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Matt Schlegel

Leading with Feelings — Interview with Climate Leader Claudia Truesdell

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Have you watched Don’t Look Up, Netflix’s metaphorical story about the climate emergency?  How are you feeling about the climate crisis?  Claudia Truesdell is a climate leader helping people come to grips with their feelings about climate change and providing guidance that helps them translate their feelings into action. In this interview, she shares how her own feelings led her on a journey to acting and leading on addressing humanity’s biggest challenge.

[Video Transcript]

Matt Schlegel:

Thanks for joining me in conversations with highly self-aware leaders. Today, we’ll be speaking with Claudia Truesdell. Claudia is a leader in fighting climate change, and she shares how she uses feelings for both inspiration and action. Now for the conversation.

Matt Schlegel:

Today, we’re speaking with Claudia Truesdell. Claudia is a leader on climate. She organizes in her community to bring awareness to the importance of fighting climate change, and she shows how people in her community can participate in that fight. She’s a mechanical engineering alumna from Stanford University, and she continues to engage Stanford students in her organizing. She also hosts a Climate Cafe meetup group in which participants share how they’re feeling about climate change. Welcome, Claudia.

Claudia Truesdell:

Thank you, Matt. Yeah, so nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me to talk to you today. I’m delighted.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, that’s great. I’m really looking forward to it. Why don’t we start there? Let me ask you how you are feeling about climate change?

Claudia Truesdell:

Forgive my dog. I’m sorry about that.

Matt Schlegel:

No problem.

Claudia Truesdell:

Okay. I feel worried daily. I feel anxious. I feel upset. I feel annoyed and frustrated, and I have been for a long time. This has been going on for years and quite a puzzle to me. A few years ago, I realized that even though I was feeling all these feelings, I wasn’t acting on them, and that was such a confusion to me. How could I feel these things so intently and not be dealing with the problem?

Claudia Truesdell:

Surprisingly enough, somehow, acting on the problem has made me feel not better about climate change, but better about myself and how I’m showing up in the climate struggle. It’s been immensely helpful to be active, just for my psychological wellbeing and self. So while I am still all of those things I listed earlier, I’m also much more hopeful, partly because I’m hopeful in my own ability to start acting, and it gives me hope for other people.

Claudia Truesdell:

And then, also, through this, I’ve met so many amazing people who are active and working to change, including yourself. So that part, finding the community of people working for the change, has been immensely helpful to my outlook and just my mental health.

Matt Schlegel:

Wow. Yeah. That’s very powerful. Claudia, thank you for sharing those feelings about your relationship with climate change and how that’s impacting you. I’d like to understand better how those feelings are, essentially, influencing your behaviors as a leader and how that’s influencing your direction now.

Claudia Truesdell:

That’s a great question. I’m really cognizant that there are many people out there who are equally as desperate and frustrated and worried as I am, and who are also not yet acting. I have just a firm resolution that there are these barriers, and I’ve been working to try to figure out how to remove the barriers in my work.

Claudia Truesdell:

You mentioned the Climate Cafes, and that’s an idea that came to me through the Climate Psychology Alliance. You can look them up, they’re a UK group, and there’s also Northern America Climate Psychology Alliance group, too. One of the things that they believe is that all of these feelings that we have that are so big and overwhelming, actually are in the way of us acting. They are barriers to us taking action. Because, in order to take action and to think about what we need to do and what needs to happen, we need to let in all those huge emotions, and it’s just so uncomfortable and so hard to do that, especially if the people around you are not really wanting to have that conversation yet for their own reasons, for those same reasons, actually. So, to do all that work that you need to do in order to squarely face the problem, it’s yucky and difficult.

Claudia Truesdell:

You and I actually talked recently about these kind of bouts of climate grief that are so sad, and it’s hard to do that outside of community. One of the things I’m doing is trying to form that supportive place that people can process those emotions, sit with that grief, and be heard and hear other people. We don’t talk about action in those meetings, but the goal is to get people ready to act after they’ve faced all of that. To get them to clear it, in a way, and then be able to move forward. That’s one of the ways that my having been so stuck and frustrated, not only with the situation, but with myself, is shaping what I do in my climate work.

Matt Schlegel:

That’s amazing. That is an amazing story. Thank you for doing that. You have now transitioned from those feelings into taking action, and I imagine that there are other people similarly situated that are also kind of on the cusp of doing that. What advice would you give to them at this point, in that transition, in that journey?

Claudia Truesdell:

My advice is to bring your full self to it. Bring who you are to the problem. I think one of the reasons that I took so long to act is that I didn’t see a place for myself in the big climate organizations. I wasn’t terribly comfortable going out with the signs and the protesting and possibly getting arrested, and I wasn’t that comfortable kind of writing letters to my Congresspeople. All of those kind of typical ways of acting are really powerful and really good, but even if you eventually do them, it takes a while to get there. I’ve really been trying to bring myself to this and to act in ways that are really true to myself, and also to use my network and the people in my world to bring to bear on this problem.

