareness of other people's responses will increase. Then you get to the stage where you know how best to communicate with this person, and that's a different way of communicating than with that person. Or, you know, that with this one, conflict is they will avoid it at all costs. We need to have some conflict here if there's going to be change. How can I help these conflict-averse people to be prepared to go through the discomfort of change? The Enneagram gives you all those tools and understanding that makes a difference. So I spent time in working with teams, helping them to understand how each other best make decisions, how each are the best communicate. How/what their attitude to conflict is, where their place in the team is, where their team's strengths are. And even attitude to time. I have been working with an international group. And you haven't just got cultural issues around time in an international group, you've got personal issues around time. And when that is a key component to how the whole organization can move together, the knowledge of the individual’s attitude to time is very important.

Janet: [00:13:11] So in your application of the Enneagram, as you work with organizations and change, who is the protagonist, that main character or characteristic, who is the feature, and hopefully wins out in the end.

Liz: [00:13:30] So, my mind immediately goes to one of the difficult issues about the Enneagram in the workplace. If the people who are going to be involved with the Enneagram are going to be teams of people who are instructed by their manager/leader, whoever, that they are going to learn the Enneagram, then you get the response of the team. When they are told that they've got to do this thing, because it's challenging personally, more challenging than Myers-Briggs, more challenging than the other psychometric tests and team development tools. Because it opens up this subconscious realm. Who is going to benefit from the Enneagram? Well, I believe everybody does. But you have to overcome this initial issue of the people in your team. Why would they want to do the Enneagram? So, when I'm doing the first day of an Enneagram training with these teams, the first thing I do is to help the individuals to discover their type. A little bit of pre-work and then discover their type. The majority of people at that point are bowled over by how accurate the description is of who they are. I have tears. I have people just laughing. They just cannot believe that they are described. They are known. 

Liz: [00:15:03]  They are, then, the group that need the intellectual understanding behind that, as to why this phenomenon has happened. And that's the role of the trainer to help them to understand what is going on here. You have those, who just immediately connect with it, and you have those who are so grateful that they have been given a tool which will help in their marriages and their families, but also in their work life. I'm sure it's common knowledge that most people, when they leave a job, do so because their managers have not manage them successfully, that is the number one reason why people change jobs. The Enneagram is so helpful to that manager, because they're going to see why it is what it is about them that's difficult. And what it is in that work team that needs addressing. So although it's an initial difficulty, if when you have experience as a trainer, there are ways of bringing the whole team together. You've got the team leader, manager, director who's wanting to see change. So they are the people that need to be convinced that the Enneagram is a good tool for change. And then you have the individuals within the organization, that need to be brought on board.

Janet: [00:16:23] So, in how you use it in the application, you've described a little bit of pre-work, and then day one is understanding where you are in the circle, one of those nine points. You've chosen the Narrative Tradition as your approach. Why choose this tradition to work in the field?

Liz: [00:16:45] When I was deciding what training I would choose, I discovered this Narrative Tradition. So what that means is, that instead of me telling you what you're like, I'm trying to draw out what you're like, from you. So it's your story, it's your reactions. It's the way you see life that we're interested in. And the richness of that method of teaching, when you've got a team sitting around in a room who know each other, they work together, and encouraging gently through questioning, for the individuals in that team to talk about how they feel about conflict, what is a positive way to feed them back with criticism, how they like their place in the team when there is change around, what is their contribution to it; not their role, but actually, they themselves in that place. Because this is not about your job or your qualifications. This is about the only thing, that in a way, we ever really have to offer one another, which is ourselves, when it comes down to it. Yes, we have skills, we have talents, but actually it's the vehicle of me that those talents and skills live in, that creates my place in a team and my place in the change that is ahead and needed. So, the Narrative Tradition enables us to listen to each other, to understand each other. And that's one part as a trainer that I so enjoy, seeing the life in the team as they learn about each other, a lot of humor around usually. Difficult things can begin to be said, because it's not like you do this, but it's like, well, type eights are like that. So yeah, that makes it easier to talk about these difficult things. The Narrative Tradition for me brings the whole tool alive.

Martin: [00:19:02] I find the Narrative Tradition very appealing, because it enables personal discovery, and I really see the richness of that approach. Can you talk a little bit more about your journey with personal growth with the Enneagram?

