Enneagram

How to Use the Enneagram to Create Marketing Narratives

November 22, 2022 by Matt Schlegel Leave a Comment

Matt Schlegel presents to an SBA T.H.R.I.V.E group of emerging leaders on how to use the Enneagram to create marketing narratives. Matt shares how to create a narrative for each Enneagram type, and then works with two leaders in the group to create specific narratives, one to market to Enneagram Type 4 clientele and the other to market to Enneagram Type 6 customers.

#leadership #Enneagram #marketing

[Video Transcript]

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Let me welcome Matt to the SBA Thrive group for entrepreneurship and all the CEOs of the group. Matt is going to talk to us about the nine market narratives for using the Enneagram to market your business. Is that correct? Right. Yeah, I’m pretty sure.

So anyway, I’m just going to introduce Matt Schlegel. I’ve known him for quite a while. I’m learning a lot through him through the Enneagram. He’s teaching me a lot, but anyway. So Matt, why don’t you just go ahead and get started. As the other people want to come in, I’ll just add them.

Matt Schlegel:

Sounds great. Thank you, Mari-Lyn for having me speak today. I’m delighted to be here. I appreciate the interest in your group for this powerful tool that I use called the Enneagram. This is a follow-up session to a previous session where we just talked about an overview of what the Enneagram is and how it can be used as a personality dynamic system to better understand yourself, better understand others on your team, better understand the interpersonal dynamics that occur. The Enneagram is a wonderful tool for that.

But, it can be used for so much more. One of the things that we’ll talk about today is how to construct a marketing narrative that will tune to specific Enneagram types. If you are knowledgeable about the type of person that you are marketing to, then you can craft a message that is specifically tuned for their Enneagram type that will really resonate with them, so it really becomes a very powerful communication tool as well. Each Enneagram type has specific things that they’re listening for and specific things that they’re motivated to do. In as much as we can craft a narrative designed to that, then it really makes a difference.

I will just jump ahead. Just a little bit about me. I have been using the Enneagram now for over 20 years. I started using it in the way that most people do with friends and family, found that it was very powerful. I introduced it to my team at work, and it proved to be a very effective communication tool there. Then, I asked this question, “Why are the Enneagram types numbers? Why not colors or letters or…” It turns out there is a reason why they are numbers. It’s because it describes the order of a process, and it turns out it’s the exact order… Those Enneagram dynamics are exactly in the order that they appear in human problem-solving, so I started using the Enneagram as a problem-solving system, and it works amazingly well as that as well.

It’s not a well known aspect of the Enneagram, which is why I ended up writing a book about that particular aspect, how to use the Enneagram as a problem-solving tool with your teams. This is my book, Is Teamwork 9.0. It’s available on Amazon. I encourage people who want to explore that side of the Enneagram to check it out.

Today we’re going to look at yet another aspect of the Enneagram as we dive into these lines that we see inside of the Enneagram. When we look about problem-solving in general, you can see it’s one through nine. But if you start with any specific point, say… Let’s start with seven. You can see that there’s these blue lines inside of the Enneagram that trace from seven to five to eight to two to four to one, and then back to seven. At an individual level, not necessarily as a team level, but as an individual level, that tends to be a trajectory that we will take as we work through individual problem-solving and as we construct narratives from our specific point of view.

That’s really what we’re going to talk about today, is how to construct a narrative out of these lines in the center. This is very good if you, say, understand that I’m going to be speaking to a group of sevens or I’m going to be speaking to a group of threes. In the broadest sense, if you don’t know what your target demographic looks like, then you probably want to stick with the one through nine narrative around the circle. But if you’re going to be marketing to a seven, then there is a better way to do it that will really resonate with the seven.

As you become familiar with the Enneagram, you will start to see that certain Enneagram types are drawn to certain roles. For instance, I find that at companies oftentimes a chief financial officer tends… There tend to be a lot of type ones in that role. Or if you’re a financial controller at a company, there tends to be a lot of type sixes and on, and on, and on. There’s specific types that are drawn to certain roles. If you know, “Hey, I’m marketing to CFOs at companies. I want to craft a narrative around that type one path of those lines in the middle,” so that’s kind of what the main idea is that we’re trying to do here.

Let’s start with the seven. If you look at those lines, it will start with the seven, then it will go to the five, then the eight, the two, the four, one, and back to seven. Now, we’ve talked about that seven personality dynamic. One of the main things that the seven wants is to keep things fun, and positive, and light. They tend to be friendly, talkative, charming. That’s the starting point. In crafting your narrative, you want to start with something that is fun and positive because that will catch their attention.

Then, the next step in that will be to go to the five. Sevens love information. They love to have their brains tickled, so you want to provide them with information. That’s in that Enneagram type five dynamic. Then, going from there, you want to show them how you can use this information to take action. That’s the type eight. Then, you want to show how that action that you’re taking is going to be very helpful, and that’s the type two dynamic. Then, you want to know from there how that helpfulness will let them stand out as being special or unique. That’s that type four dynamic. Then, it goes back to the type one where sevens really resonate with principles. So you can bring it back to the principle of why you did all of that, so you ground it in principles. That’s the type one dynamic. Then you bring it back to, “Wasn’t that fun? And we had so much fun doing it.”

You can see how just following those lines around you can create and craft a story that will really resonate with that type seven personality. Does that make sense, Mari-Lyn, when I describe it that way?

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Mm-hmm.

Daniel:

Yes. Thank you.

Matt Schlegel:

Awesome. Awesome. In this slide here, we deconstruct each one of those elements from that type seven point of view, so you’ll be able to refer back to this slide, but it’s essentially what I just described.

Then, as you move around, each one of these types has a different starting point. Now, the order when you’re looking at the blue lines connecting the seven, the five, the eight, the one, the four, two, it follows in the order of the direction of the arrows. It’s just the starting point is different for each type. When you start with the five, you want to lead with, “I’m going to provide you with lots of information.” Fives love that information. Then, you start there and then you follow it around through the eight, the two, the four, the one, the seven, and then back to the five. That is the way you craft a story with the fives.

Now, fives, engineers. They tend to be researchers. Anybody in academia will kind of fall into this five category. Whether they’re a type five or not, it’s kind of the world that they live in, researchers, that type of area. If you’re marketing to folks in that area, you want to use a five strategy.

Then, let’s go to the next, so eight. The eight strategy is starting with action. When you’re marketing to a type eight… And a lot of CEOs are type eights, very action oriented. You want to lead with, “We’re going to get stuff done here. We’re going to take action,” and then you go through the remaining steps of, “It will be very helpful. It will make you stand out. It’s really based in principles. It will be fun. It will be informative. And we’re going to get a lot done.” That’s how you build the narrative with the eight. But just remember to start with action with them.

With the two, this is starting with caring about other people and that being helpful. That’s how you resonate with the two, is you start off with appreciation, and kindness, and giving, and caring. Now, Mari-Lyn, I know you’re a type two, and so I know that this really would resonate with you. What do you think of this approach for the type two?

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Yeah, pretty close. Pretty close. But as you’re talking, too, I see myself in other roles, in other numbers, too, so [inaudible 00:15:18]. But, that’s true.

Matt Schlegel:

That’s exactly what this speaks to. This is one of the reasons why I love the Enneagram, is because we do move through all these dynamics in our… As we move through our lives and we move through our personal problem-solving, we are all cycling through these. That’s why crafting a narrative in this way will just really speak to each Enneagram type, and knowing that starting point is really helpful.

For twos, we know if you’re marketing to caregivers, lot of twos in caregiving. Actually, lots of different service roles, fire firefighters, police, the military, a lot of twos are drawn to those types of service roles. So when you’re marketing to an organization that is really based in providing services to their customers or their community, you can use this two narrative because it will really speak to them.

All right. So, same thing. I think you get the idea with the four. You want to start off with the uniqueness and the emotional impact that you’ll have. Then with the one, I mentioned before, a lot of CFOs in the one category, so you want to start off with precision, and accuracy, and competency, and principles. These are things that resonate with type ones, like it will resonate with CFOs because that’s kind of their world.