Claudia Truesdell:

You mentioned in your intro that I went to Stanford, and I have a relationship with that community. One of the things that I’m so looking forward to next year is we’re going to be doing a survey of transportation in Palo Alto, kind of people’s attitudes, kind of these deep ethnographic interviews around attitudes towards carbon-free transportation.

Matt Schlegel:

Wow. That’s amazing. That is amazing. You’re channeling-

Claudia Truesdell:

I won’t go into it too deeply, but I just want to point out that that is another piece of advice about bringing your whole self is also bringing your network and your interests.

Matt Schlegel:

Right.

Claudia Truesdell:

So acting through your beliefs-

Matt Schlegel:

You’re tapping into all of your networks and then channeling that into action in a situationally aware way to influence the other people in your network to also start taking action.

Claudia Truesdell:

Yeah. To influence them. Also, because you’re going to bring a unique perspective and unique ideas. It’s such a big problem that we all need to work on it, and we need all of the approaches. There’s not one best approach. We need all of them.

Matt Schlegel:

We need all of them. Yep.

Claudia Truesdell:

Yeah. You’ve got to bring yours. Bring it.

Matt Schlegel:

That’s perfect. We’ll end it here, but I feel like we’re just scratching the surface on this conversation, and I would love to have you come back and share more about some of the experiences that you’re having. Maybe when you have engaged the students more on that project, you could come back and give us an update and share more about how feelings and leadership and all of that are playing into approaching and attacking this big problem that we’re all facing.

Claudia Truesdell:

Oh, thank you. I’d love to. That would be great.

Matt Schlegel:

All right. Well, thanks again, Claudia. I really appreciate you sharing your experiences and your stories today.

Claudia Truesdell:

Thank you, Matt. Thank you so much for doing this work that you’re doing and bringing these stories out. I can’t wait to listen to your series and learn about what everyone else is doing. I’m so excited for it. Thank you.

Matt Schlegel:

All right. Thank you.

Matt Schlegel:

Thanks again for watching. I really found Claudia’s story very powerful about coming to grips with her own feelings, processing them, and then using those for inspiration and action, and how she went through that transition and got to a point where she felt like she could bring her whole self to contributing to solving the big problem that she’s trying to tackle, climate change. The advice that she’s giving for other leaders is to bring your whole self to the problem, and that includes feelings as well as your inspiration, your thoughts and your actions. She’s bringing all three of those, and that’s really important for showing leadership in any situation.

Matt Schlegel:

If you found this helpful, please click on the thumbs up button, subscribe to the channel and get notifications of future episodes. If you have any questions, leave them in comments, and I’ll get to them as soon as possible. Thanks again, so much, for watching.

Nine Problem Solving Styles of Enneagram Change Management

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The Enneagram is a powerful personality dynamics tool, but did you know that it’s also a change management system? Please enjoy this presentation that we delivered to the Project Management Institute’s Los Angeles chapter in which we  share how the Enneagram can be used as a change management problem-solving process.

Many thanks to Alexandra Zhernova and PMI-LA: https://www.pmi-la.org/

Thanks also to my fabulous co-presenters:

Yvonne Burton: https://www.burtonconsulting.biz/

Belle Walker: https://belleviewconsulting.com/

 

[Video Transcript]

Matt Schlegel:                   I’m grateful to the Project Management Institute’s LA chapter for the opportunity to deliver a webinar with my fabulous co-presenters, Yvonne Burton and Bell Walker. In this webinar, we show how the enneagram can be used as a change management process. And we tie each enneagram dynamic to a specific step in change management. So let’s jump right into step one.

The question that I asked is, why are they numbers? Why don’t you use letters like DISC or Myers-Briggs or colors or animals, or … And when I asked that question and I studied it more, I found out that, “Oh, it’s a process. It’s the order of a process. That’s why it’s number.” And it’s the order in which humans solve problems. So it is the human problem solving process.

And when you look at it in terms of a problem solving process, you can see the enneagram as a clock and as you move through problem solving, there’s an element of time to that. And so that circle represents the motion around the diagram like a clock moving through the hours. It can also represent people moving through the steps of problem solving.

And now we have this fascinating relationship between a step in problem solving and a personality style. So there is a personality style that’s specifically tuned or that step in problem solving. So let’s take a look at what that looks like. So let’s start with step one. What is step one in problem solving? There’s a problem. It’s identifying that there’s a problem, right? And so once you’ve identified the problem, one of the words that I associate with this is should. Hey, it shouldn’t be like this. And then you have this understanding if it shouldn’t be like that, you already know instinctually and one is in that instinctive group, that it should be something else. And so you have this intuition of the way it should be. So that is one of the things associated with step one in problem solving.

And so now, let’s just take a look at the personality style that is associated with type one in enneagram. And the word that I would use some call it the perfectionist, but in problem solving, it’s kind of the judge, right? It’s like judging what’s right and what’s wrong. And the enneagram type one is highly motivated to put things right. So their instincts are informing them of the way it should be. And they’re the first to identify that, “Hey, that’s not right. It shouldn’t be like that. It should be like this.”

