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This is Not a Movie—This is Real Life

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Our planet’s landlord is warning us. Teamwork 9.0 illustrator James Yamasaki expressed in this image exactly how I felt as I looked out at the burnt-orange smoked-filled sky of the San Francisco Bay Area—somewhere at the intersection of horrified, angry, and terrified. What should I do now?

Melancholia

I recently watched a film that I do not recommend to anyone susceptible to feelings of depression or despair. Spoiler alert!  This movie examines the human response to humanity’s inevitable demise as a rogue planet collides with and obliterates Earth. That was the end. There was nothing anyone could possibly do to prevent the inevitable Newtonian fate. This movie makes me think—which problems can we take on, and which problems are just too big for humanity?

Shared Common Problem

Nothing bonds a group together like a common problem, a common enemy so to speak.  The more dangerous the enemy, the more likely people will band together to protect themselves from that enemy.  Identifying the common problem is the first step in problem solving.  In Teamwork 9.0, I take the reader through a story of a medieval village beset with fire-breathing dragons. The dragons served as the common enemy that brought everyone together.  In my wildest imagination, I had no idea that a freak summer lightning storm with 14,000 lightning strikes (the dragons) would ignite our landscapes filling the skies with smoke and creating an ominous, dark-orange hue in the middle of the day, just as depicted in the book’s illustration. Now the fires and smoke have spread to the entire western United States. We certainly share that common problem.

While in the Bay Area we suffered toxic, acrid air, others have endured the loss of their home and some even loved ones. My heart sincerely goes out to all those who are suffering loss. Compounded by the threats of Covid-19, this moment is truly tragic.

Root Cause Analysis

A group of blindfolded people in a room are experiencing a variety of problems.  One person complains that it stinks.  Another is getting dripping wet.  Yet another groans that they are being crushed against a wall.  They take off their blindfolds and realize that there is only one problem—that there’s an elephant in the room.

Climate Change

In California we see a fire season that now starts in January and ends in December; record-breaking heat; rolling blackouts; a mass migration of beetles that have decimated forests turning them into a tinderbox; a freak summer electrical storm with 14,000 lightning strikes; and thousands of newly-displaced citizens.  Further out we find hurricane-velocity “derecho winds” that decimated Iowa’s corn crop; frequent “blue sky flooding” in low-lying coastal regions; 5 tropical storms hurling towards the East Coast at the same time; and, the earliest ever R-named storm (Rene) during hurricane season. Even further out, we find wide-spread bleaching of coral reefs and a staggering 68%(!) of wildlife species gone extinct since 1970.

Climate change is the elephant in the room.

100 Seconds to Midnight

On January 23, 2020, Doomsday Clock keepers, Science and Security Board Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, moved the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight than it has ever been, releasing this statement:

Humanity continues to face two simultaneous existential dangers—nuclear war and climate change—that are compounded by a threat multiplier, cyber-enabled information warfare, that undercuts society’s ability to respond.

Race Against the Clock

In a conversation with a conservative friend, I questioned him on global warming and climate change.  After we worked through various layers of his belief system, he finally admitted that even if climate change were real, he would not trust the government to respond. This friend does not live in California, has not experienced what we here in the Bay Area are experiencing, and has not yet felt any adverse effects of global warming.  Curiously, this same friend is fine with a government response when our nation is posed with a national security threat, a threat that he feels but understands he is unable to address individually.  His ability to have faith in the government to address national security threats on his behalf gives me hope that he will come around to a governmental response once global warming threatens him and his family directly.

The question is not IF we will all feel the threats posed by global warming but WHEN we will feel them. Once we feel that threat, we will demand a response from our government, local, state, or national. When enough of us feel that threat, it will serve as a tipping point; the point at which we demand concerted action and a proportional response.

Meanwhile, global warming proceeds unabated with its own set of cascading tipping points:  methane releases from thawing tundra, dramatically reduced reflection of solar heat in the polar regions, and Manhattan-sized ancient ice sheaving off of Greenland and Antarctica.    Will humanity reach our tipping point to action before global warming’s cascade of tipping points puts our ability to respond effectively out of reach?

How do we want this movie to end?  How will we respond? Like with the planet Melancholia, global warming’s path is predicted by science.  While the global warming movie will play out over the course of the next few decades, centuries and millennia, the movie has already started, and we humans are the screenwriters with about 10 years left to finish the script.  When blue skies return will we ignore our responsibility and forget what happened, or will we take action to ward off future catastrophes?

How will your part of the script read?

Introduction to the Enneagram

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The team effectiveness concepts that I share in Teamwork 9.0 are based on a system called the Enneagram.  In this video, I share an overview of the nine Enneagram dynamics and give you a peak under the hood of the underlying mechanisms that drive motivations and behaviors of the nine Enneagram types. Understanding your own Enneagram type is the first step for leaders to better access all Enneagram types depending on circumstances. Which Enneagram types resonate with you?

Transcript

Hi, and thanks for joining me today. Today, I’m going to give you a brief overview of the Enneagram. My book, Teamwork 9.0 is based on a system called the Enneagram, and today, I want to give you a brief overview of that system. How did I get into this? I was trained as an engineer, and about 10 years into my engineering career, my boss came to me and said, “Matt, I would like you to lead a team.”