That kind of gives you a way of crafting messages for all of the Enneagram types that are connected by these blue lines, because you can see they’re all interconnected. But now let’s go over to the red lines. This is the triangle, the three, the six, and the nine. The same idea will happen here. When you’re going to start with the three, you want to start off with a success narrative. Threes are drawn to success. They want success, so they want to see how whatever you’re presenting is going to be successful. So you lead there, and then you move to the six dynamic, which is predictable. You want to have something that’s essentially a system for continuous success.

Then, after that, you move to the nine dynamic and show how this success will end up creating harmony within the community that the three is working with so that success will reflect well on them. You don’t want conflict or discord where… The three would be very sensitive to things not going well, so you want to show how whatever you’re presenting is going to be very harmonious. Then you come back to that success. You can see how if you are a three, these are the points that are going to be really important to the three, which is why it makes it such a powerful narrative when you’re marketing to threes. All right?

Now you get to the six. Again, we’re just now sticking to that triangle in the middle, and we’re… Sixes are looking for consistency, for low risk. They want it well thought out, all these things, so with an eye towards predictability. You lead with that, and then you show how the community will embrace that system, that predictableness, and allow things to continue on in a predictable, non-chaotic way. Then you show how all of this leads to successful outcomes. Then, you finally draw back to that predictableness. This is the narrative that would work really well with the six.

Then, the nine is leading with the harmoniousness. You remember nines, they want to minimize conflict in the community, and they want to make sure that everybody’s perspectives are taken into account. You lead with that part of your narrative of how everybody is going to feel really good about this solution, and then you go to the success. It will lead to success, it will be predictable, and it’s very harmonious. Everybody will love it. That’s the narrative that you want to construct for the type nine.

That gives you a brief overview of how to think about narratives for each one of the Enneagram types. Then again, if you don’t know, or it’s early on, or you’re working with somebody new that you haven’t met and you don’t know their Enneagram type, then you can fall back on the generalized form of the narrative, which is to simply follow the numbers from one to nine. You can use essentially a problem-solving narrative, a generalized problem-solving narrative when you’re constructing that because everybody will resonate with that. You start off with the problem and the goal. You show what stakeholders are impacted and who will care about that problem and that goal. You’ll want to show all the great ideas for success, so that’s step three. You want to show how you’ve taken into account any emotional feedback from those ideas and how you’ve vetted the most positive ideas with the community.

Now you move over to five, which is where you analyze the ideas, so you want to show how the idea that you’re presenting has been validated and will be effective. You move then to six, and you want to show how you have a plan in place to implement the idea. Then, essentially, in a marketing narrative, you’re working on steps one through six, and then your action is the seven. You’re promoting this plan to get something done, and you want to get your buy-off from your clients or customers, and then you want to act on the plan, and that’s step eight. Then, you want to make sure that the solution was effective for your customer or clients, and that’s nine. You could see how you can essentially follow this generic marketing narrative one through nine just around the circle. Those are the different ways to construct a marketing narrative using the Enneagram just really, really briefly. I hope you enjoyed that, and love to hear your thoughts on it.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Thank you. Actually, I think after your presentation, I actually learned a little bit more about the other numbers. It was like, “Oh, okay.” That was very good. Thank you.

Matt Schlegel:

You’re very welcome.

Daniel:

When you’re engaging in this process, what’s the timeline between one through nine? How much time are you putting into it?

Matt Schlegel:

It really depends on the situation. In the case where you are presenting to a customer or a client or a prospective client, you can construct this narrative and lay it out in 30 minutes. That means you’ll have had to do all of that work beforehand to validate the ideas and all that. But when you’re laying it out, you can just lay it out very sequentially. If you’re actually working with teams to solve a problem, that’s a different thing. Does that answer your question? Do you want to talk about team problem-solving or just using it as a marketing narrative?

Daniel:

No, the marketing narrative, I mean, that’s really what I’m keying off of, and that makes sense. I appreciate the clarity. Thank you.

Katie:

Thank you so much for that information. I own a dance studio, and this week I wanted to roll out a couple key things for… Not necessarily Black Friday special, but it is a special. I wanted to target people who had taken first lessons but never really continued, maybe because of price, because we are pretty pricey, or those people who had taken four lessons, which is the first layer, and never really continued. When you talked about doing a marketing narrative that covers all across, that was super helpful.

In a sense of timeline, most of the marketing tactics are either email. Some of them are even texts. This is the first time I’m going to go through texts. I have to really shorten that into, I don’t know, four sentences with a visual. Anyways, that was super helpful to me. If you have any other tidbits on specials that’s happening, especially for the holidays, to just incentivize people to continue or purchase, that would be great.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. Well, I love that because I think that you probably have a sense of the type. How old? Are these junior high school level students or high school students, adults?

Katie:

Oh, these are adults.

Matt Schlegel:

They’re adults.

Katie:

Yeah, these are adults.

Matt Schlegel:

You might have a sense for the types of people who are coming to your class, are they mostly sevens or are they… I mean, that would probably be one group that you could construct the marketing narrative to. I would imagine that there might be some fours in there as well, just people who are very artistic and expressive and want to use different forms of emotional communication. You might have some fours in there as well. Do you have any sense of the types of Enneagram types that are your clients?

Katie:

Absolutely fours, people who appreciate music and connecting in a different sense, people who are… As of right now, I think most of the people who didn’t purchase maybe are a little bit more money… or budget focus. That’s why the incentives are there, like sweeter deal to start dancing, just so that they can try. Because sometimes it’s, unfortunately, you have to try it for at least… Not just four lessons just to get it in and really fall in love with it because you can only feel a progress over a little bit longer period of time. You do get a little bit of progress in a sense of one month, but imagine if they were there for three months or six months. They would feel a lot more progress, and they could see fuller the investment if they’re very short term like that thinking.

They want things quick and easy, right away. But if they could see just a little bit longer to be part of the community, to improve a little bit longer, longer sense of time, I think they would have a better idea and maybe be more lifelong students. That’s really my goal. I don’t want 100%. Maybe 80% lifelong students. No matter what, that dancing… Ballroom dancing is what I do.

Matt Schlegel:

Oh, okay.

Katie:

Ballroom dancing and partner dancing is going to be a part of their lives in a positive way. It just takes a little bit of time, like learning a language. You learn a language for, I don’t know, four lessons, and it doesn’t really impact you as much as you would in a consistent basis. It just takes a little bit of investment, and time, and money.

Matt Schlegel:

Let’s imagine that we’re marketing to a four or a group of fours. Some things about the fours that you’ll want to know are that they really want to be able to express themselves in emotionally impactful ways. That would be where you’d want to lead, is, “We’re going to give you the tools and the platform to be able to fully express this very beautiful and emotionally impactful dance.”

Then you might want to say, “We don’t want…” Now we move to one with the principles. “We don’t want cost to be a barrier to you having fun with this amazing form of dance, and so we want to give you…” Now I’m moving to five. “We want you to be able to have access to all the resources that we have that will help you achieve this,” and then you’re moving to eight, “and then be able to dance and fully express yourself.” That’s the action. “Then imagine as you grow how helpful that will be to your partner, and you’ll be helping each other.” That’s the two. Then you get back to four. “Then you and your partner will be able to create something beautiful and unique together.”

Katie:

I love that. Thank you.

Matt Schlegel:

Does that make sense?

Katie:

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Schlegel:

When you construct it that way that, you’re just following the way the four naturally thinks, and that story will like, “Oh, yeah. I want to do that.”

Katie:

That’s great. Super helpful. Thank you.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Hey, Kate. I don’t know about Matt, the promoter, would they be a customer too or not?

Matt Schlegel:

I think you’re talking about the seven.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Yeah.

Matt Schlegel:

I think you find sevens in any social community. Sevens are very social. They like being in community. The nice thing about the four narrative is that it does overlap with the seven narrative. It’s just the sevens will be leading with the fun as opposed to that uniqueness of their personal creative emotional expression. The fun is more important than the emotional expression. For the four, the emotional expression is more important. But you can see the narratives overlap, so the sevens can be drawn into that as well.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Cool. Daniel, did you have any questions far as marketing or…

Daniel:

No. Matt was able to answer the questions I had. I’m going to be working with this in our marketing department and see where we go from there. But if I have something else, I’ll reach out directly. Thank you.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Great.