So that’s step one. And I’m going to just go through these quickly and we can come back during Q&A and answer any questions that you have, but I want to get through these first few steps. So what is the second step in problem solving? This is something … this step here, when I look at other formal problem solving processes, I often see this step neglected. But the enneagram says that the second step in problem solving is asking the question, who cares? Who cares that there’s … about that problem? If nobody cares, then it’s really not a problem. So it’s only for the people who care. And so step two is actually building that team of people who care enough to want to solve the problem. So it’s essentially building your committed team of stakeholders.

So now, what does that look like in terms of the enneagram personality style? So that in the enneagram associated with type two, I call it the caregiver. It’s also often called the helper, because they realize that, “Oh, you have a problem and I want to help you solve your problem.” And they want to do that. And that their underlying motivation from the personality point of view is to receive appreciation. So they’re motivated by that appreciation for their help to chip in and help solve the problem.

All right. So then what is the third step in problem solving? It’s ideation. This is the step where you start to come up with all the different possible ideas to solve the problem. And I heard a number of people talk about when they were talking about their problem solving styles, the different techniques that they use for generating the different ideas. And there are a number of ways to do this. When I do this in practice, I will just have an ideation session. But one of the important things I do in this is I say, “There’s no bad ideas. We’re not going to be putting any critical thought or negative thought on any of the ideas. We’ll just allow all the ideas to come out. And then we can apply that filter later.” So this is the ideation stuff.

And in the enneagram style that most closely relates to this is enneagram type three. And they are motivated to achieve. So they’re often called the achievers, and they want to be recognized for their achievement. So they’re always coming up with ideas for how to succeed, and they’re always striving and working hard to succeed. So there’s another aspect to this, because we’re now in the feeling group. And the interesting thing about the threes is they suppress feelings. And you’ll know that whenever you have an idea, you run it through an emotional filter.

But what happens if you don’t have an emotional filter? You’ve suppressed emotions so you’ve taken that off. And so now your brain is just free to … maybe some people call it out of the box thinking, but it’s thinking without having emotional filters. And that allows you to … You know that expression throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks? So that’s what it’s like for a three, when they’re coming up with ideas. They are just throwing ideas out. They don’t know what people like and don’t like. They’re just throwing the ideas out and they’ll see what sticks.

You remember step three was ideation. And I mentioned that when I do these ideation sessions, brainstorming sessions, I ask people to check their negativity. Now, why do I do that? It’s because we can’t help ourselves. As soon as we hear an idea, we think, “Oh my god, that’s a great idea.” Or, “Oh, that idea sucks.” We can’t help ourselves. It’s instantaneous. So that’s step four. Step four is that emotional reaction to any idea. And as you are working through ideas in your team, you’re going to eventually run all these ideas through the emotional filter of your team. And what you’re trying to do is you want the ideas and there might be more than one that you want to explore, but you want the ideas with the most positive energy. You don’t want to be taking the ideas with the negative energy. You want to take the ideas with the positive energy, because to get to the goal from the idea is going to take a lot of work and commitment. So you want to start with the positive ideas.

Now, we naturally do that. But that is the step in problem solving. And this is another step, right? So step two and step four are very soft skill steps that are often not acknowledged in more technical or formal problem solving processes. But if you skip them, then I think somebody mentioned earlier, it’s like the team runs off on some idea that somebody had, but didn’t bring everybody else along. And people aren’t interested in that idea and don’t have a positive feeling about it. And so you’ve essentially skipped this step. That’s what you’ve done when you’ve spun off and done that.

And the way I can practice do step four is after I have that whole set of ideas, I’ll wait usually until the next day. And then I’ll publish all the ideas and then I’ll have people vote. And then I choose the ideas democratically. And that’s the way I can determine which ideas have the most positive energy overall with the team. And that seems to work pretty well. So now let’s look at that style as an enneagram type four. Type four is often called the artist or the romantic, I call it the empath, right? Because you’re empathizing with that idea. And type fours live in their feelings.

They feel everything. They’re reacting to everything in the environment. They’re reacting to the light on the wall. They’re reacting to the faces in Zoom. They’re reacting to the energy of chat. They’re reacting to everything. So that’s … and they are able to take that deep understanding of their feelings and then communicate that in an emotionally impactful way. So it’s not always with words, it can be with music or film or art or photography, because they’re communicating … they’re not necessarily communicating ideas, they’re communicating feelings and emotions. So that’s the type four.

So now, so the type two, three and four were all in that feeling space. And now, we’re moving over to the left side of the enneagram, which is more of the analytical and logical side. You think of left brain, right brain and there’s an analogy there. And I just point that out because the enneagram looks exactly the same way.

So the step five is you now have your set of positive ideas to explore, and now, you want to analyze them. You want to do the cost benefit analysis. You want to do the pro con analysis. You want to do … maybe do some quick prototyping and validation. This is the step where you’re validating the ideas that you want to pursue and making sure that they will actually stand a good chance of getting you to the goal.

Now, what does this look like in terms of the personality enneagram type five? This is the type that is quiet and analytical. They tend to want to observe so they’re often called the observer and they’re taking in information. They’re constantly taking in information and analyzing it, analyzing it, chewing on it. And through that analysis, they start to feel like that they’re in a safer place. So they’re looking for safety in that analysis. And so that’s what’s going on with the five. And so they tend to have very cerebral occupations like engineer, scientist, or professor, or accountant, finance. As project managers, when we have type fives on our team, sometimes it’s hard to get information out of them. They’re keeping things very close to the vest and so that’s the type five.