I’m like, “Well, why do you want me to lead a team? I know nothing about leading teams.” He said, “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.” Well, I wasn’t fine, I was worried, and so what I did was I just went to school, went back to school and got my hands on every book on leadership, and teams, and management that I can get my hands on and started reading.

It was along that way that I discovered this thing called the Enneagram. Now, by the time I came across the Enneagram, I’d already been exposed to some other systems like Myers-Briggs and DISC among others, and so my first impression is, “Oh, here’s another personality system. Interesting, has nine instead of 16 or four types, but yeah, okay.” As I got into it, I became more fascinated with it. One thing that the Enneagram had that the other systems didn’t was really spoke to motion, and time, and how things evolve over time, and the Enneagram describes kind of how things can progress over time.

As an engineer, thinking about how things progress over time all the time is, I found that aspect of it really fascinating. It drew me in and it led me to the discoveries that I present in my book, Teamwork 9.0. The book is available on Amazon so please find it there, and I would love it if you would leave a review on Amazon for me. It’s really important. Why do you want to learn the Enneagram? As a personality system, which is how I came to it, here are some of the fantastic things that I got out of it.

One, it gave me an understanding of myself better than anything I had encountered before. Really kind of gave me a look under the hood, really what makes me tick, and both on the good side and the bad side. It allowed me to understand and appreciate some of the behaviors that I might not have been so happy with, but it’s like, “Oh, now I understand why I do that,” and that’s okay. That’s just the way I am, and now, I have something, that I can put a name on it and I can work with it, and I can work to improve myself, and so this was so important, such a great aspect of the Enneagram. Once you’ve done that for yourself, it allows you to open up your perspective on others too, and be able to understand them, what makes them tick, and be able to accept their behaviors. It also allows you to adjust your style to better match theirs and get along with others.

Then, finally, and this is what I speak about in book, Teamwork 9.0, is really appreciates what each type brings to the party, especially when working together as teams, and it gives you the sense of the value of style diversity on teams. This is just a brief example of some of the great things that you can learn with the Enneagram. Before you listen further, you may want to take an Enneagram quiz. I have a quiz that you’re welcome to use. It’s at www.EnneaSurvey.com, and that’s E-N-N-E-ASurvey.com, and you’ll find that when you take these quizzes, that you may score highly on two or three types, and I find that it’s good to use these results in a process of elimination, so you focus on the top highly scoring types, and then as you listen to this talk or you read about the types, then you can start to understand which of those types may be your core underlying type.

First time I took the quiz, I scored highly as a Type 8. I was in an environment where that’s how we had to behave, as Type 8’s, but later, I came to understand that I’m actually a Type 6, so you may not score the highest, even on your core type the first time you take this. It’s a process to really figure out what your type is. All right. Again, the Enneagram is commonly known as a personality system.

It describes these nine personality types. The Enneagram has been around for … of years, and it really is much more than a personality system, but it was kind of brought into the West as a personality system by a fellow named Oscar Ichazo in the ’50s. He developed these personality dynamics, and then that was furthered by others in the ’60s and ’70s, and it became the popular personality system that it is today. Now, I’m finding with YouTube that there’s so much great content on Enneagram and describing the Enneagram behaviors, so definitely search around for Enneagram on YouTube, and you’ll find some great, great videos to look at. Once you start to understand the Enneagram, you’ll see it everywhere.

One of the places that I saw it was in The Wizard of Oz. Wizard of Oz talks about these three types. There’s the Lion who wants guts, and the Tin Man, he wants a heart, and the Scarecrow, he wants a brain, and the three centers of the Enneagram are the gut types, the heart types, and the head types. The Enneagram looks like this with these three centers, so the 8, the 9, and the 1 are the gut center, and they, more than anybody really intuit things. The underlying issue for this group is anger. Then, for the heart folks, they’re feeling things, and the underlying issue is emotions.

For the head types, they’re thinking about things, and the underlying issue for them is anxiety. We’ll go through each of these now, and I’ll point out that when we’re in our calm state, it gets hard to distinguish the dynamics of the different types. We reveal ourselves more in our stressed state, so as I go through these, I will be talking about the stressed state, as well as the calm state because it’s where a lot of the behaviors are exposed that will really reveal the type. Now, for the gut types, again, there’s the three types, and an underlying issue is anger, and for each of these three, there’s an external expression of anger, an internal expression of anger, and then a suppressed expression, okay, and so we’ll go through each one of these. For the 8, again, the issue is anger, and they’re the external anger type.

This is the type that is actually most comfortable, showing and using anger. What’s going on is the 8 wants to secure and keep secure their control of their environment, and anger is their go-to tool for securing control. As they feel like they’re losing control, then the anger starts to come out, so if you’re ever in a meeting and somebody starts to raise their voice and maybe pound on the table, that is an expression of that 8 dynamic coming out, and that person is using anger to keep control of the situation, keep control of the environment. A great way to get along with 8’s is to get to the point quickly. 8’s, more than any other type, they want to get to action.

They don’t want to think about things. They don’t want to feel things. Remember, they’re in that intuitive group. In fact, they’ve probably already intuited what to do, so they just want to go and do it. They don’t want to talk about it, so if you do need to talk, get to the point so that they can get to action.

That gives you a flavor of that external anger Type 8. Now, let’s go on to the internal anger Type 1. Now, all that anger that you saw with the 8, now imagine, all of that focused in at themselves, and that comes out as this angry critical voice in their head saying, “You know that’s not right. You know you could be doing better. You know you could be working harder.”