Matt Schlegel:

Perfect. What kind of folks do you tend to market to, Daniel?

Daniel:

We run private security consulting firm, so we’re working with larger industries, production, and manufacturing. We do colleges and universities. We work with hoteliers, car dealerships, work with municipalities, and small government.

Matt Schlegel:

Nice. For that type of business, you are likely to be marketing to the type sixes for the most part. Because you can see one of the things that the six likes is to minimize risk. Essentially, that’s what you’re doing, You’re a risk minimization firm.

Daniel:

Absolutely.

Matt Schlegel:

You want to build, I would say, a narrative around you’re going to provide predictability, you’re going to create a harmonious environment for everybody that is conflict-free because you’re there to make sure there’s not conflict. You’re going to allow your customers to maximize their success, and you are going to just be that predictable service in the background that is making sure that they can achieve their success.

Daniel:

Matt, and I think you’re spot on, especially with the predictability part. What our clients love is knowing we’re there and not needing to talk to us. They don’t want to be bothered. If they know we’re there and we’re on the job, I mean, that’s a huge selling point for us. No, I think you’re spot on, man. This is good stuff.

Matt Schlegel:

Awesome. Awesome. I mean, it’s pretty remarkable once you know what you’re targeting how you can distill down that message that will really hit all of the main points.

Daniel:

I love it.

Matt Schlegel:

Well, great. I’m glad that I was able to share this and hopefully offer some tidbits of advice that will help you achieve your successes.

Daniel:

Matt, we can get ahold of you on LinkedIn?

Matt Schlegel:

Absolutely. I’m on LinkedIn. I’ll have my contact information on these slides. I’m happy to share those as well.

Daniel:

That’d be great.

Katie:

Thank you.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Hey, you’re welcome, guys. Well, thank you so much, Matt, for coming back on and going through your presentation. I certainly really enjoyed it. I learned a lot, too, but anyway.

Matt Schlegel:

I really appreciate the opportunity, Mari-Lyn. It’s always a pleasure.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Hey, you’re welcome.

Daniel:

Happy holidays, sir.

Matt Schlegel:

Yep. Happy holidays.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Happy holidays, everybody. In that ending, we’ll just maybe end the call, unless you have something else you’d like to say, Matt.

Matt Schlegel:

No. Again, it’s just been a real pleasure. I think we all can learn so much from the Enneagram and the different aspects of how you use it. It’s one of those tools that the deeper you go, the more you learn.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Yes.

Matt Schlegel:

I encourage people to explore it, and play with it, and learn, and grow with it.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Are you still doing your community Enneagram groups or-

Matt Schlegel:

I do. I have a monthly group that meets. We discuss different topics related to the Enneagram. Well, it’s not just beginning Enneagram. Most of the people who come to the program are very familiar with the Enneagram. We come up with these different applications, just like the one we went over today, how to apply the Enneagram to marketing. The one that we did this last month after the election was how does the Enneagram relate to politics. That was a very lively discussion.

We’re going to take a break in December, but we’re going to come back in January, and we’re going to talk about empathy and sympathy. Each Enneagram type has a different take on empathy and sympathy. I’ve come up with a model that goes over the different empathy and sympathy levels of each Enneagram type and put that into a framework that’s easy to understand. That, I think, will be really helpful.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Especially for a lot of workplaces or people that need the extra boost or how to cope.

Matt Schlegel:

Yes, yes. Type twos, I’ll say right now, Mari-Lyn, type twos are the most empathetic and the most sympathetic.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Yes. Yeah.

Matt Schlegel:

You’re firing on all cylinders there.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Yeah, yeah. Well, certainly for the type of work I’m doing right now, certainly need it.

Matt Schlegel:

Exactly. That’s why you’re drawn to the work that you do.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Great. Thank you, everybody, for showing up today. You will be able to get a recording of this call, because I did record it. I’ll send you out the links. Okay, everybody. Have a great day. I guess we’ll see you soon. Happy [inaudible 00:40:54].

Matt Schlegel:

See you guys soon. Thank you.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Have a great-

Katie:

Thanks so much.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

… happy Thanksgiving.

Matt Schlegel:

Thank you.

Mari-Lyn Harris:

Bye-bye.

Maya Steinberg — Enneagram Type 9 brings a Positive Outlook to Climate Leadership

September 27, 2022 by Matt Schlegel Leave a Comment

Maya Steinberg shares how her feelings of hope and optimism motivate her to action and leadership in the climate space. While it was feelings of sadness that first alerted her to the need for action, these feelings are not what keep her feeling empowered day-to-day. Though some climate leaders tap into anger for motivation, Enneagram Type 9s tend to minimize anger and lean into other feelings for motivation. As Climate Justice Development Manager at Hammond Climate Solutions, Maya manages the clean energy programs and supports the philanthropic efforts for her organization. Hammond Climate Solutions is on a mission to expedite positive change for a just and livable future for all. Maya is dedicated to ensuring that climate solutions are implemented in a just and equitable way. Maya is an excellent example of how Enneagram Type 9s become leaders in the climate space, and she share the feelings that motivate her.

Connect with Maya here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maya-steinberg-50ab951a8/PA

Learn about Hammond Climate Solutions here: https://www.hammondclimatesolutions.com/

#Leadership #Energy #climatechange #EmotionalIntelligence #EQ

[Transcript]

Matt Schlegel:

Thanks for joining me in conversations with leaders who are using their feelings as a leadership tool for both inspiration and motivation. Today I’m speaking with Maya Steinberg, a climate leader who brings a positive outlook to her work on the climate crisis. Maya shared that she is Enneagram Type 9. And listen closely to her emphasize the importance of staying positive and how she’s connected with feelings of sadness and anxiety, but keeps a focus on those positive feelings. And now for the conversation. Today, I’m joined by Maya Steinberg, Climate Justice Development Manager at Hammond Climate Solutions. Hammond Climate Solutions is on a mission to expedite positive change for adjust and livable future for all. Maya manages the clean energy programs and supports the philanthropic efforts for her organization. Maya is dedicated to ensuring that climate solutions are implemented in a just and equitable way. Maya, thank you so much for joining me today.

Maya Steinberg:

Thank you so much for having me.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, so great to have you, and I’m really looking forward to our conversation. And, what I’m really trying to do is understanding the underlying feelings that impassion people into their leadership and actions in the climate movement. And I wanted to just start off and ask you, how are you feeling now about climate change?

Maya Steinberg:

Well, I would say my feelings are honestly all over the place. Generally, I’m a very optimistic and positive person. I definitely value inner peace and harmony in my environment. But, when it comes to the climate crisis in particular, at times I’m hopeful, and optimistic, and strong. But, at other times, I feel discouraged and uncertain, just because, I mean, we all see the news. We all know rising sea levels and temperatures, rampant wildfires and droughts, among many, many other disasters. So, it’s hard to remain hopeful, but just being the optimistic person I am, I know that, that is the guiding light for me in terms of how I handle my thoughts on climate change as a whole.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. Yeah. And certainly, we need to find hope and optimism as we work through this. It’s so important. And I so appreciate you bringing that hopeful, positive, and optimistic energy to this. And one of the things I like to understand, because there’s usually a different starting point for people, and the big three are generally anger, some people start with anger, “Ugh. That just frustrates me.” Another one is just sadness. And, another one is anxiety. And, I know we all cycle through these, but would you characterize one of those as your starting point?

Maya Steinberg:

In terms of, what made me feel impassioned to make a difference?

Matt Schlegel:

Yes.

Maya Steinberg:

That’s a great question. Probably, sadness. When I look at the world around me… I grew up in Los Angeles, a major city, so I didn’t have real exposure to the natural environment. So, it wasn’t until I entered adulthood where I started camping, spending more time in nature. And, although I did go to an outdoor sports camp when I was younger. So, we would go into different creeks, and rivers, and lakes. So, I had that exposure to the natural environment. But just as I’ve gotten older, just becoming more aware and seeing my surroundings change, that has… And also, when you think about the impacts that climate justice has, the fact that marginalized communities are impacted first and worst, the fact that defenseless animals are having their habitats and ecosystems destroyed. I mean, I think that definitely instills the feeling of sadness. So, I think, for me, I try to use that as a motivating factor in terms of wanting to make a difference and make a change for the world.