So let’s do one more and then we’ll take a break for questions. So this is type six. Now, you’ve analyzed all of that information and you have the pro con analysis, and to the five, five see everything is in shades of gray and all the nuance. And they have a hard time making a decision because of that, because they see all the possibilities, and there’s not strong waiting on the possibilities. And that’s where the six comes in. Because sixes are the most tuned to danger and risk. So they can look at all of that analysis and they can find the least risky path through that to the goal. And so they tend to be thinking about the future and they tend to be planning things out, which is why this step, I call the planning step, because this is where you take all that information and you connect the dots and everything you need and all the resources you need to get you from point A to point B.

And so what does that look like on the enneagram type six style? So these are … they’re looking to avoid risk and they’re always thinking what’s going to happen, what’s going to happen, what’s going to happen. So I’m a type six. So I know this one really well. So like I’m constantly thinking, “Oh, what’s going to happen? What’s going to happen?” And then you prepare for all these eventualities. And so they often make good project managers. I find a lot of sixes going into that, but they like going into roles where they can create systems and create predictability. So the controller at a company, what do they do? They put a system in place to manage predictably cash flow. And that’s their job, perfect job for a six.

Now, we have a plan, right? The sixes put together the plan, got a plan. Now, what do we need to do? We need to sell the plan. We need to take the plan back to all of the key stakeholders and get permission and resources to actually move forward. So you probably, as project managers, you have these gates. So the gate, this would be a point in a common problem solving process where you go back to the stakeholders and you show them where you are and where you’re going, and then you get the necessary resources to keep going forward. And so this is an advocacy step.

So what does this look like in terms of enneagram style? The type seven is the type that is often very connected with everybody else. They’re like the consummate networker. They tend to be very fun and charming and affable and joking and what their underlying motivation is that they want to be liked by other people. And their main strategy for doing that is if everybody’s having fun. So they’re great at whipping up enthusiasm for doing new things and moving forward. So it’s the perfect style in problem solving to get everybody on board with, “We’ve got a plan, we’re going to get to the goal. Let’s go, come on.” So that’s the energy that gets you through that step.

And by the way, I’ll just mention, so I’m a type six. And usually for every type, you have access to your core type and then you have pretty easy access to the types along your pads of integration or disintegration. And then you have more or less access to all the other types. But in general, the hardest type for anyone to access is the next type in the clockwise direction. So for the six, I love to plan, but then how do I switch over and become this cheerleader champion of the plan? And that is harder for me. And each one of us faces that, and this is why each one of us, we want to play to our strength and sometimes it’s hard for us to move on. Once we hit our particular type, we can do really well there, but then the project needs to move on. And it’s hard for people sometimes to let go of that and move to the next step, which is why it’s important to have a diverse team to pick up the slack when you move on from a particular step.

So then we go to step eight. Now, what have we done in steps one through seven? Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. When are we going to get to action? That’s the eight. They’re the ones that are very impatient. They want … And we are now back into the instinctual group. So the five, the six and the seven we’re all in the head group, the eight is back in the instinctual group. And their instincts told them what to do a long time ago. So working through this process for an eight can be a little bit aggravating, because they already think that they know what to do.

Now, when you use that style, then it’s kind of like the ready, fire, aim. You start without aiming and then you maybe misfire, and then you go over here and you try that, and you want to try this and try that. That style. That’s very much an eight style. And so that’s one of the things that eights need to learn. And eight leaders do learn is that it’s important, even though their instincts are already telling them what to do to bring everybody along and go into the head space and explain things in a way that makes sense to us head people or us feeling people.

And so what does this look like from a enneagram type point of view? So this is the engram type eight. And what they want to do, their underlying motivation is to secure control of their environment. And one of the tools that they use is anger. Anger is a very strong tool for getting people to do what you want them to do. And eights are very good at using that tool, and it’s kind of their go-to tool. So if you are ever in a meeting and somebody starts raising their voice or starts pounding the table or starts talking while pointing like this, those are all expressions of anger. And that person is …  whether they’re innate or not, they’re using that eight dynamic to … because they feel like they don’t have control of the situation and they’re trying to get control of the situation back. So that is the eight.

So now, we have gone through and implemented the solution. And then, I think somebody said that they do a project debrief. Well, this is step nine. This is where you measure how well you did at solving the problem. You do your debrief, you do your lessons learned, you try to learn from what you did. You listen to people. You make sure the solution whatever’s implemented is harmonized with everyone. These are all step nine activities. And so what does this look like from the enneagram type nine point of view, the personality point of view? The type nine, I think I mentioned earlier that they’re great listeners and they’re great at putting themselves in other people’s shoes. So they can really understand everybody’s perspective. And the reason why they’re doing this is because they’re very motivated to minimize conflict.