That voice is the constant companion of the Type 1, and that voice is informed by the 1’s intuition. It’s telling them what’s right and what’s wrong. 1’s often use the word should. “It shouldn’t be this way, it should be this way.” Right?

That’s that voice of that critical, angry voice in their head that’s informed by that intuition. The Type 1 may not identify with anger, but they will identify with frustration, so that’s that frustration of not being able to get it right, and that’s the way they’re feeling that anger, that internal anger coming out as frustration. It’s important to know that the 1’s are highly self-critical. That voice is criticizing them all the time. In fact, any criticism that you may think of laying on the 1, they’ve already criticized themselves 10 times more.

In fact, by criticizing them, it just increases their frustration level, and will often be counterproductive to whatever you’re trying to accomplish, so it’s best to just avoid criticizing the 1. All right, let’s move on now to the suppressed anger type. For the suppressed anger, the 9 wants to eliminate anger from the environment, so they’re constantly thinking about, “How can I make sure there’s no anger?,” and that’s why they’re often called the peacemaker, because that’s their focus. They have this intense focus on understanding other people’s perspectives so that they can arrange things in a way that will minimize conflict in the environment. Now, if you ask a Type 9, “Where do you want to go for lunch?,” the Type 9 will respond, “I don’t know. Where would you like to go for lunch?”

“Oh, no, no. I picked last time. You pick this time.” “Yeah, you know, I can’t really make up my mind. Why don’t you tell me?” The 9’s don’t want to express their own opinion.

Why? Because if they express an opinion, it may cause conflict, so it’s much better for them to let other people make the decision, and in fact, they’ll even work as a mediator to find the best solution for everybody who’s going to lunch so that it minimizes conflicts for everybody. Doing all this work of thinking about people’s perspectives and all of this all the time, it’s exhausting, so the best thing for the 9 to escape all of that is sleep. There’s no conflict in sleep. 9’s love to sleep, and so you’ll find that 9’s, in order to avoid conflict, they may tend towards finding ways to just sleep more.

All right. Those are the three anger types. Now, let’s move over to the heart, feeling and emotion types. Again, external expression, internal expression, suppressed expression, and the issue here is the emotions. The Type 2 wants to have an emotional connection with you, and the way that they do this is they are thinking what you need and that, “I will deliver that, and when I deliver that, I am going to get your appreciation, and that appreciation is proof that I made that emotional connection with you.”

That’s why the 2 is often called the helper, because they’re always finding ways to help people. That appreciation that they get from people, it’s like oxygen. That’s why they’re constantly looking for ways to help people so they can get that constant supply of oxygen back. Because of this desire to have this emotional connection with people, this type more than most any other type wants to be around other people. Now, if you ask the 2, “Do you ever need alone time?”

“Do you ever need downtime?,” 2 will say, “Oh, yeah. Absolutely,” and you ask them, “When was the last time you had some downtime?,” “Oh, well, yeah. You know, the other day, I just went out and I just took 30 minutes for myself,” so for the Type 2, 30 minutes without other people, that feels like a long time, and so for most other types, we can be without people for a long, much longer periods, but since 2’s want to have that connection, even 30 minutes can seem like a long time. With 2’s that live alone, what I’ve found is that they’ll often have a pet or some creature to bond with at home because they want to keep having that emotional connection. All right, so that’s the 2.

Now, we go over to the internal emotion Type 4, okay? Now, all of those feelings and emotions are roiling around inside of them, and if you ask a 4, “How are you feeling?,” the 4 is going to look at you and say, “I’m feeling fine,” but what they’re thinking is, “What a stupid question? How can I tell you how I’m feeling when I’m feeling the light against the wall and feeling the color of the slide, I’m feeling the audio echo in the room, that I’m feeling all this stuff, but if I told you that, you’d probably think I’m crazy, so I’m just going to tell you, I’m fine.” That’s kind of the world of the 4. They have the ability to sense the emotional content of anything.

I was watching a film, is a biographical film of a New Zealand author, Janet Frame, and one of the scenes in that movie is she’s standing at the chalkboard and she’s just looking intensely at this piece of chalk, just so intensely, and she was just feeling everything about that piece of chalk, and that really illustrated the 4. The other thing about the 4’s is that they have the ability to put themselves into other people’s emotional shoes. Now, we talked about the 9. The 9 can put themselves into others’ shoes to get their perspectives for the sake of minimizing conflict, so they know what’s going to … Intuitively, they’re going to know what minimizes conflict. Okay.

Different from that, the 4’s can put themselves … people’s emotional shoes, and they can know what other people are feeling. Often, they know what people are feeling more than … The 4’s know better than the person themselves, and there was this, another scene in this film where the actress playing Janet Frame, she comes back to house after her father had passed away, and there are her father’s shoes on the floor. She walks over to the shoes, she steps in the shoes, and then she just becomes her father, just starts being her father. That so illustrated the 4’s ability to put themselves into other people’s emotional shoes, and they also have the ability to communicate in a highly, emotionally impactful way, and that’s why they often becomes writers, or poets, or musicians, even chefs and cooks.

They’re communicating, painting in an emotionally impactful way. What they want out of that is to get acknowledgement for their unique perspective. That’s one of the things that satisfies the 4’s, when they know that they’ve communicated in a way, especially if they’ve communicated in a way where it leaves you speechless, you’re just feeling, just feeling what they made, and you don’t have any words for it, that’s when the 4 knows they’ve communicated successfully with you and they have essentially put you into the 4’s shoes. All right. That’s the internal emotional 4.