Matt Schlegel:

Right. Right. So, just your compassion for the other life, that you’ve now experienced this. And you bring up such a good point, because so many people who grow up in an urban environment, they aren’t necessarily connected with nature. And so, it’s hard to appreciate what we’re losing, unless you’ve experienced nature at some point in your life.

Maya Steinberg:

Definitely.

Matt Schlegel:

For somebody who grew up in the South Pacific with beautiful, colorful coral reefs, and then seeing them turned bleached white, it’s just got to be devastating for them. But they have that close, personal connection with what’s going on, and oftentimes a lot of us are so busy leading a more urban life that we don’t see that happening. So, that is really such a good point. So, how now do you find that these feelings are influencing your behaviors and your direction as a leader?

Maya Steinberg:

Sure. So, I would say, again, generally I try my best to be a very positive and optimistic person. So, I like to be fueled by that. I mean, of course, the sadness, the climate anxiety, that is definitely a source of fuel to keep people going. But, I choose to focus on the positive and the win. So, I use the more negative views to push myself to work harder and to make more of an effort in terms of networking and just spreading the word, raising awareness of the climate crisis. And, I think also, just having discussions with people that have both similar and differing viewpoints than me is something that has definitely been beneficial in terms of seeing how different leaders and different people across the movement are influenced by climate change.

Matt Schlegel:

Right. Right. Yeah, it’s interesting. Sadness is such a important feeling for raising awareness, and compassion, and caring, and it’s a really good starting point. But, I find that the feelings that really motivate us to action are more anxiety and anger. Those are the two that get you going.

Maya Steinberg:

Mm-hmm.

Matt Schlegel:

And I noticed that you mentioned climate anxiety as a motivating force. And I relate to that because I think that’s one that really energizes me when I’m not feeling sad. Then, my anxiety for, “Oh, we got to do something,” is a important one to get you going and get you doing stuff.

Maya Steinberg:

But I also feel like there is such a fine line between those more negative feelings and also just having a general feeling of hopelessness or despair, because I think if it’s the latter feelings, it’s not going to motivate you to try to make a positive change, to try to make an impact, because people can tend to be focused just on the negative. So I think, a pinch of that, just a healthy amount is great, and I think is motivating. But I think, just focusing on the positive on what we as individuals can do, even starting at the local level and then working our way up to the state level, national level, global level, I think, is something that has definitely resonated with me as well.

Matt Schlegel:

And what is it that you are finding right now in your leadership that really is the beacon or guiding light for that optimism? What is drawing you towards that optimism?

Maya Steinberg:

Well, I think, we’re obviously living in a time where there’s a lot of different opinions, but I would say that there is the general consensus that climate change is real and climate change is happening. And I think that the millennials, Gen Z, the younger generations, this is something that is at the forefront of their agenda. So, when I think about the future, I’m hopeful, and I’m positive that effective climate policies will be put into place, and that we’ll be able to mitigate the climate crisis, and hopefully undo some of the damage that’s done. But just knowing that the rising generations are so passioned and invigorated by making a positive change for the planet is something that definitely gives me a source of optimism.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. Just the increasing awareness and passion about doing something and how it’s becoming easier and easier to build these communities that are interested in doing the work, I agree, that’s very, very motivating, and hopeful, and optimistic.

Maya Steinberg:

Mm-hmm.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. Thank you. So now, what advice would you give to leaders and aspiring leaders, who are, they themselves having starting to have feelings about the climate crisis?

Maya Steinberg:

I love this question, just because I think that there are so many different answers and so many different right answers. There is no wrong answer just because it really depends on the individual person. But I would say, spreading the word, getting involved, volunteering. I know threefifty.org and the Climate Reality Project have chapters in different cities across the country, and I know their work is virtual as well. I think that’s a great starting point. But I also think that if you are experiencing some of the more negative emotions or climate anxiety, just knowing that you’re not alone and experiencing those feelings, I think, is definitely beneficial. I think having an open dialogue with family, friends, peers, mentors, just people around you that you’re close to, I think that could be a great way to combat those more negative feelings and just being proactive, I think.

Maya Steinberg:

Personally, since rejoining the climate realm after graduating college, I felt a lot of inspiration and connection to those around me, and it’s just, yeah, instilled a lot of hope and positivity. And yeah. So I think, also practicing gratitude and journaling has been something that has personally resonated with me a lot. So I think focusing on what you can do at the individual level, and also advocating for elected officials, and leaders, and CEOs that have the climate crisis as a priority agenda item on their docket, I think that would be a great starting point.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you mentioned so many great things. Starting with, just having conversations with those around you, because that helps you process your feelings, and then finding like-minded people who are sharing similar feelings, and joining communities of like-minded people, and focusing those feelings into action.

Maya Steinberg:

Mm-hmm.

Matt Schlegel:

And I love the way you say, “There’s no wrong answer.” It’s like, everybody needs to be doing everything. So, it’s like, whatever you’re passionate about, there’s something that you can be doing to address the climate crisis in that realm. So, it’s such grace advice.

Maya Steinberg:

Thank you. For better or for worse, the climate crisis is very expansive in terms of what it entails and what it covers from communities of concern, to different ecosystems, to impacts on the environment, to other social justice types of concerns. So I think I truly believe that there is something within the umbrella of climate change that every single person can resonate with. It’s just about finding what truly speaks to you and running with those feelings to try to make a difference.

Matt Schlegel:

Perfect. Yes. Well, thank you so much, Maya, for all the terrific work that you are doing and your leadership in this area. It’s so important. And thank you for sharing your feelings and joining me in the conversation today. I really appreciate it.

Maya Steinberg:

Thanks. It’s been a pleasure to chat with you.

Matt Schlegel:

Thank you. Thanks for listening. Maya shared so many great points. I love how she emphasized the importance of having conversations and building community. Also, as an Enneagram Type 9, who tend to minimize feelings of anger, she uses positive feelings like hope and optimism to maintain the energy and direction for her leadership. We definitely need more Enneagram Type 9s like Maya as climate leaders. If you found this helpful, please subscribe to the channel and click on the bell to get notifications of future episodes. Thanks again.

The Enneagram Explains Empathy versus Sympathy

August 15, 2022 by Matt Schlegel Leave a Comment

Matt Schlegel presents a model – The Empathy-Sympathy Matrix – that shows the degree to which each Enneagram type is empathetic or sympathetic. The model builds on an understanding of Dr. David Daniel’s Harmony Triads and Karen Horner’s Temperament Triads putting these two sets of triads into a single framework that explains empathy and sympathy. Matt also discusses the Harmonic Triads (not to be confused with the Harmony Triads) and their unique relationship to empathy and sympathy.

Here’s a link to the slides: https://evolutionaryteams.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/2022-08-08-sympathy-versus-empathy.pdf

#Empathy #Sympathy #Enneagram #Emotional Intelligence #EQ

[Video Transcript]

Thanks for tuning in. Today, I want to share a model that I’ve been working on, which I’m using the Enneagram as a framework to understand empathy and sympathy and the degree to which each Enneagram type feels empathy or sympathy. And this came about in a conversation with my son, and we were talking about how we were processing certain feelings, and it occurred to me that I really understood the feelings, but I wasn’t actually feeling them myself, while he said he was actually feeling them, and that precipitated an epiphany of sorts that led me to develop this model, so many thanks to my son for that conversation.

So first of all, let’s just start off with some definitions. These are the definitions that I’m using for empathy and sympathy. First of all, empathy is “I feel what you’re feeling.” So if you’re in a situation where you’re with somebody and they are somehow feeling a feeling, you start to empathetically have that same feeling, and so that’s what I’m using for empathy, is that you actually feel what the other person is feeling. And then sympathy is more about knowledge and that you care about what they’re feeling. Now, you may know intellectually what they’re feeling, if it’s anger or sadness, because you’ve felt it too so you know what that feeling is, it’s just that you may not be actually feeling it when they’re feeling it, but you know what it is and you care, and the more you care, the more sympathetic you are. So those are the two definitions that I’m working with here.