You remember the eight goes to anger and uses anger as a tool? Well, nine is also using anger, but they’re trying to minimize anger. So it’s kind of like that’s that step that I was telling you about going from eight to nine. It is a big step, because of that use of anger. It’s so different between these two types. It’s hard for eights to imagine just sitting back and listening and not doing anything and just making sure everybody’s perspective is taken into account. That’s hard for them. They can do it, but it’s hard for them. But that’s what’s going on with the nine. And the nines are natural at it.

I often see nines in customer service departments. They’re great at customer service, because they can take calls even from angry people and they just listen and they know how to calm them down and then help them solve their problem. And speaking of problems, the reason why the enneagram is a circle is because inevitably when you’re listening to people in step nine, you’ll hear new problems, and then you are back to step one. And that’s why you’ve heard of problem solving processes like continuous improvement. So the enneagram is a continuous improvement process. That’s the circle of going around with continuous improvement, like Kaizen.

So that’s the nine steps of the process mapped to the nine enneagram type styles. I know we wanted to wrap up around now. So I’m just so grateful for the opportunity to share this with you. Feel free, if you have any questions that come to mind later and you want to reach out, do not hesitate at all to do that. I’m happy to answer any questions. I want to thank Belle and Yvonne. I really can’t do this without them, because I can concentrate on what I’m saying and not have to worry about all the technology and they’re keeping me on track. So thank you so much for doing that. And then, thanks to Alexandra for helping us get here and having us present and to all of PMI. I really appreciate the opportunity.

Alexandra Zhernova:      Thank you, Matt. It was really interesting presentation to us the first time and insightful context and then engaging. So great takeaways. We learned a lot. Thank you for teaching us and sharing your expertise. Yeah, it’s really appreciate it.

Matt Schlegel:                   Thanks for watching. Thanks again to Project Management Institute and special thanks to Alexandra Zhernova for inviting us to speak. If you want to learn more details about how the enneagram can be used as a change management system, then please check out my book, Teamwork 9.0. and if you found this video helpful, please click the thumbs up button, subscribe to the channel and get notifications of future episodes. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments and I’ll get to them as soon as possible. Thanks again.

Enneagram Type 8 Leadership Path of Growth — Interview with Julie Chendes

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Julie Chendes, CEO of Next Level Strategies, became familiar with the Enneagram around 18 years ago and shares stories of how she used it to build effective teams at work. She discusses movement along the paths of integration and disintegration for Type 8. She shares how Type 8s and Type 2s work well together. And she gives great advice to Type 8 leaders using a rock and roll song reference!

[Video Transcript]

Matt Schlegel:

Thanks for joining me in conversations with leaders who are using the Enneagram as a leadership tool, and a tool for personal growth and development. Today, I’m speaking with Julie Chendes, CEO of Next Level Strategies. Julie became familiar with the Enneagram about 18 years ago, and shares stories of how she’s used it to build effective teams at work. And now for the conversation.

Matt Schlegel:

I’m delighted to be speaking today with Julie Chendes. Julie is the owner, founder, and CEO of Next Level Strategies. An HR consulting firm specializing in serving small and medium-sized businesses with HR support like employee relations, recruiting, training, payroll, and compliance. Julie’s led Next Level Strategies for nearly 20 years now. And Julie is familiar with the Enneagram, and I’m eager to learn how she’s used this powerful tool, both with her team and her clients. Julie, thank you so much for being with me today.

Julie Chendes:

Thanks for having me, Matt.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, it’s great to see you. I’m so eager to hear how you’ve used the Enneagram. But before we start, let me ask how and when did you first discover the Enneagram?

Julie Chendes:

It was about 18 years ago. I had just started the business and I was doing some networking. And in the course of my networking, I came across a guy who is an Enneagram coach. And through him, and just through being at the same kind of happy hours, I learned about the Enneagram through him, and it resonated with me, so I learned more.

Matt Schlegel:

Nice, nice. Yeah, it sounds like something I do, too. I’ll just start, “Hey, do you know the Enneagram?” It was just kind of an informal thing that got you kicked off on your journey.

Julie Chendes:

Yep.

Matt Schlegel:

Oh, that is great. And then as you started to use it, what did you discover about yourself that you didn’t know before, or appreciate before?

Julie Chendes:

Probably not just about myself, but one of the things I think that is so interesting about the Enneagram is, how a person’s personality evolves and devolves when things are going well or things aren’t going as well. And I really saw myself in that. Being an eight, when things are going my way as they are now, I’m the most generous person, the drinks are on me, very expansive, and sort of even got like a little bit of a hippy vibe.

Julie Chendes:

And when things sort of aren’t going well, even though I have a pretty outgoing personality, I can get very quiet and very kind of reclusive, and I like to be left alone with my thoughts. And I like to have minimal stimulation when too much is going… And it’s so typical of an eight. And I didn’t really realize all of that about myself until I found out more about the Enneagram.

Matt Schlegel:

Right, right. Yeah. So you’re talking about the movement from eight into two when you’re feeling secure, so the helper two, and then when things aren’t going your way, then you turn into that quiet five. And you’re just looking and observing, and trying to figure out how to get things back on track that.

Julie Chendes:

Yes. Yes.