Now, we get to suppressed emotion. Okay, so the 3’s more than anything want success, success above everything, success above feelings. They tend to suppress feelings. They don’t come into play. They don’t come into the equation, so when they’re working, they’re working, they’re not feeling and they’re not thinking about feelings, they’re just focused on that success, and that’s why they’re often called the achiever.

The 3 appearances are really important, and so you’ve heard that phrase, “Dress for success”? That’s the 3. They’re going to dress for success, they’re going to come out, and they’re going to look successful, and the other phrase that comes to mind is, “Fake it till you make it,” because even if they’re not successful yet, they’re going to look successful. Just because they’re faking it until they make it doesn’t mean that they’re not working extremely hard. 3’s are one of the hardest working types, and they’re going to …

They have the ability to make time because if they need to stay up all night to finish something, they will stay up all night to finish something, so this is the mission and the purpose of the 3. Where they get into trouble though, is if they’re working on a team and they have a deadline coming up and everybody’s working hard, and then somebody says, “My kid just got sick. I need to go home. I need to take them to the hospital,” and the 3’s like, “Really? We have the deadline coming up.”

The 3’s don’t think about how that person’s feeling. It just doesn’t even come into the equation, right? They’re just thinking about that success, and so at the end of the project, after it’s all done, the 3 is like, “Yay, we did it,” but everybody else is suffering from hurt feelings of what may have happened along the way, and they’re like, “Oh, we don’t feel like celebrating. Go away.” This is where the 3’s get challenge is because they’re not understanding how other people may be feeling because they’re not, that it’s just not a thing for them, and so it’s just something to watch out for the 3’s.

All right, so that is the heart group, and now we move to the head group, and it’s the thinking and anxiety, and again, we have external, internal, and suppressed, and this time it’s for anxiety. We’ll start with the external anxiety Type 7, right? Their anxiety comes when there is any negativity in the environment. That negativity in the environment causes their anxiety to go up, so they work hard to keep no negativity, but rather, just keep the environment light, fun, and happy, and so as long as everybody’s happy, then their anxiety goes down, especially if they’re happy with the 7, and so if the 7 can make everybody happy, then there’s no anxiety. They tend to be fun, talkative, always thinking about the next fun thing to do, and that’s why they’re often called the adventurer.

If you’re ever in a situation where you need to process some negative feelings, better not to go to a 7 because the most that you’re going to get out of the 7 is, “Don’t worry. Be happy.” That’s about the extent of negativity that the 7 is comfortable with, is just telling you, “Just don’t feel that way,” and so on the other hand, if you want to have fun, then you definitely want to hang out with your 7 buddies because you’ll always be able to have a good, fun time with them. All right, next is the internal anxiety. Now, that anxiety’s inside and the way that Type 5 addresses the anxiety is if they collect resources that make them feel safe, the anxiety goes down, so what resources make them feel safe?

Money, that will make them feel safe, knowledge, information. Type 5’s tend to be on the quiet side. They’re just observing everything. They’re taking everything in, collecting information constantly, constantly. As they do this, their anxiety goes down.

Makes them feel safe, so for them, information is very valuable. It’s like gold. Now, if you need some information from the 5, then going to the 5 and asking for information, the 5 is was like, “Why should I give you my information?” For them, it’s like gold, and if you persist, they’re going to think about, “Okay. Well, what’s the minimum amount of information that I can give you to make you go away?”

They’ll give out that little bit, and then the person will go away, and then the 5 can go back and be by themselves collecting information. On the other hand, they love new information, so if you have some interesting, quirky information, you can share that with the 5, and the 5 is going to be, “Ooh, how interesting,” and they’ll want to hear more, and more, and more. That’s one way to build a relationship with the 5, is by sharing interesting, quirky information. All right. Next, we get to the suppressed anxiety, okay? I know this type very well because I am a 6, and for Type 6’s, we push our anxiety way deep down inside.

Sometimes you can feel it deep down in your gut. It’s like this little furnace down there, and that’s anxiety that Type 6’s commonly feel. The way we keep it pushed down is if we know what’s going to happen, then anxiety is minimized, so we’re always thinking about the future. “What if this happens? What if that happens?,” questioning, questioning.

That’s why Type 6 is often called the questioners because we’re asking, “What could happen? What could happen?,” and we develop these mental models as we run through our simulations of, “What is the most likely outcome?” As long as we go along as we predict, our anxiety goes down. It’s when things become unpredictable and chaotic, then that anxiety starts to rise up, and that can cause us to be a little on the abrupt side. It can cause us to become angry.

It can cause us to become frenetic as we work frantically to try to address whatever happened and whatever it is that’s causing our anxiety to be up. Then, as we work through that issue, our anxiety goes back down and we can make our life a little more predictable, so 6’s like routines. Oftentimes, parents of 6’s, what they will do to help their child minimize anxiety is if they’re going to do something new, take them the day before and walk them through this, “This is what’s going to happen. This is who you’re going to meet. These are the things you’re going to see,” and just let them see it all, ask all …

They have a lot of questions. Then, let them ask all their questions, so that way, the next day, as they’re going through it, there’s many, fewer surprises. 6’s don’t like surprises, and so if you can minimize the surprises and help meet expectations, then the anxiety goes down. Those briefly are the nine Enneagram dynamics, and we’re just scratching the surface here. Again, using the Enneagram as a personality system is just one aspect of many ways that you can use the Enneagram, and so for instance, in my book, Teamwork 9.0, I talk about how to apply the Enneagram to problem solving.