Liz: [00:19:20] If I just use myself as an example. So, I'm a Type eight on the Enneagram. I have leadership gifting, entrepreneurial gifting. But the difficult thing about the type eight is that they are very black and white in their thinking. They're very focused on task. They are judgmental. They need to be in control. So, if I'm part of an organization where I feel controlled by people I don't respect, I can't stay. It's that strong a feeling. But as I work with my Enneagram type, I realize that is all a defense mechanism. Because my fear is of weakness and vulnerability. So I am covering that in myself all the time, and that's where the control comes in and the need to be powerful. And eights are known at their worst as the bullies, as the non-empathetic types that upset a team. What is the change in the team, as I change? Well, I probably would have the role of leadership somewhere in it, but instead of that black and white, judgmental bullying kind of tendency, I can grow in my empathetic place. The system allows for growth in five of the nine types.

Liz: [00:20:50] I can learn to listen to other people. I can learn to give space for what their input is, rather than leading it all myself and going my way. My Way or the highway is the name for the eight. So as a leader, I have become inclusive, interested, curious in other people's points of view, sympathetic to when there are difficulties. Yes, I will always hang on to the task of the change because that's my leadership role. But I will see that there's not just one way to get there. There are nine different ways of getting there. And it's my job to bring the whole team, with as many personalities as there are in the team, forward. How does that help a company, a workplace that is stuck where change needs to happen. Well, you're going to have emotionally intelligent leaders. And if you just Google emotional intelligence in the workplace, you will find all the research that's been going on in the last 20 years, but particularly the last five. On that being the one factor that improves importance, is an emotionally intelligent culture in a team or a workplace organization.

Martin: [00:22:11] I can see how awareness of your defense mechanisms can help identify a path for growth, and how members of a team going through a similar personal growth journey together could help develop a collective emotional intelligence or culture. Can you describe a client situation where you went through some of the earliest stages of such a journey?

Liz: [00:22:33] I was called in to a privately owned company, where there was a lot of conflict between the CEO. I was called in by the HR person who said that she was spending her whole time picking up the pieces, is the way she put it, after interaction with the CEO. The company had stalled, because people were having to manage emotionally the CEO, because of his strength. He chose to communicate and his lack of ability to see how he came over. I began to work 1 to 1 with the CEO, and this was happening at a time when he was wanting to hand over the company to somebody who was completely different. The company had become a difficult place to work in, because of the CEO, and then the process of change of handing over the company created enormous waves in the new leadership. Gradually, over a period of probably two years, as the Enneagram was introduced to the whole company, and as I was working with the CEO, it was possible to begin to talk about both these issues that were within this company. And it was a very hard time. But the change in leadership/ownership of the company has happened. It's a very different company now, because the CEO is of a different Enneagram type. Staff understand what the process of that has been, because they understand how the different types lead. And the original CEO is continuing on his personal journey, to understand why he created so much stress in the company and what it is about him as a person that has needed changing. And he's working to do that now.

Janet: [00:24:27] Your narrative that you're sharing with us - Who or what are the villains, in the situations, in the stories that organizations, and the individuals in those organizations are discovering, as they discover the Enneagram.

Liz: [00:24:46] I'm hoping that the villains are not the individuals who are working in the organization, because the Enneagram helps to expose where the difficulties are, and creates a possibility for change for the individuals. What is standing against the Enneagram, is that it's not an easy tool to pick up quickly. I teach four basic days as just an introduction. That's very expensive and time-consuming, in terms of time-out for the individual, for the teams to go through those days. I'm finding that most companies don't want to spend four days a year working with the Enneagram as one particular tool. So I've suggested that they they they do it over two years. It's a slow burn change. That's not to say that there aren't many individuals within that organization who then get so excited about the brand, but they go to the websites, they go to the books, they join in. And so their own growth journey is accelerated beyond the speed that the organization has time to give to it. And I think that's why some of the other tools for development have been so useful, because you can pick them up quite quickly. That to me is the biggest thing that standing against the Enneagram being used as a tool to support organizational change, is the amount of time it takes to learn about it.

Janet: [00:26:25] I'm curious about the individuals who grasp the Enneagram and move beyond the speed. What is it that they're learning? You've given us a sense of there's some inner work. We all come to the Enneagram or the cognitive and the other part of our bodies that you've mentioned is this instinctual side or reactions that come up without or even knowing. So, what is it about these individuals who are grasping something and work beyond the speed of the organization? What is that connection that they see between those three parts- the head, the heart, and the gut?