Matt Schlegel:

Oh, that is great. So you could see that behavior in yourself. And this is one of the things that I personally love about the Enneagram, that differentiates it from some of the other systems is that, it really speaks to how our behaviors can change over time, you know?

Julie Chendes:

Yeah.

Matt Schlegel:

So you talked about that security and insecurity movement. And it also speaks to maturity and immaturity as well, right?

Julie Chendes:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Matt Schlegel:

As we get more mature, we start to move more along our path of integration. And most other systems are just like a static snapshot. And the Enneagram really shows how we’re not always the same, it’s not just steady, it’s, we’re constantly changing and evolving depending on our circumstances. So yeah, that’s very great observation.

Julie Chendes:

Mm-hmm (affirmative), exactly.

Matt Schlegel:

So now, how have you used the Enneagram with your team at your company? Or, have you used it with your team or with your clients? How have you used it?

Julie Chendes:

Not as much as I’d like, honestly. Back in the day, I had my right hand person who’s still with me, take the Enneagram, and lucky for us, no surprise, she’s a two. And so two and eight get along famously.

Matt Schlegel:

Yes.

Julie Chendes:

And as I look back, I think several of my kind of right hand people over the years have been twos. So even before I knew what I was attracted to, I was attracting really complimentary personality types to me. So I had her do it. And then we had another consultant at the time, and she refused to do it because she said she wanted to be mysterious. So it is what it is.

Julie Chendes:

And I used it in my personal life with my then fiance. We did a little coaching around the Enneagram and our types, and how to get along better. Because what would happen is, we got into an argument, all of a sudden I sort of shut down and I want to be left alone, and he couldn’t understand why I needed to be left alone in the middle of conflict. And so it was very helpful for both of us to understand each other more and the different types. But I haven’t used it as much at work as I’d like.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. And so a couple of things. It’s great how you identified how the eight and the two are really complementary. Actually, I talk about this in my book. I have a chapter on groupings that often work together. And one of them is the two, the eight and the five. And so it was so funny because when you said, oh, I want to be mysterious, the first thing that I thought of is, oh, probably a five. Which is exactly… It’s a perfect combination. Because really, you have one person from the instinctual, one from the feeling, and one from the head group. So you make a super complimentary team together.

Julie Chendes:

Good point. Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, that is awesome. Well, so now having used it and understanding yourself, what advice would you give to other leaders of your Enneagram type, type eight?

Julie Chendes:

Hmm. Well, I guess for me, and I think for all leaders. We can’t control everything in life, and we can’t control everything at work. And we certainly can’t control people. And so even though our happy place is sort of around control, I would advise all of the eights, but all leaders in general, to always make sure that you got yourself surrounded by people that you trust, that you can delegate to, that can… Are given the opportunity to exceed your expectations, and not swoop in, not try to control.

Julie Chendes:

What’s the old song by… Shoot, who is it, Kansas? No. “Hold on loosely, but don’t let it go. If you cling too tightly, you’re going to lose control,” right? So that would be my advice to the eights.

Matt Schlegel:

Oh, that is great. Right. Because your instincts are kind of telling you, this is what we need to do, and you want to kind of get in there and start to guide everybody in that direction. But sometimes you just need to back up a little bit, and let people do it their way. And yeah, that’s great advice, Julie.

Julie Chendes:

Or, make mistakes if they need to, or have their own opinion or whatever. Yeah.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, yeah. Just let people show up the way they want to show up, and that ends up making a more powerful team, right?

Julie Chendes:

Yes, for sure.

Matt Schlegel:

If everybody is accepting each other’s style and way that they contribute. So yeah, that is great advice, Julie. Well, thank you so much for sharing your stories. And I think we probably have a lot more to talk about here, I have a whole bunch of more questions I want to ask, but we’re out of time. But I hope you can come back and we can continue the conversation another time.

Julie Chendes:

Yeah. Thanks Matt. Thanks for having me.

Matt Schlegel:

All right. Thank you.

Julie Chendes:

Interesting stuff.

Matt Schlegel:

Thanks so much for watching. Julie made some great points about how she used the Enneagram’s path of integration and disintegration, to really understand how her style changes depending on her stress and security levels.

Matt Schlegel:

And she gave examples of her movement towards type two in security and type five in insecurity. And then she shared that with her teammates, so that they understood also how her style might vary, and that just helped everybody understand each other.

Matt Schlegel:

She also identified how the type two and type eight form a highly effective team. I have seen this time and time again in the workplace. And I talk about it in chapter seven of my book, Teamwork 9.0, and this is one of the powerful combinations of teams. And then finally, I really loved how she pulled out the reference to the 38 Special song, Hold on Loosely. She makes such a great point that if type eights try to control too much, squeeze too tightly, they can actually lose control. And I thought that was a great example.

Matt Schlegel:

So if you found this helpful, please click on the thumbs up button, subscribe to the channel, and get notifications of future episodes. And if you have any questions, please leave them in the comments and I’ll get to them as soon as possible. Thanks again.