You ask that question, “Why is the Enneagram numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9?” Well, that speaks to the way we solve problems. Fascinating stuff. “How can you use the Enneagram to grow as a leader?” The Enneagram speaks to that.

“How can you use the Enneagram to increase your creativity?” You can speak to that. “How can you use it to analyze team dynamics?” You can use it there. You can use it for rapport building, and you can use it for underlying motivations on your team members so that you can individualize how to motivate your team members to work towards the goal, so these are all really powerful ways that you can use the Enneagram with yourself and with teams.

Please do stay in touch. Lots of ways. You can go to my website, evolutionaryteams.com. You can find me on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, this YouTube channel, and also have a blog. I’d love if you could read some of the things I’m writing and leave comments there. Thank you so much for listening to this talk, overview of the Enneagram, and I look forward to our next conversation.

 

 

How to Hire the Right Person

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In this video segment, I share how you can use the Enneagram to find the “Superhighway” that enables team members to excel in their role.   Grateful to Mari-Lyn Harris and Heart@Work (www.heartatworkonline.org) for the opportunity to share topics in my book Teamwork 9.0–Successful Workgroup Problem Solving Using the Enneagram on Mari-Lyn’s Impactful Legacy Podcast.

You can watch the entire interview here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsNRJlLETdw

 

Video Transcript

[Mari-Lyn Harris] I wonder if people would start to hire based  on their number. We’re looking for a person for this role in the company, gee we need a number 2 or we need a number 8.

[Matt Schlegel] You know, so when I was–this was a long time ago–when I first started studying this as a manager, and I read this book called “First, break all the rules,” a very popular management book,  and I’m like, “oh, this makes sense.” The rule essentially says that you find the right person for the role–that you don’t assume that anybody can be anything. A lot of us are told if you try hard enough, you can do anything you want–that you can be anything.  And this book essentially says no, that’s the rule you’ve got to break–that there really are people who are designed for to excel at certain things. And they call it in the book having a “superhighway” or a “bumpy country lane.” You’ll still get there, but it will just take you a lot longer. If you’re on a superhighway, you’ll get there very fast. So I read this book and I was like, “this is great.” This was before I knew about the Enneagram. What it didn’t answer, though, was how do I figure out who has that superhighway that will get you there the fastest,. And, once I understood the Enneagram that’s when I understood that it is a framework for understanding everybody’s superhighway, the thing that they are going to excel at. And that way, if you understand that, then you can put them in that role, they will do well, they will be happy, and you’ll just have a good fit.

[Mari-Lyn Harris]  For me I got to say, “oh I can start.” I’m very new at it of course but sometimes I can recognize their behavior and attune it to the Enneagram and what the number right be and now I have a book and I look at it and that’s how you can respond to that person and that’s why I’m becoming more and more of a big fan of it just because I can see how it improves the workplace communications, your relationships, whether you’re at work or you’re at home

[Matt Schlegel] Yes, absolutely. You illustrate a really good point is that certain types are drawn to certain roles.  You know, so Type 2s love to help people so they’re drawn to roles where they can continuously help people and so you’ll find them in service roles, nurses, teachers, things like that but even in organizations taking operational and service roles within the company because they are supporting and helping people all the time that’s what they love to do  and that’s what they feel comfortable with and they tend to migrate to those roles.  And that’s the other fascinating thing is that you’re seeing how certain types really can essentially thrive and allow themselves to contribute all of their natural gifts to the team when they’re put in the right role.

I am 2% Neanderthal

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The 23 and Me result that surprised me the most was my ancestry from 40,000 years ago. Testing positive for 281 Neanderthal variants out of 1,436, I am more Neanderthal than 56% of 23 and Me customers. What I learned next shattered everything I thought I knew about my ancient ancestor.

You Neanderthal

When I was kid growing up, calling someone a Neanderthal was not intended as flattery.  My belief about Neanderthals was that they were, well, stupid.  Clearly, Neanderthals did not survive because Homo sapiens outsmarted them, right?  Every school kid knew that, so it must be right—Right!?!

Not So Fast

It turns out that our schoolyard common sense may not have been correct.  Rutger Bregman in his book Humankind—A Hopeful History provides an alternate model.  Looking at the fossil record, Neanderthals had relatively bigger brains than Homo sapiens.  It’s likely that they were smarter than us.  They were also bigger than us.  So, if they were smarter and bigger, why isn’t the world populated with Neanderthals rather than Homo sapiens?

Lone Wolf

Bregman draws the analogy between wolves and domesticated dogs.  In general wolves are bigger and smarter than dogs, but there are many more dogs than wolves.  Why?  Because dogs are fun, kind and delightful, and we want them around.  Bregman makes the argument that Homo sapiens were the cuddly puppies of the hominid world, and Neanderthals probably liked having us around. They may have protected us.  And, according to my 23 and Me results they mated with us.  But that alone wouldn’t explain why there are so many of us and none of them.