Liz: [00:27:16] Yes, the inner work, this journey to become your true self. One part of it is to understand about the different centers of intelligence, as it's called in the Enneagram. So, we have an understanding of what IQ is. It's the way we're educated. It's the way successful people work. If you're intelligent, you have more opportunities. Intelligence is a combination of the ability to reason and to think things clearly, to remember, to process, to create possibilities and options, and to process data with the head. Certainly this in the last 20 years it's been discovered that there are neurons in the heart and in the gut, and that they also are centers of intelligence. We gain intelligence from these neurons in our hearts and in our guts, and actually, the gut reactions, the bodily instinctual reactions are faster than our brains, as they feed into our brains. So as we are walking around, our bodies are our gift to us, of our speedy responses to all the stimuli that are coming to us. But not just the physical stimuli, but also our responses to them. This gut reaction is instinctual. Gut reaction is immediate, and it's helpful when it comes to helping us to see our subconscious drivers. It means that I am using a different sort of intelligence. I'm using the intelligence of the body, the tension in my body. It will tell me first that I'm reacting to something, that I'm in my place of fear. I'm in my place of anger. I'm in my place of shame.

Liz: [00:29:14] It will tell me that I'm not happy. Or it will tell me that I am happy. It's a very speedy response. And we have the heart center, where there are less neurons in the heart center, but some feeling that the heart center neurons have more control over what is then fed to the head, and therefore, a lot of control over who we appear to be. The heart center is the place of the emotions. But it's also the place of the soul, the place of our essence. When we live from our heart center, we are able to see a much bigger space opening up for ourselves. It isn't really known yet, but it's seen that somebody who can connect what is happening in their heart center, in their true place with what their body is telling them, and then their ability to think and rationalize it through that person, is going to be less defensive/defended, than someone who lives only with one of those intelligences as their main source. The nine types are divided into three groups. The five, six, and seven are the head types. They process information through their thinking. You need those people. But they won't, on the whole, have much understanding of how their thinking affects others. It will be rational. It will be important, but it won't be complete. Then the eight, nine to one are the body centers. These are the people who you ask them a question, how do you know that? And they say, Oh, I don't know.

Liz: [00:30:54] It's just I have a gut feeling about it, just instinctively. Now, these people are bringing a whole new, different way to a problem, from a different space, a gut knowing. And the two’s, three’s and four’s are the heart people, they are the empathetic ones. I've been interested working in change in teams where there are no heart people present, particularly the twos and the fours. I've noticed that if they're not represented within the team, the team withers, and that's a sort of extraordinary word. They will notice how the vibe is in the team. They'll notice who's struggling. They will notice who needs somebody to walk alongside them. They will be much more able to bring that emotional content to a team. So, if I'm working with a team and discover that there aren't heart types, or that the heart types that really the very junior people in the team that don't have influence, I will suggest a different way of recruiting for that team in order to have that person within one, because a healthy team is a head, heart, and gut team, where all three contributions are respected and enabled. That's that is only one aspect of the Enneagram that is increasingly key, because those centers of intelligence have commonality in their characteristics. People have a preference to one of them, one of the centers according to their type. And the growth journey helps them to integrate all three types into their understanding of themselves.

Janet: [00:32:35] So you’ve mentioned if in a group we don't have twos, threes, and fours, which are the heart type, one thing about the Enneagram, if we were to put out a symbol here, is that there are a lot of connecting lines. There are days that we come into the office and we're feeling great, and other days we're not so great. Let's look at the days when we come into the office, who might actually be able to develop or bring forward the empathetic side that are two, three, or four might bring. I'm not a number two, three or four. I'm either five, six, seven, eight, nine, or zero. Are there any in that group that could bring forward or lean into the empathy that might otherwise be lost?