 

 

Enneagram Type 8 Leadership Path of Growth — Interview with Péllo Walker

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Péllo Walker first discovered the Enneagram in a Helen Palmer-led workshop.  He has since used this powerful tool, both personally and professionally, for the last 30 years. I could really feel Péllo’s Type 8 style come through in this interview.  He uses his boundless energy as a leader of his company, Daily Digital Imaging, as well as participating on a number of boards and in mentorship roles. I enjoyed learning how many of his roles now resemble activities associated with Enneagram Type 2, along the Type 8’s path of integration.

[Video Transcript]

Matt Schlegel:

Thanks for joining me in conversations with leaders who are using the Enneagram as a leadership tool and a tool for personal growth and development. Today, I’m speaking with Péllo Walker, President of Daily Digital Imaging. Péllo’s been using the Enneagram for nearly 30 years now and he shares his journey of becoming a more self-aware leader. Now for the conversation.

Matt Schlegel:

I’m delighted to be speaking today Péllo Walker, President of Daily Digital Imaging, not only does Péllo apply his boundless energy towards delivering creative marketing solutions for his customers, he also loves public speaking, mentoring other leaders and serving as a board member for a number of organizations.

Matt Schlegel:

I’ve known Péllo for 15 years, but it wasn’t until recently that we discovered our shared passion for using the Enneagram as a leadership tool. I’m eager to learn more about how Péllo uses the Enneagram, both with his team and with the leaders who he mentors. Péllo, thank you so much for joining me today.

Péllo Walker:

Thank you, Matt. I appreciate the opportunity. It’s an honor and a pleasure.

Matt Schlegel:

Oh, lovely. My first question for you is, how and when did you first discover the Enneagram?

Péllo Walker:

It was 1994. It was a live panel of nine different Enneagram points, over an entire weekend with Helen Palmer, who was facilitating it. What do I mean by a panel? We would have an audience, probably about 300 people in the audience. Up on a stage, a raised stage, there were 8 to 10 chairs and then the facilitator.

Péllo Walker:

They would do Point One, Point 2, Point Three, but they didn’t go necessarily in order, they went in different orders that made sense to her and how it made sense to present to us, the audience, who mostly didn’t know anything about it. Some of us did. I did not. It was 1994, it was in Mill Valley, California. I remember it to this day, as if it was yesterday, it changed my life. It changed the way that I looked at the world and more importantly, it changed how I looked at myself. That was huge.

Matt Schlegel:

It’s such a powerful way to learn the Enneagram when you see the different points up on the stage. You see them acting in their typneness and things just start to click in our brain. It’s like, “Oh, I understand that. Oh, I understand that.” Yeah, that is a very powerful way to first come to the Enneagram. Just really resonates. When you went through that, what was the thing that you discovered about yourself that you didn’t know before?

Péllo Walker:

There’s so much, that’s a pretty loaded question. What it felt like was, you see one of those big bank vaults with cash on the other side and they show a photograph inside of the big, huge tumblers. There’s super precision and all these things have to fit together or the Vault’s not opening, because it has multiple lock points.

Péllo Walker:

It was like the whole puzzle, the whole combination came together, click, click, click, click and my life was forever different. Because it wasn’t just what I learned about myself, it was the subtypes. Self preservation, the sexual or social.

Péllo Walker:

I found out that I love food, I belong to the San Francisco Professional Food Society. I’m a member, I’m a gourmet cook. I offer 8 course gourmet suppers for the nonprofits that I sit on that go for thousands of dollars. Very formal, the best of the best.

Péllo Walker:

I wake up in the morning and my wife says, “You’re thinking about supper, it’s breakfast.” I said, “Yeah.” I didn’t realize that, oh, that’s a preservation, that’s something I’m taking care of. That’s a natural nurturing of myself and anybody who’s in my sphere. That I learned about myself.

Péllo Walker:

The other thing is that I take up a lot of energy and a lot of space and that scares people. That’s off putting to others. I never understood that before. All I knew was my feelings were always being hurt, but I didn’t know it was my feelings. I just got angry and I didn’t understand it until after I saw the panel.

Péllo Walker:

I realized, “Oh, I’m really hurt.” Now, I’m talking to you right now with all the cycles around the sun, going back 1994 forward. So, this isn’t something that I could have articulated in 1994. I just knew in my head, “Ah, something’s different about my emotions or it’s misplaced, but I didn’t know what it was. I didn’t know how to articulate it.

Péllo Walker:

Now, I could articulate it as easily as ordering breakfast, but it wasn’t easy. Because, for me, I’m an American high school football player. I’m at 300-log scuba dives, river rafting guy, military guy. That’s all vulnerable stuff. Masculinity’s big in the conversation in social culture right now. That’s all part of who I am and I realized that has nothing to do with anything.

Péllo Walker:

That changed how I am with others, especially my perception of weak men, whatever that is. Soft, pretty boys, they have had a charmed life. If people can bump up against me and stand my energy, even my dialed-back energy, I have a lot more respect for that person, because I know it takes a lot to be around me or be in relationship with me. I’m very aware and sensitive to that. But again, I couldn’t have told you that in 1994. I mean, this is a relatively new thing, as in the last 10 years, maybe?

Matt Schlegel:

Right. I mean, it’s one of the powerful things about the Enneagram, is that it gives us a vocabulary. With which, once we could start to put these names on these things that we are feeling or we’re going through, once you actually have the words to describe them. Then, it’s really a lot easier for us to understand them and then manage them.