Network Effect

Although Homo sapiens may not have been as smart as Neanderthals, Bregman asserts that we possess a capability that the Neanderthals did not—the ability to share information and learn from one another.  While those smart Neanderthal individuals were trying to figure out things for themselves, Homo sapiens were happy to let one person figure it out and learn from them how to do it.  They would pass that information along to others in a veritable verbal network.  Social media has turbocharged our ability to share our thoughts.  Now, a single individual has the capability to share with millions (perhaps billions) of others. This trait that distinguished Homo sapiens from Neanderthals is as prevalent and important today as it was 40,000 years ago.

Gullible Puppies

While we Homo sapiens may be highly capable of accessing information from one another, we aren’t always good at discerning the information’s truth.  Our critical thinking skills may be compromised for the sake of us all going along to get along. Apparently, lacking the ability to consistently discern truth did not impede Homo sapiens ability to procreate and populate.  The Neanderthals may simply have been overwhelmed by their kind and talkative hominid pets.  Homo sapiens succeeded Neanderthals and spread themselves and their information – both truths and untruths – to every corner of the planet.

Not Invented Here

Once the wheel was invented, humans shared that information widely—no need to reinvent it, right? And yet we so often do just that.  Sometimes that tendency leads us to discovery and innovation. Sometimes it prevents us from accessing pre-existing solutions that would easily solve our problems. I must admit, I do love puzzling things out.  Sometimes I would rather figure something out for myself rather than research and learn from someone else.  When I feel that way, maybe it’s one of those 281 Neanderthal variants guiding me.  On the other hand, it has become exceedingly easy to access information online.  My phone is rarely out of reach and a quick search often leads me to an answer. Whether that answer is correct or not… Well, that’s a different story.  I wonder what my intelligent Neanderthal ancestors would think about my “smart” phone habits.

How do you balance your time between researching existing knowledge and attempting to invent on your own?  How do you determine the truthfulness of information you access, especially information that appears to be “common sense”?  What have been your epiphanies, the ones that have led you to change your perception of the world?

Teamwork 9.0 Book Talk for Provisors

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In this Teamwork 9.0 book talk,  I provide an overview of the book and some of the back story that led me to the discoveries about teamwork that I share in the book.  I recorded this prior to a talk I gave to my Provisors group.

I am very grateful to the support I have received over the years from the amazing group of Provisors professionals.  Writing a book is truly a team effort and my Provisors group was there for me on this journey.  Prior to publishing, I deliberately had someone of each Enneagram type review the book. From my Provisors group, Adrian Bray reviewed the book from the Type 2 perspective and Stephen Dobrow from the Type 8 perspective.  Thanks to them, to the those from my group who attended the book talk, and to everyone who is supporting me on my Teamwork 9.0 journey.

Transcript

Hello, and thank you so much for having me speak with you today. I really appreciate it. And I’m so glad to be speaking with all of my ProVisor friends. First like to do a couple of thank you’s. Making this book was a real team effort for me. And I really tried to embrace a lot of the concepts that I talk about in the book in terms of including a lot of different perspectives. And in the review process of the book, I actually intentionally had one of every Enneagram type review the book and a couple of the reviewers are actually members of our ProVisor group. And so I’d like to give a big thank you to Adrian Bray, who reviewed the book from the type two perspective and also Stephen Dobro who reviewed the book from the type eight perspective.

And I also just want to thank Steven, especially when I gave him the book. He actually made a version of the book and printed it on a T-shirt. So this is the T-shirt that he made for me. And this is actually the book printed on a T-shirt. So if you want the book in the T-shirt format definitely talk to Steven about that because he may be able to get those for you.

Today I just wanted to give you a taste for what’s in the book and then what got me to this. And as many of you know, I started off my career as an engineer, so I was trained to lead electrons, not people. And so about 10 years into my career, my boss came to me and said, “Matt, we want you to become a manager.” And I’m, “Why do you want me to become a manager? I don’t know anything about leading people, I only know about leading electrons.” And he said, don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Well, knowing me, and I’m a type six, I wasn’t fine. I was worried. And like any engineer I took to studying the problem, I got my hands on every single book on leadership and management and teams that I can get my hands on and read those.

And as I was going through that, one of the things that I came across along the way was this thing called the Enneagram. And I’d been exposed by the time I got to the Enneagram, I’d been exposed to a few other systems like Myers-Briggs and Disc. And one of the things that intrigued me about this system was this concept of time. There was an element of time built into it. And because of that, and the fact that it wasn’t a static system, it really appealed to me and got me more curious and got me on this path of exploring it. And no matter how much I tried to take it apart and put it back together, it really held up. And that’s what compelled me to end up writing the book. I discovered some novel ways to use it and that weren’t being talked about that had to do with that element of time in the system.

And so that’s what I wrote teamwork about. So let me just explain a little bit about the Enneagram. So I think many people know of it as a personality system and that’s how most of us are introduced to it. What I learned though, is that it’s actually a lot more than just a personality system, but you know, most people are introduced to it as these nine different personality types. And you could see in the middle, there are these lines and those are called the paths of integration and disintegration. And this is one of the things that really fascinated me about this system, because it does speak to this element of how we change over time, depending on our maturity level and our security level. So as we evolve, we become more integrated, but as we enter into times of stress and insecurity, we can become disintegrated.