Liz: [00:33:24] Yes. So this is the understanding around this, the Enneagram circle, the diagram is a circle, that we are affected in two different ways, the types that are on either side of us on the diagram. A Type one is a perfectionist, and they sit between the nine and the two. Now that the type one of themselves, they]re rules-oriented, they wake up every day to make the world a better place, they are extremely efficient, and their details pretty essential through the change process. They can be critical of others and not easy to be in a team with. The nine, the mediator, is the one who is the most able to see where everybody else is at, and the two is the most empathetic; wakes up every day to help other people. Nine, the one personality that is moderated by the nine and the two, the wings, so they can bring in the characteristics of the nine or the two into what they're doing. They can do that consciously. So, this is what I want to see done, and this is how we need to go about it. Oh, I wonder how the team, how others in the team are responding to this. Well, the nine would always know, and the two would say this is the best way to help people forward in this change process.

Liz: [00:34:48] So there's the moderation. When the ones are under stress, they go to the type four. We call these the arrows, they go to the type four, and their stress place means that they feel all sorts of emotions, because the type four is the most emotional type around the circle. They can be knocked off their pathway by inconvenient and strong emotions when they're under stress. This person, who is usually very caste-oriented, comes into the office one morning and they are in an emotional mess. Because of something that's happened, it's pushed them into that stress place. Maybe it's because there's a deadline that needs to happen, or maybe it's because their kids are sick at home. But they're under stress. When there's an understanding around the circle, around around the team, that this is what this person is like when they're under stress, then others will know how to respond to that better. Type one, the perfectionist, will be able to go to the upside of the four. We have a downside, which is our defend self, and we have an upside, which is our essential self. So, now the upside of the four, that are the most creative people, so here's the one, stuck in their rules and ways of reacting, given a bit of space and time when they're under stress, their creativity can help with the original issues.

Liz: [00:36:16] They will be able to see different ways of going about it, because of their stress, because they will take on the wonderful characteristics of the four, the emotionally intelligent, very creative four, and bring a whole different way of thinking about it, into the issues. And they're relaxed. These rather intense, task-oriented people, they go to the type sevens. Now, type sevens are just the most popular types around the circle. They are fun, they love adventure, they love possibility thinking. They're not good at following through. They prefer the beginning of a task, rather than the completion of the task, because they've already moved on to the next possibility, and they are waiting to be able to try something new. When the one is relaxed, they take on these characteristics of a much more humorous, light, fun person in the team, they can enjoy messing about with new ideas, rather than being stuck in their place. Those are the five types that I've outlined for the type one, very briefly. Each one of us has the five. When you get to know what they are and recognize those things in yourself, it's possible to choose the upside of the type, the essential type, and to bring that gifting into those characteristics, into the team.

Janet: [00:37:44] So, I'm wondering and I'm curious about, given the slow burn, what does it take for an individual, you know, to say it's worth it to move beyond where one is today.

Liz: [00:38:00] I've battled with this issue, because my fear is that people will put time into the Enneagram, and then you'll ask them, when you bump into them at another time, or you know, how you're getting on with the Enneagram. And they'll say, Oh yeah, now what type am I? And I think, well, that was a waste of a day, wasn't it? So as a trainer, as I go in to work with teams, I want to give them a win-win by the end of the day. I want them to see that there is something that is worth pursuing in the Enneagram. It's important that they know their type. I think in that first meeting, although it's sometimes complicated for people to understand it, to recognize, that it's a journey for some. But I also want them to immediately see the win in their work team. Oh, my goodness, if we have this understanding, it will make so much difference to the way we communicate with each other, for example, it's like wetting an appetite. Sometimes, for people, it's actually not so much initially learning about themselves, but, like, I can see these traits in my boss, my spouse, my whoever. Ah, that explains so much. That explains why we clash on this issue. That explains. So, they get excited because they can see what a difference this knowledge makes to relationships. That motivates them to know more. Or like myself, learning it at a time when a personal disaster had happened. I just needed help. I went to the books and I found the help there. There are as many motivations as there are people. 

Liz: [00:39:37] I can tell you two of the types that find it hard to take it onboard - the type three, who's the performer. They are in the heart triad, and the heart triad, through the two, three, and the four; their personality is based on shame. That sense of deficiency. I'm not enough. Am I lovable? The twos answer that question through serving you- will you love me if I help you, if I look after you. The fours are saying, I'm special. Will you love me because I'm special, I'm different? The threes are saying, look at what I've achieved, look at how I perform. They're gaining love and affirmation through their achievements and performance. They are extremely effective in the change process. They are wonderful. They lose touch with who they are in the task, and they find it difficult to give up time, unless they have to do something as intangible as the inner journey, when they are all into task and achievements and goals and tick-lists. They are a bit of an anomaly in the heart type. What they do with their heart type, is that they use it as an ability to understand the other. They do really well in the entertainment industry, in marketing, the type of jobs where you need to very quickly take onboard where the other is, and to change your message to fit the other. That's how they use their heart intelligence. The threes find it difficult, and the sevens, because the sevens love new ideas, they are attracted quickly to the Enneagram. Can they persevere to the level of knowledge where they can actually change? And often it doesn't happen for a seven as an individual, when they have choice, they go to the Enneagram when when life has thrown them up a challenge.