So when we look at the empathy part, I found that there is a relationship with empathy and the Harmony Triads. So the Harmony Triads are the two, five, the eight, the one, four and seven, and the three, six, nine. In my book, Teamwork 9.0, I call these the Work Team Triads, because these are the triads that seem to come together naturally, organically, and form work teams. Everybody gets along, everybody has affinity for each other, and everybody complements each other in their work, and so that’s why I refer to them as the Work Team Triads, but here I’ll fall back and rely on the more traditional Enneagram description, which is the Harmony Triads.

And what I am finding is that it’s the two, five, and eight, the Relationist Triad is the most empathetic, so that group is most in tune with how others are feeling. Now, clearly the two is a pretty obvious one. We all know the two, the Helper, is the one who is emotionally connected with you and feels what you’re feeling. And the eight is also highly empathetic, and then the five, and this is one that might be a little bit… Take a little bit more understanding, is that because the fives don’t emote that much, that doesn’t mean that they’re not feeling what other people are feeling, and in fact, they may be feeling it so intensely, it’s one of the reasons why they kind of are quiet and shut down, because they don’t want to reveal that they are feeling so intensely. So that’s the two, five, and the eight.

And there’s three degrees, so I’m putting these into three degrees of empathy. So the highest degree would be the two, five, eight, the second-highest degree would be what the Harmony Triads call the Idealist Triad, and that’s the one, four, and the seven. And in each one of these, they all will feel empathy, just not to the extent to which the most empathetic, the Relationist Triad, will feel it.

And then the least empathetic is the triad that is called the Pragmatist Triad, and that’s the three, the six, and the nine, and it’s one that… The three is pretty obvious, because the three suppresses emotions, and so it’s not really a surprise that you would find this, the three in the least empathetic category. The six, so I’m a type six, and this one was part of my epiphany, it’s like, “Now I get it. I’m not feeling what others are feeling, I just know what they’re feeling” and we’ll get to that more later.

And then the nine is also in this group where they are not necessarily feeling, but they’re… They do want to make sure that there’s no conflict, but they’re not feeling the same emotions as the other people in the environment, which allows them to kind of confront people to mitigate any conflict in the environment without getting emotionally wrapped up in it. So that’s what’s going on with those, so now you see that we have this kind of pecking order in empathy that is described by the Harmony Triads.

So now what about sympathy? And so for sympathy, we can turn to the Temperament Triads, or the Hornevian Triads, and what we find here is the most sympathetic are the one, the two, and the six, and again, we see the two in there. Again, we know how intense the twos process emotions, and they care so much that they want to help, and so that’s why they are kind of the most sympathetic and the most empathetic, and now we also see in that… In the Temperament Triads, it’s called the Compliant Triad, where you have the one, the two, and the six, and it’s in this triad where you’re feeling the most sympathy, and so you’re working to comply with whatever is going on in this situation in order to… Because you’re so sympathetic.

And as a six, I feel like I really understand what people are going through, and so I want to be there for them, and that is my strong sense of sympathy. And ones also have that, especially when there’s some kind of injustice involved, then they become very sympathetic to the situation. Then the mid-level sympathy are the Withdrawing Triad, which is the four, the five, and the nine, and then the least sympathetic would be the Assertive Triad, which is the three, the seven, and the eight. And so again you see the three in that least sympathetic, so it’s really the polar opposite of the two, where the two is the most sympathetic and the most empathetic, and then the three, suppressing emotions, ends up being the least sympathetic and the least empathetic in this framework.

And you also have the seven and eight in there as well, both are very positive, optimistic, looking forward and somewhat focused on creating a future. All of these are creating a future, and so they’re not… Sympathy is almost dwelling a little bit in the past, or even in the present, and they’re trying to create a new future, so they don’t… So they minimize the sympathy, that’s my take on it.

So now when you put all of these together in a matrix, so this might be the Empathy-Sympathy Matrix, where you have the more empathetic, the two, the five, and the eight, the least empathetic, the three, six, and the nine, and the one, four, and seven in the middle, and then in that same way, you can structure the sympathetic folks from the three, seven, eight to the least, then the four, five, seven in the middle, and the one, two, six as the most sympathetic. And there’s some really interesting things that come out of this once you understand each perspective, each Enneagram type’s perspective on empathy and sympathy, and then how that plays into our interpersonal dynamics and conversations and motivations.

And so I’ve been thinking about what each type might say about their relationship with empathy and sympathy, and I’ve actually taken a lot of these sentences just from my conversations with different Enneagram types. And so the one, they might say, “I get a sense for what you’re feeling and I care, especially if there’s an injustice,” so that would fall exactly on that point in the matrix. The two, of course, is “I deeply feel what you’re feeling, and I really care.” The three, “I’m not so sure what you’re feeling, and I’m not really sure that it’s that important,” so that might be what a three would say.

Four is smack dab in the middle of the matrix, and so they’re the most balanced on empathy and sympathy, and so they could say, “I feel what you’re feeling and I care about what you’re feeling,” and they would have that centered perspective. The five now being up at the most empathetic would say, “I strongly feel what you’re feeling, and sure, I care,” without revealing too much. The six, and so this is me, is like, “I really care about what you’re feeling, but I’m not sure that I feel it,” so that might be what a six would say.

And then a seven would say, “I sense your feelings, but I’m having… I think having fun is more important,” right? So not a very sympathetic response. The eight is, “I know exactly what you’re feeling,” and I’ve heard eights say this, “I know exactly what you’re feeling, and I really don’t care.” So that seems to be the eight’s stance on this, and that’s how they fall in the most empathetic, but the least sympathetic. And then the nine is, “I’m not sure what you’re feeling, and I care, especially if those feelings might lead to a conflict,” right? So there’s like a caveat on their caring, which kind of puts them in the middle of the sympathy. So those are some examples of how you might interpret what each one of the Enneagram types would say based on their position in the Empathy-Sympathy Matrix.

And now, just some other really interesting ideas that come out of this is that which combinations of people have all aspects of empathy and sympathy covered? And so one is the main triads, the Gut Triad, the Feeling Triad, and the Heart Triad. If you go through, you’ll see that all degrees of empathy and sympathy are represented in those triads, okay? And then there’s another set of triads that also have all points, all degrees of empathy and sympathy represented, and these are called the Harmonic Triads, and they are the two, seven, and nine, which is the Positive Outlook Triad, the one, three, five, the Competent Triad, and the four, six, eight, the Emotionally Reactive Triad.

These are really interesting triads because not only do they represent all perspectives of sympathy and empathy, but they also, if you look back to my work in Teamwork 9.0 on the chapter Two Balanced Brains, where I talk about how the Harmony Triads have all perspectives of amygdala dominance and prefrontal cortex dominance covered, well, the Harmonic Triads, and don’t confuse Harmony Triads with Harmonic Triads, the Harmonic Triads are also… They have all amygdala and prefrontal cortex dominances covered as well, so these Harmonic Triads are really special in that way, is that they have so much balance in terms of neural diversity, for lack of a better word, just diversity in the way we’re processing and using the different dominances and parts of our brain to process things, so there’s really a great relationship with the Harmonic Triads and this Empathy-Sympathy Matrix. So that’s all for now, I was just very excited about this and wanted to share it with you, and I look forward to talking more about this in the future. Thanks.

Enneagram and Feeling on the Grief Gratitude Podcast

July 25, 2022 by Matt Schlegel Leave a Comment

Delighted to be in conversation with Kendra Rinaldi, host of the Grief Gratitude Podcast. On Episode #115, Kendra and I discuss the Enneagram and how different Enneagram types process feelings.