Matt Schlegel:

It sounds like that’s what you went through. Understanding that a lot of what is at the core of the 8 is that feeling of vulnerability and how you manifest that feeling into that outward energy. Often anger, to make sure that that vulnerable person inside is taken care of, right?

Péllo Walker:

Yeah. Protected, right?

Matt Schlegel:

Yes. You’re protecting that vulnerability in you. That is so powerful, Péllo, that you are able to go through that journey and then just understand, “Ah, that is what is going on inside.” No, I know we could go on all day long, because this is such a great conversation. But, I want to wrap up and just ask, what advice would you give to other leaders of your type? Of Enneagram Type 8?

Péllo Walker:

2 words, be curious, be introspective. Those are 2 simple ideas and they’re hard. If you’re not curious about the other and you’re not introspective about yourself and how you play against the others, vis a vis, that would be the best thing that you can do. I know that my energy, I can take up the space that I need to take up. I’m going to be the person that I need to be.

Péllo Walker:

I’m not going to sublimate who I am for somebody else’s comfort. I, however, know that I care enough about the other, that I am perfectly willing, on my own, to just dial it down. Or, public speaking, its pace, pause and pitch. So, my pace becomes slower. I take more pauses between words. I soften my voice, so I’m talking softer. So people can have time to bring it in, because I, this 8, I think quickly, I make decisions quickly. I move quickly. I make big-energy movements.

Péllo Walker:

I’m about he’s a military guy, I’m about execution and implementation. I’m a man of action. I want to get something done. Those are measured by behaviors. If behaviors and actions and deeds aren’t followed by what you’re saying, then that’s just a bunch of yak-yak. I know that, as a leader, I have to lead by example. I also have to share where I’m going.

Péllo Walker:

As a leader, it’s my responsibility to provide value for those that are following or to get to buy into to my vision and where they fit into that vision. How I see them fitting into that vision. Otherwise, I’m doing them a disservice and they’re just a thing like a chair. That, I can’t countenance. That’s not fairness. Introspection and be curious, that’s what I would say.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, yeah. That is so great. You having that self-awareness of how big you present and how that can be intimidating to others and shut other people down and knowing how to tone that down. You’ve learned that you actually increase the receptivity of others to what you’re saying, when you start to modulate that bigness. That is really great advice, Péllo.

Matt Schlegel:

Thank you again for joining me today and sharing these stories. I am planning on doing and a series on Enneagram and creativity. I know you bring a lot of creativity to the work that you do at Daily Digital Imaging. I would love to have you come back and maybe we could just talk about what it means to be creative from the 8 perspective.

Péllo Walker:

I’d be happy to do that. Be an honor and a privilege. It might be interesting to have several 8s or several of one, sorry. Anyway, it’s just-

Matt Schlegel:

All right. Yeah, yeah. I could see that creative juice already flowing.

Péllo Walker:

Sorry, sorry. Sorry. I apologize.

Matt Schlegel:

Don’t be, don’t be. All right, Péllo.

Péllo Walker:

All right.

Matt Schlegel:

Well, thank you again. I really appreciate it.

Péllo Walker:

Thank you, Matt. I appreciate it. Thank you for the time. It’s an honor and a privilege and it’s been my pleasure.

Matt Schlegel:

Thanks. Thanks for watching. I could really feel Péllo bring out his powerful Type 8 style in our conversation. Earlier in his career, Péllo had been in roles and situations where he was encouraged to bring that powerful style out. It wasn’t until later, especially when he became a leadership mentor, that he appreciated the value of adopting a different approach. Maybe a quieter, more receptive approach when working with other types.

Matt Schlegel:

This really reminds me of an 8 moving along the path of integration to more Type 2-like behavior. It was great that Péllo was able to share that story. If you found this helpful, please click on the thumbs-up button, subscribe to the channel and get notifications of future episodes. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments and I’ll get to them as soon as possible. Thanks again.

Enneagram Workshop Tuesday November 30 :: The Nine Problem-Solving Strengths of Teammates

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Title: The Nine Problem-Solving Strengths of Teammates

Register here:  https://www.pmi-la.org/calendar?eventId=9360

Description: Come prepared to turn on your video and engage with participants in this interactive workshop in which we explore the nine problem-solving strengths of ourselves and our teammates. One of the biggest challenges a project manager faces is matching the best teammates for each assignment. The Enneagram is a powerful system that describes nine personality dynamics each with its own set of problem-solving strengths. Understand these dynamics helps managers match assignments with suitable sets of strengths.

Attendees will learn:

  • Discover their own primary Enneagram dynamics and strengths
  • Use a tool to discover the Enneagram dynamic and strengths of teammates
  • Understand which dynamics work well together
  • Leave with a framework to match the best problem-solving dynamics for each assignment.

Date: Tuesday, November 30, 2021

Time: 5:30PM to 7:30PM Pacific Time

Host: Project Management Institute – Los Angeles

Registration Fee: $5 members; $10 non-members

Registration:  https://www.pmi-la.org/calendar?eventId=9360

 

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