Martin: [00:41:34] I'm curious about the empathy that gets developed with the Enneagram. What is happening? Does the understanding of how we've developed natural defense mechanisms translate into empathy for others? So we're saying he's innate and he's being a bully. Now I understand it and feel empowered to respond. I'm not caught up in an emotional response to the bullying. I can choose how to respond.

Liz: [00:42:02] If I could say Martin, that the sort of bigger picture of the Enneagram, it's a three part story, of which psychology is one, and the Enneagram describes the psychological drivers of the individual type. It's also a somatic journey; how we use our bodies in the moment to give us the opportunity of being different. So there's the somatic piece, which takes understanding to know, how to, in that moment, to withdraw your energy into yourself, into your body, and to create the possibility of a different response. Then it's a spiritual journey for the individual. The spiritual journey, as defined by the Enneagram, is the journey towards us understanding and living from our essence, our essential self, our true self. These words that get used. So, as we embrace the Enneagram and where we are aware of this three-point journey, we're doing meditation, we are aware of how to center ourselves in our bodies. We can get into this place within the moment. We also have some idea of what our essence is like, this big space that we can live in, this freedom that we have from our repetitive psychological, subconscious patterns, that is a part of the journey. And then recognizing in the moment, when we are reacting out of our subconscious drivers, rather than responding out of our true self, our essence. So that is what is happening behind what you see with somebody who is working with the Enneagram. You will see somebody who is more aware, more committed to overcoming the difficulties that other people find in them, the things that hurt others, the things that actually hurts themselves, the traits that they dislike intensely in themselves. They will be working on them on a daily basis. It becomes a way of life. It has lots of wins in it, because those things that were difficult become possible. Those relationships which were stuck, move on. The contribution you make when you're in your essence feels like a flow of energy that you are actually doing what you were made for.

Martin: [00:44:41] I can see the impact of developing practices that enable you to live from the essential self, rather than from the defensive self would be transformative. What is at stake for people, teams, and potentially organizations, if this challenge is not taken up?

Liz: [00:44:58] The challenge is twofold, isn't it? One is, how important to you is it, that your organization is emotionally intelligent, if that's been proved to be the thing that enables change and growth - emotional intelligence. If emotionally intelligent managers are successful managers, if this is what the psychological research has been showing in the business world then what is it? Is there any excuse not to put some effort, resources, work into becoming an emotionally intelligent organization? That is your choice. Then, for the individuals involved, is there a way that you can offer this gift of personal growth to your workforce, so that they can live more consciously, so that they can flow together better, so that they can be more responsive to you when you want to bring about change, so that you can know that these people, of this type, find change very difficult, this is the way to help them. This type six, any change is just fearful. You have a type six in your group. The joy and benefit of type six in an organization is that they will ask endless questions, which can be irritating to the manager, or actually can take the whole team much deeper into thinking this through, before they actually act on it. Because type sixes are so good at asking insightful deep questions. I would have them on my team if I was going through a change process, but I would know that it creates fear in them. I would know that I needed to treat them in a certain way when it comes to change. How can you not have this emotional intelligence when you are going forward into a process of change, or when you discover, when you feel you're stuck in the process of change. You've got this far, and we just can't push it over the top. We just stuck with the case, what is happening amongst us, that is stopping that.

Janet: [00:47:02] To move to closing this conversation this morning. You're talking to a group of stakeholders, wanting to move their organization forward. Honestly, they feel stuck. You've begun this tour of taking them through the four Enneagram offerings that you have, Enneagram Basics. You see that there are individuals that are kind of moving beyond, really quickly, right. Some are at the level of, oh my goodness, what's here? Some are moving beyond, and some are just going with the flow. It's another course. So you empathize. What do you really see, what's going on, and what would be your call to action to this group?