Grief Gratitude Podcast Episode #115: https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/podcast/episode/8e9f5db2/115-using-enneagrams-to-understand-ouselves-and-others-with-matt-schlegel

Discover more episodes here: https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/podcast

Learn about Kendra’s coaching services here: https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/

Connect with Kendra on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/%F0%9F%8C%80kendra-rinaldi%F0%9F%8C%80-69186376/

[Podcast Transcript]

Matt Schlegel:

Each one of these types has a first reaction to a super stressful situation. And so for the gut people, it’s driven by anger. For the heart people, it’s driven by feelings and including sadness and grief. And then for the head people, it’s anxiety. So when people are going through a transition, depending on what their enneagram type is, they will probably start with one of those three.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes in transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief. I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I’m Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now let’s dive right in to today’s episode.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Welcome to today’s episode. We have Matt Schlegel on and we will be talking about his book, Teamwork 9.0 and talking about enneagrams and how we can use it to solve problems, including climate change. So that is a big one, that’s a big one. So welcome, Matt.

Matt Schlegel:

So great to be with you here, Kendra. Thanks for having me.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Thank you. Thank you for being here. I’m so glad to have you on. And I was telling the assistant that reached out to tell me about your book regarding enneagrams. I’m like, “Oh yes. I’ve been looking into that.” And I had already had my children do to see which enneagram… Oh, okay, let’s get that one. Enneagram, enneagram, enneagram.

Matt Schlegel:

Enneagram.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Enneagram, enneagram. Okay, I’ll just say it that way. Enneagram. What enneagram number my kids were just so that I could even know how to relate with them. I had made them do the test. I already had an idea which one they were and I was right on one child. I wasn’t right on the other, which was surprising. And then just recently I did it myself. Funny, I had done it for my kids, but I had not done for mine.

Matt Schlegel:

Are you going to tell us?

Kendra Rinaldi:

So I will tell you which one came up, number two. Yeah, I’m a two. I’m a two, that one came up. What about you? What number are you?

Matt Schlegel:

I’m a six.

Kendra Rinaldi:

You’re a six? So tell us, okay, my gosh we’re jumping already ahead. So what is number six? What is that one?

Matt Schlegel:

Oh, so sometimes we’re called the loyalist, sometimes we’re called like the bureaucrat, sometimes we’re called the questioner. We ask lots of questions. We like systems, we things to go in order predictably so that’s why we create these systems to try to make things happen in a predictable way.

Kendra Rinaldi:

And that’s exactly what you did. So tell us your background, because you’d wrote a book, but tell us what your background is and why it is that systems is definitely your niche.

Matt Schlegel:

Exactly. So yeah, I started out with a technical background engineering. I became an engineer and at some point my manager came to me and said, “Hey, Matt, I want you to be a manager.” And I said, “I don’t know how to manage people. I only know about managing electrons.” And he said, “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.’ But now that you know I’m a six, you know I’m not fine. And so I started studying everything, studying, studying, studying, and then I came across all of these tools to help teams and people be more effective in working together. And one of those systems I came across was the enneagram.

Matt Schlegel:

So my engineering brain likes to pull these systems apart and put them back together and see what works well and what doesn’t. And no matter how much I poked and prodded at enneagrams, it’s like, “Oh, this is amazing.” It’s like, it just keeps going and going and going and is so powerful and it’s so effective at predicting how things will work out, which appeals to a type six, obviously. So that’s why I just became fascinated with it. I ended up using it at work with my team, both as a personality system. And then I asked the question, why are the enneagram types numbers? Why aren’t they letters or colors or animals, or why numbers?

Kendra Rinaldi:

And why?

Matt Schlegel:

Well, it turns out that the numbers are there for a reason and it’s exact order in which humans solve problems. So there is a personality dynamic associated with each type and that dynamic is exactly the dynamic you need in problem solving for that step. So for instance, the type one is sometimes called the perfectionist and they’re the ones that say, “Hey, it shouldn’t be like that, it should be like this.’ Well, what’s the first step in problem solving, “Hey, there’s a problem. It shouldn’t be like that. It should be like this.” And on and around. So step two, for instance if you-

Kendra Rinaldi:

With the mind?

Matt Schlegel:

Relating to the step two, the step two is who cares? Who cares about the problem? If somebody thinks there’s a problem and nobody around them cares, then you’re probably not going to end up solving the problem. But if the one brings up, “Hey, there’s a problem.” And then a bunch of people around them say, “Yeah, you’re right. We care. There is a problem,” then guess what? The problem gets solved. You move to step three, let’s come up with some ideas. And step four, oh, let’s pick a good idea. And step five, let’s analyze the ideas. Step six, oh, let’s build a plan to get to the goal. Seven, let’s get everybody excited. Step eight, let’s stop talking and do it. And step nine, how did it work?

Kendra Rinaldi:

That’s so perfect. Yeah. So then if nine people were to be in a team and each one was one number, then would that make that team be more effective if there was a one or two all the way through nine.

Matt Schlegel:

Right, exactly. It would be a perfectly balanced team. Now, the odds that you would get nine people, all one of each type together is almost astronomical that would happen. So most teams aren’t balanced like that, which is why I have a consulting practice.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Yes. And I liked I just went to your link right now, which by the way I’ll make sure to link in the show notes so that people can go because you have a free assessment one, and yours was actually easier. I didn’t have time right before our call to fill it out and I had already done it in another website, but I felt the way you just checkmarked on these was easier than these other ones that go into these questions that it’s like from inaccurate to accurate kind of like, where are you? It’s a little more gray area when you’re answering. And you’re like, “Eh, am I like?” So those are a little more ambiguous sometimes in these other websites to answer. And I thought yours was really clear and concise because you just check mark which ones apply to you and then you kind of know in the number that you check mark the most, that probably that’s yours.

Matt Schlegel:

Exactly. And just one warning about enneagram assessments. In my experience, the one that I have up right now on my website is a good one but you have to also acknowledge that you’re coming to the test at a certain state in your life. Like for instance, when I first took the assessment years ago, I tested highest as an eight and six was the next highest. They were about the same, but eight was a little higher. And that’s because I was working in a situation surrounded by eights where eight behavior was expected and I was behaving like an eight and I was just filling the role that was expected of me. So when I checked off those things, I was like, “Yeah, I do that. Yeah, I do that. Yeah, I do that.” And I wasn’t thinking about, is that really the way I would respond if I were just doing it on my own or am I doing it because that’s what’s expected me of my culture? And so just be aware that sometimes you may not score the highest on your actual core type.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Okay. Now with that said, do you notice that the same can occur then in a family in which maybe you end up being more of a number because that’s what maybe is needed more in that role as a parent or something, that you end up kind of becoming more of a certain number in that dynamic as well?

Matt Schlegel:

I think that’s more true for adults than for children. If it’s children taking the test, they’re less in control and they’ve been less culturized into behaving in certain ways in certain situations. And so they tend to answer the questions more honestly. And so I’d say that’s more of a situation for an adult, like being a mother, there’s a lot of twoness in being a mother. And so if you’re a mother and you’re taking care of kids, you’re like, “Yeah, I do that. Yeah, I do that.”

Kendra Rinaldi:

Yeah, I’m a two, I’m a two, yeah.

Matt Schlegel:

You’re behaving like a two whether you’re a two or not as a mother.

Kendra Rinaldi:

That’s so true, that’s so true. Okay, so now let’s talk a little bit about your life. So where do you live? And then we already found out how it is you came about developing the system, but I wanted to learn more about you. So where do you live and a little bit about your family?

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, so I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and I’m married for 31 years. I have three kids. The oldest is 28, living up in Seattle, next is down in San Diego and both are young women who are successfully out on their own and I’m very proud of them. And then I have a son who is still with us here in the home. He’s in college, he’s taking classes and he’s studying likely to be an engineer.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Like dad.

Matt Schlegel:

Following in his dad’s footsteps a little bit. And I’m very proud of him in the progress he’s making too. So, yeah, it’s great.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Excellent. Now, how did this enneagram, did you end up making everybody test when you found this out? How long ago did you find out about enneagrams and did you end up then having everyone in your family then take the test?