And each type is connected to these lines, two different lines. One that goes for a six, one goes to the nine in integration and the other goes to the three in disintegration. And so this non-static way of looking at people, I think really spoke to me and spoke to this sense of, well, I’m not just one person. I behave differently in different situations and the Enneagram really speaks well to that. Well, there’s another element of time that fascinated me. And that was the element of time around the circle in the clockwise direction. And I came to this by asking a question, why are they numbers? Why are they these types numbers rather than colors or animals or something like that. And why are they then in this particular order, why is the one, the one, the two, the two and not, couldn’t the seven be the two or the six be the eight, or, and it turned out as I studied this, that they are numbers because they are in a particular order.

And it’s the order in which humans solve problems. And that was the big discovery for me that got me on the path of really wanting to use the system more with teams and using the Enneagram as a problem solving method with teams and that worked so well that I was [inaudible 00:06:59] to write the book. And so… As I’ve develop this method, I’ve had the opportunity to explain it and I’ve created this story essentially about a Medieval village that is beset by these fire-breathing dragons. And the story talks about the different steps that the villagers go through to solve the problem. And when I first did this storyboard in the nine steps, I had the villagers actually killing the dragon to solve the problem. However, one time I was invited to speak with a group of students at San Francisco State University.

And the theme for their year long course was non violent activism and social policy. And I was like, thinking, well, I probably don’t want to do have the villagers killing the dragon. Maybe there’s a nonviolent way to solve this problem. And so I changed the story for this group, and I ended up having the villagers learn to live along with the dragons and actually learn to fly them. And when I was young, I read The Dragonriders of Pern, so I thought that was a nice little twist to it, but that storyline came out of that, having to present these ideas to that particular group of students, and so this was kind of the big idea in the book that I really wanted to share with the world is this idea that, yes, the Enneagram is a fantastic way of looking at different interpersonal dynamics and with the nine personality dynamics that the Enneagram talks about, but you can also overlay those nine dynamics onto a problem solving process.

And once you do that, then you say, wow, you have a personality dynamic that is perfectly suited for a step in problem solving. So, what does that make possible? What can you do with that? And so, one of the things that comes out of this is this concept of shared leadership, right? Because as your team is working through problem solving, depending on the step you’re in, there will be a dynamic that is a really great at that particular step. So why not let that dynamic really come out and flourish in that step and allow them to essentially take the leadership role in while you’re engaged in that particular step in problem solving. So you get this concept of passing the baton through your teammates, as you move around the different steps in problem solving. And another question that I get is, “Well, I don’t have a team that has all nine types.” Our team has five people on them and two of them are those darn sixes. So, we really don’t have all those types represented.”

And so that the Enneagram actually provides an answer for that as well. And I talk about that in terms of your personal path of growth, because as you grow and go on this, your personal path of growth, you’re able to not only access the types that are on that path of growth represented in any ground by your path of integration. So for instance, for the six, the path of integration is towards the nine. So as I become more secure, then I’m able to more able access the dynamics of type nine. But as you master your ability to kind of live in that area, along your path of growth.

So for me, it would be like living in that nine space. What I found is that allows me to access all the other types. So you’re able to better and better access all the types as you are as you grow. And so that’s what I talk about in the book is each type’s personal path of growth and then how they’re able to access those. Now, there’s going to be more or less ease of access to the other types, depending on your type, some types are going to be harder than others. For instance, for the six, I find the seven dynamic particularly hard to access though when I’m in nine, I’ve easier time accessing it, but it’s still hard. And so, if I really need to do a seven activity, then I want to partner with somebody who’s a seven.

And so it talks about making sure, we appreciate all these others or dynamics and then pull in help when we need it. You know that’s, that’s the thing. And the other thing is that if you don’t… if you have a team that doesn’t have all the types represented, well, if you’re using a problem solving framework and you know, we will need to go through these nine steps, we don’t want to skip the steps because we skip the steps, we’re going to have a problem. We don’t want to spend too much time in any one step, because then we’re going to have a problem and slow down, but we’ll go through each of the steps. And as you go through the steps, you will force yourself to be in that, that space at least for a while, so that you’re not skipping it. And that’s the other nice thing about using a problem solving framework as you work through problem solving.

Well, so now we’ve talked a lot about the path of integration, but what about the path of disintegration? What does that give you in problem solving? And so I talk about that in my chapter on creativity. And you can use this idea of moving along your path of disintegration as kind of a creative engine for driving innovation. So what does that mean? Well, you’ve heard of that phrase. “Mother is,”… excuse me. “Necessity is the mother of invention.” So, necessity essentially is putting you in your insecure state, right? So you’re moving along your path of disintegration into insecurity.

And that is putting you into a state where you’re starting to look out for how to resolve whatever issue is putting you into that state. And then as you start to make progress on that, you move back along your path of, towards integration. And then, and you have this kind of oscillating motion back and forth between integration and disintegration that drives that creativity in each of the types. And each Enneagram type has a distinct creative characteristic or creative energy that is important at each one of those steps in problem solving. And so that’s what I talk about in the relationship between creativity and problem solving and how the Enneagram can help us understand those different dynamics.

Another really interesting thing that came out of thinking about the relationship between Enneagram and teams is how each Enneagram type thinks about time and their perspective on time and the thing that got me thinking about this is when I was having conversations with say Enneagram type two, I would find that the conversations tended towards more reminiscing. They’d be talking about these feeling rich experiences that they had with friends like camping trips or fishing trips, or something where they were with friends and having a good time. And then they were kind of reminiscing about those feelings that they had. And I just thought, wow, these conversations are so different. And the conversations that I have with my type six friends, which are more about the future and thinking about all the different things that could happen and doing scenario planning and just thinking about the future.