Liz: [00:47:54] To get involved with the Enneagram themselves, first to see the benefit of it, to find a coach, to find that type, work with it. See whether it is something intrigues you, that you can see the benefit of, that you can notice within your own relationships. Usually, I find the person who invites me in to work with an organization, is somebody who's heard about the Enneagram somewhere, even if it's only just the beginnings of the understanding of it. They have seen enough to see that it's important. You can read a book and get the idea of it, but it's better to talk to somebody, or talk with others. The Enneagram, in North America is spreading like wildfire; in the U.K., it's getting known. When I started out on this, in the U.K., 20 years ago, nobody knew what it was. It's a very ancient tool that started in the fourth century. But it's come into psychology in the last 50 years or so, and now is being valued in all sorts of situations. So give it a go. 

Liz: [00:49:07] You have to be committed to changing the culture within the organization as a leader. That's difficult to do if you haven't experienced it and believe in it. It's not the only tool of the inner journey. The inner journey is important within faith groups of different sorts. Some of the techniques for centering and meditation are Buddhist, there’s contemplative prayer from the Christian angle. It combines these three important areas of the spiritual, the somatic, and the psychological in the change. If you're a stakeholder, have a go. Look online; just look it up. The online tests I'm not so keen on, but, see if you can read some of the descriptions, about the descriptions of the nine types, and see if you resonate with any of them. Just do a bit of research and take long. See if there's anybody in the organization who already knows about the Enneagram, because I think these days, that would be a possibility, and see what their opinion is. It's something that's caught from one person to another, I think, because it's our story about who we are. That is the important thing.

Janet: [00:50:25] Developing relationship appears to be part of this circle, if I can use that term, around the Enneagram, thinking of this organization that's stuck and wondering where to go; if they know that some people are grasping it and doing work, even though the organization is holding itself to doing something over two years. So I'm curious about the hope that this brings for the future, being in relationship, listening to one another. Do you have any thoughts as we move to closing this conversation today?

Liz: [00:51:11] My mind immediately went to one of the many Enneagram conferences that I have been to. And immediately, what I see, is a room full of people. And the level of relationship between strangers is just extraordinary, what happens there. The hope is, that we will be able to build constructive, nurturing, warm relationships. The task will come into a community of trust, understanding, sharing one another's joys and struggles on a deeper level, than would happen without this kind of inner work. You just have to be at one of those conferences. When there are new people in there, that's what they always write about afterwards - I couldn't believe this group, so wonderful to be a part of it. These are individuals who've chosen to work with the Enneagram, so maybe they self-select. But when I work in one of the big organizations that I do, I started out with one of their teams, 15 people out of 300,000 or something. Gradually, the message has got around and I have invitation after invitation to other teams, within that organization, because they've heard about the days. I'm just an Enneagram trainer. This isn't about me. This is about the Enneagram. That's what makes the difference, spreading through. And you just know that the atmosphere in the whole place is going to be different.

Janet: [00:52:55] So Liz, thank you for being with us, Agility Narrative, for this podcast today. We've embraced a world that is a changing world. And in that, you've introduced us to a tool, called the Enneagram, a very ancient tool, as you let us know today, and one that is a slow burn, that takes its time; led us into a secret, which is, yes, we can use it to identify others. So, I'm an individual in an organization, and I'm getting to know my teammates. Oh, when I see all these things about them, they're great things I didn't know, and some of the things that have been bugging me for a while. But what I'm finding out, is that it is a portal to learning more about myself, to learn about our internal self. It's a journey, as you say, and there are all kinds of ways to approach that. But the journey is also one about learning about our deep personality. And so, it's a circle, with nine points. And there are all kinds of lines that connect us all together. As we dive into it, you've mentioned that it reaches the full potential. We can each reach our full potential, which is important for individual and organizational agility. The part that seems to be part of the slow burn, is the connections and relationships between people. And so for this podcast today, I invite our listeners to dive into the Enneagram in whatever way you've heard about, the impact of the narrative tradition today. There are all kinds of groups and conferences and tests. You can take assessments to find out your type. That's the invitation you've launched through Agility Podcast, and we thank you, both Martin and I today.

Martin: [00:55:00] Thank you very much. Good conversation. Enjoyed it.

Liz: [0:55:04] Thanks for the opportunity.