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, so I’ve been working with the enneagram for over 20 years now. And we actually learned it through my wife’s church so the pastor at my wife’s church is really into the enneagram. And in fact, he now has a foundation that focuses on different elements of spirituality that aren’t necessarily religious. And one of those is the enneagram. And so he actually has invited me to become the director of enneagram studies for his foundation. So he’s my long time mentor on the enneagram and still we do monthly enneagram workshops together. So that’s a long way of saying I actually came into it after most of my family already knew it. And when I’m taking the test and then I’m testing eight and they’re looking at me like, “You’re not an eight,” you know what I’m saying? I’m like, “Oh, okay.”

Kendra Rinaldi:

And you’re like, okay so if you go with the flow, then wait, are eights more rigid or eights more…?

Matt Schlegel:

No, no. I mean, eight are probably less rigid. They’re the ones who like to be in control so they’re the boss or the asserter, that’s that style, right?

Kendra Rinaldi:

Okay. But when you said “No, okay, I’m a six,” That’s why I said, oh, okay. Maybe you weren’t an eight if you’re like, “Okay, yeah, I’ll go with the six,” because maybe if you were an eight, you would’ve been like, no, no, I’m an eight. I know I am

Matt Schlegel:

That’s right. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. It’s like when they said you’re not an eight, it makes me think, which is exactly what a six does, right?

Kendra Rinaldi:

Yes, exactly. You’re like, “Oh wait. No, yeah, you’re right, I’m not.” Okay, so then you did that then in your personal life and then how is it that then you started then to implement? So when you were given this role at work to be a project manager, you’re like, “How am I going to manage people?” You come up with this system, this tool, how did you start implementing it then with your team?

Matt Schlegel:

Right. Well, first of all like most people you come into the enneagram through that personality aspect of it. So that problem solving process, the one through nine came later. So I just started using it with my team and introduced them to it, got them to understand each other’s styles and types. And and it was really very effective at helping everybody understand each other’s perspective. And most importantly, it gives you a vocabulary. It gives you a vocabulary to talk about these different dynamics that are going on, right? When some conflict arises and you have the vocabulary of the enneagram, and you could say, “Well, you are one and you are a seven, and you know the ones have this objective, the sevens have this objective.” And you’re all trying to get to the same end point, but you have these different perspectives and that’s where this conflict is arising and so let’s talk about that.

Matt Schlegel:

And that’s one of the things I’m most grateful about for the system is that vocabulary and then allowing people to just open up that possibility that, “Oh, well, yeah, my perspective isn’t the only perspective and now that I understand they are one and I understand what’s important to them I can totally see why they’re doing that and, well, this is the common ground, so let’s do that.” Boom, done.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Then it helps. Now, how open are people in general to take the test, when you’re managing a team, are people really excited to find out what they are? Are people reluctant or do people see how beneficial this could be in that team or work environment? You know what I mean? Have you had all kinds of people, be like, “Nah, I don’t want to do that.”

Matt Schlegel:

All of the above. And it depends on the type. Some types, like you said earlier, eight, I am an eight. Yeah, okay, let’s go, right? I mean, eight is one, they don’t mind being an eight and they resonate with that eightness and it’s done. And certain type ones are also, they pretty easily self-identify. But then some of the other types have more trouble like take the nine, right? The nine is the master at understanding everybody’s perspective. That’s what they do, they’re always thinking of others, they’re always putting themselves into other people’s shoes. And so it’s really hard for them to, say, “Well then who am I?” And so when you’re talking to a nine, it’s like, “Well, maybe that is one of the aspects of being a nine is that you can do this.” Oh, okay, right? So each type, another one is fours, they’re able to put themselves in everybody’s emotional shoes. And so sometimes they have a little more trouble. Fives, they tend to be able to masterfully take on different roles and personas in the environment. So they feel like they can be anybody and to the point where like, “Okay, so which one am I?”

Kendra Rinaldi:

Which one am I? Because they’re a chameleon, uh-huh.

Matt Schlegel:

And the one that they are is the one that’s able to put themselves in everybody’s personas.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Right, right, right, right, right, right. So, yeah, so then it helps. Now in the work environment when you’ve done this, do you see that there’s numbers that work better together in general personality wise? What would you say is that? Is there a particular formula for that?

Matt Schlegel:

Right, and I actually write about this in a chapter in my book called Work Team Triads. And I first noticed it just anecdotally, just seeing if you just throw people together and they kind of organically start to work together and then I would see which types are just naturally working together. And I found out that there are these three distinct groups that just naturally work together with almost no conflict at all. It’s just like, wow. And I call them work team triads, and I gave them names, but there is another author who called them the harmony triads.

Matt Schlegel:

And so they’re the one, the four and the seven; the two, the five and the eight; and the three, six and nine. And so those groups of three tend to like each other and work well together. And so that’s a really interesting facet that I’ve found of this. And each one of those teams brings a certain distinct dynamic, right? So if you have a one and a seven and the four together, they want to do new, innovative, fun stuff, right? So that’s your team for like exploring new possibilities. And then the two, five and the eight, what they want to do is like, “We want to get stuff done.”

Matt Schlegel:

And then so then those are the type of people who tend to migrate to more operations types of roles in companies where they’re just cranking out product or they’re running the place, right? And then the three, six, nine, that’s the group that kind of wants to look at everything and build a smooth operating structure for everything, right? And so they tend to put in place the organizations and the systems that just kind of make it all work together. And so those are kind of the three, and you’ll see companies go through that same phase too, right?

Kendra Rinaldi:

Well, that’s what I was just going to say, yeah, because you need the creatives to come up with the idea of what it is going to be to then hand off to the two, the fives and the eights to then implement it to then hand to the team that’s a three, six, nine to then be able to create the whole picture.

Matt Schlegel:

Exactly. So I call them the startup triad, the industrious triad and the systematizing triad.

Kendra Rinaldi:

That is so cool. Okay, so those are triads. Now, are there numbers, let’s say that would work, I know you mainly do it for work environments but would there be then numbers that work together as teams in relationship wise too? Because these are tryouts, which ones would be like numbers that work well, just as binary?

Matt Schlegel:

Right, right. So so any combination of those harmony triads. So oftentimes you’ll see eights and twos pair up eights, twos and fives, any combination of those will pair up. One, fours and sevens, you see that all the time, ones and sevens marry each other all the time. The other one is three, six, nines. I see couples from that triad together all the time.

Matt Schlegel:

And then there’s one other pattern that I’ve seen, and this is a really interesting aspect of the enneagram, is that for any type, the hardest dynamic… So I’m a six and I’m kind of in my six dynamic and I have more or less access to the other dynamics, the other eight dynamics, but generally the hardest dynamic for any type to access is one type hire. Like for me, it’s the seven, right? And that is true almost all the time, all the way around.

Matt Schlegel:

So here’s what I see happen is that when women, because women make the choice usually in the relationship, right? So when women are looking for somebody to partner with, they see tin hat person who is one type, one number higher, someone who’s very complimentary to them. So I see this all the time and it does get a little bit gender related in this case, but that’s just the pattern I’ve observed is that the woman will often choose a man who is one number higher. And so that’s another pattern I see.

Kendra Rinaldi:

That is interesting. Now I’m curious now because you’ve interviewed then a lot of people to be able to see all these patterns, you’ve been able to observe a lot of different people. Because with this podcast being a lot regarding grief, have you noticed in situations that are hard how each number deals with transitions differently, like a change in life? Could you talk a little bit about that and how would that apply in situations like that in their life?

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, yes. Great question. And enneagram really can speak to this very well because there’s another set of triads in the enneagram. And these are called the centers, these are the main triads of the enneagram. It’s the eight, nine, one; the two, three four; and the five, six seven. And the best way I found to explain this is if you’ve seen the movie The Wizard of Oz and there’s Dorothy and she meets these three characters on her journey. She meets the lion who wants courage, meets the tin man who wants a heart and meets the scarecrow who wants a head. And those are exactly the same elements that are associated with these main triads. The eight, nine, one are the gut people. Th two, three, four are the heart people. And the five, six, seven are the head people.