And, then I started thinking, wow, each type, based on their focus has a different place along that mental energy timeline. That’s what I ended up calling it, some in the past, some in the future and some right in the middle and those are right in the present. And so then I actually plotted that out through problem solving saying, “Okay, well, you start off, referencing the past and thinking about, Hey, this thing here, doesn’t jive with what my model of what is right and wrong is,” and then how you move through time and go back and forth between the future and the past, through the present to get to some point in the future where your problem is solved and how those varying perspectives bring the team along with you on that journey, forward in time, but actually thinking about either the past or the future, or living in the moment as you’re solving the problem.

And so this, analyzing your teams or looking at your teams and how the, and their relationship with time also gives you a perspective on how they’re going to respond to problem solving. So I have a chapter on that as well. And then, one of the things that… since I’m an engineer I like to have some basis in science for what I’m working on. I like to know that there’s a scientific basis for it. And this is one of the things that the Enneagram when I was first introduced to it, I’m like, “Okay, this is an interesting system.” I use it more. “Hey, this seems to work. Hey, well, if it works this well, doesn’t that mean that there’s something about us humans that we’re wired this way that causes these nine types.”

And oftentimes people say, “Hey, are you forced to be your… Are you really your type? Or can you really be any type?” I mean, can we be multiple types? And the way I look at it is, “Hey, are you left-handed or right-handed?” “Well, I’m right-handed, so my dominant type, my dominant hand is right, but it, it doesn’t mean that I don’t have a left hand. I have a left hand, I can use my left hand and I exercise my left hand and I try to make it, you know, strong so that when I’m doing things, I can use both hands, but, you know, if I have to do some precision work, then I’m going to rely on my right hand to do that.” And so there’s a dominance, and I’ve come to think of the Enneagram types as also, you have your dominant type.

It doesn’t mean you don’t have access to those other types, but it just means that you have a dominant type and in the same way that our brain drives the dominance of right-hand and left-hand. I’ve come to understand that our brain drives the dominance of Enneagram types as well. And there is a great book called Personality in the Brain. And the author is Peter Savage. And he came up with a very elegant model that’s based on his research, studying the brain research in neurology literature, and looking at the behaviors of different brain types. And then coming up with a model that maps those to the Enneagram, very elegant, very simple model based on two parts of the brain, the Amygdala and the Pre-Frontal cortex. And just like, you can be right-handed or left-handed or ambidextrous, you could be right Amygdala dominant, left Amygdala dominant or Ambi.

And there’s three types there. Same thing for the Pre-Frontal cortex, three types there, three times three is nine. And so his model shows that those dominances drive the nine Enneagram behaviors. And that was very satisfying for me. And it really gave me another way to look at these different personality types. Now, not just from any aground point of view, but also a brain function point of view. And those two models are very, very consistent. And another thing that came out of looking at it from the point of view of brain, is that I find in the work place, there are certain groups of people that like to coalesced together and work together, right? And so in the workplace, I would often see like a type one, type four and type seven come together and work together in a team.

Also the two, the five and the eight, and also the three, the six and the nine. And the nice thing about all these types is that, that they all get along with one another, they all complement each other, and they all seem to want to work together. If you look at it from a brain point of view, it turns out that, in those dominances that I talked about, that all the dominances are complimentary. And in each one of these teams gives you essentially two balanced brains. And I thought that was fascinating. And it just provides another way to look at how these teams come together and work together and collaborate because they’re so complimentary.

I also do a chapter on, now that you have all of these tools, what happens on teams? You can start to look at it. So, if you have a team that is say has a lot of type eights on it, but doesn’t have, say a type six or type three, and it was lacking some of these other types, what does that team look like? Same thing with a lot of two or a one in a six. And so you can start to see these behaviors in the teams that are reflected by the constituents on the team. And then you start to see this relationship between those team styles and the sayings, like there’s a saying called “Fail fast,” right? Well, that’s the type eight, type eight wants to get the action, right?

There’s a problem. Come up with an idea, work to solve it. Oh, that doesn’t work. Try another idea. Oh, that doesn’t work. Try again and you iterate quickly to a solution, but you never stop. You never stop to think. You just act. And that’s that fail fast style is classic of a team that is really driven by eight energy. So I have a number of case studies of different types of teams that I’ve worked with. And then, you know, what happens on that team and again, all of these styles, if you deliberately go through the methodology one step at a time and not just jump ahead to say action, type step eight, but you deliberately go around, you’re going to end up with a lot better solution at the end, that will be more resilient, more reliable.

And then finally, I do a chapter on where I put all of these tools together. So for those of you who really like to dig in and understand how to analyze the team, if you know the Enneagram type of your team members, you can put it into these tables and then assess the proclivities of your team in terms of where are they going to do well, where they’re going to get stuck, where you’re going to need to kind of work them through the process so they don’t skip steps. Are they going to be future focused, past focused or present focused? And so you you’ll be able to see your team dynamics based on these tools, which is just something else that you can use as your guiding your team towards solutions. So that is the quick overview of the book. Thank you so much. Please get a copy of the book, leave a review on Amazon. I love you. And thank you.

 

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