Matt Schlegel:

And then each one of these types has a first reaction to a super stressful situation. And so for the gut people, it’s driven by anger. For the heart people, it’s driven by feelings and including sadness and grief. And then for the head people it’s anxiety. So when people are going through a transition, depending on what their enneagram type is, they will probably start with one of those three. Some people will go straight to grief, some people will go to anger and some people will go to anxiety and have panic attacks, right? So for instance, when I saw the title of your podcast, I knew immediately that you were in the two, three, four group, because you start off with grief and gratitude, which is exactly, the grief is the two, three, four, and the gratitude is the two. So if you had asked me just from the podcast title, I could have guessed two.

Kendra Rinaldi:

That is so interesting. It’s interesting how much you can know about someone just by these choices. And then with knowing this then too, then in assimilating when other people are going through something hard, by knowing your enneagram and by knowing other people and your families’ enneagram, you can know where they’re at in that moment of their transition and why it is that maybe they’re leading more towards the anxiety component in that transition, rather than with the grief and the sadness or the other person maybe leading with anger. And it helps you understand and be more empathetic towards the way that each of us is dealing with it differently.

Matt Schlegel:

Exactly, exactly, exactly. And no response is wrong, right? There is no wrong response. And we’re humans. And this is the one thing I love about the enneagram is because just once I understood I’m a six and being a six guy in America is kind of a tough thing, it’s not the normal accepted behavior for a guy. The kind of the prototypical guy model is the eight. And so as a six I’m having to kind of step out of my comfort zone and be more like what’s expected of me in my culture. And then if you’re not aware that you’re doing that intentionally, and you’re just like, “Oh, what’s wrong with me? Why can’t I just do what comes to them naturally?” It can be a little self defeating, right?

Matt Schlegel:

But once you understand your enneagram type, and then you understand what is your gift, what is your superpower in problem solving? Because we all have a superpower in problem solving. We all have this superpower that we can contribute to helping everybody else out. And then once you know that, it’s like, oh I feel the way I am, because that’s exactly the right thing for me to feel and I just need to now know how to channel that into a healthy contribution to the group and not let it control me. I’m just using it to inform me.

Kendra Rinaldi:

That’s the right word.

Matt Schlegel:

I can now inform the group better about what is going on. Does that make sense?

Kendra Rinaldi:

Yes, absolutely. And I think that is so important because sometimes we’re so hard on ourselves in how it is we react to situations. We’re our biggest judge, right? And so by being understanding and having grace with ourselves and the way that we deal with certain situations and the way that we react based on our personality, it gives us also that capacity of having grace with others, if we have grace with ourselves as well.

Matt Schlegel:

Yes, right. And then, yeah, once you have that acceptance of yourself and “Oh, it’s okay for me to feel anxious. I’m supposed to feel anxious. It’s not a problem.” And then it’s like, “Oh, it’s okay for them to be angry, that’s exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s okay for them to be sad, that’s exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s all okay.” And then we can just like, what is that telling us? Why are they sad? What about what we’re doing is causing-

Kendra Rinaldi:

Bringing up those emotions.

Matt Schlegel:

Them to be sad and what can we do to help them overcome that?

Kendra Rinaldi:

Yes. No, that is awesome. Now you mentioned before we started recording how then these enneagrams can also help us with climate change.

Matt Schlegel:

Yes.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Okay, let’s go into that. How is it that understanding this can then lead us to solve these bigger world problems?

Matt Schlegel:

Right, right, yeah. So you can look at the challenge of climate change as a problem, right? It’s a problem, right? And so step one in that problem solving process is identifying that, “Oh, there’s a problem.” And so then once you say, “Okay, there’s a problem,” then you go to step two, which is, do you care? And I would say right now collectively, and I live in America so I’ll just speak for America, in my impression is not enough people yet care, right? Once enough people care then action starts to happen, right? And so I think we’re in this process now of moving from realization of the problem and then moving into caring about the problem.

Matt Schlegel:

But there’s a big challenge with caring about climate change, which is different from other challenges in a big way. And that is that once you acknowledge that, “Oh, there’s a climate crisis and it’s caused by burning fossil fuels, that’s the root cause of this is burning fossil fuels.” Then you’re like, “If I acknowledge that problem, does that mean I have to stop burning fossil fuels? Does that mean I have to start thinking about how I’m using fossil fuels? When I’m showering, is that a gas heater out there heating up that water? When I get in my car, am I burning fossil fuels to get to work? I get on an airplane, am I burning fossil fuel kerosene as I’m flying across the country?”

Kendra Rinaldi:

As I’m using this plastic cup, did fossil fuel go into creating this? So many things.

Matt Schlegel:

Exactly. And so once you get to that point, in that process, I look at it as a grieving process and what’s the first step in grieving? Denial.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Realization. Well, oh, denial, yeah. If we go by the steps, yeah. Or that realization, yeah. Okay.

Matt Schlegel:

So it’s a lot easier for us to just deny the problem and deny there’s a problem and blithely go along on our lives and just ignore the problem.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Because if we accept it, then we have to take action, which is way more work.

Matt Schlegel:

But it’s more than that, it’s actually going through the grieving process. And you see it, right? Some people will get sad, so we have climate grief now, that’s a term, we have climate anxiety or eco anxiety, that’s a term. So you can see, and then you get people-

Kendra Rinaldi:

Anger.

Matt Schlegel:

Who go to just like we had, I think the mass shooting we had in Buffalo is a manifestation of somebody who’s reacting to climate with anger. And so we’re going to see these reactions to the climate crisis, anger, we’re going to see grief and we’re going to see anxiety. And we’re going to be just seeing more and more of it because the climate crisis isn’t going away and we’re all going to be impacted by it soon. And so I know this is kind of heavy stuff, but the enneagram does give us a model for how humanity will respond in our various ways. And then and the hopeful thing is as more and more of us actually overcome our denial then and our impact and work start to work through that grieving process, that’s going to get us to action. That is the thing that will get us to action.

Kendra Rinaldi:

And now in that action then, I was having this conversation right before in the other interview I was having. And it’s about like, sometimes we think these big things are happening war. Okay, what do I do about that?” Can I go and stop the actual, no. So there’s other smaller things we can do in our day-to-day to have a ripple effect in the big scheme. So in that action then that we can each take then for climate change and the impact each of us are making, what would you say, going back to enneagram, are there then some specific things then that in each enneagram group, enneagram group would then lead more towards doing?

Matt Schlegel:

Right, yeah. And that’s a great question. And what I tell people is once they do get to the point where they want to take action, the climate crisis is, there’s a term now called hyperobject. The hyperobject is the thing that touches everything, right? And there’s a parable about the elephant and the five blind men and you put five blind men into a room-

Kendra Rinaldi:

Yeah, each touching part of it, yeah.

Matt Schlegel:

Right, and they’re all describing the problem in different ways, but the real problem is it’s the elephant in the room. And so when I talk to people who want to take action, I ask them, “Well, what are you passionate about? Are you passionate about recycling, or are you passionate about reducing single use plastic, or are you passionate about working with your local representative and getting them to do something?” Because we all need to do everything and so the best thing to do is the thing that you’re passionate about, because you’re bringing your whole heart and your whole self to it, and that will infect other people to want to join you because they’ll see your passion and they’ll want to join you in doing it. And so there’s no wrong answer in taking climate action. It’s an all of the above thing and just follow your heart and do what you can do while keeping in mind that the most important thing you can do is actually start to reduce the amount of fossil fuel you burn in your life.

Matt Schlegel:

And then be that example. So if you can bike instead of getting into the car, bike instead of getting into the car and show everybody, “Hey, I’m biking, I’m going to bike to the station instead of taking the car,” whatever, just start thinking about how you’re using. We’re electrifying our home and the last appliance that we had was the water heater, and we replaced our gas water heater with a heat pump water heater, and we turned off the gas to the house now there’s no gas flowing to the house and it’s great. And now the city is going to interview me and ask me about the experience and then they’re going to put up my testimonial and so I’m just going to like there are poeople that do it.

Kendra Rinaldi:

That’s the ripple effect right there, right?

Matt Schlegel:

And that’s what we want to do, yeah, yeah.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Yeah, yes. Just one little thing can make a difference. Now, and in the same aspect then back again to even just the teamwork, Teamwork 9.0, that’s teamwork right there in the big scope of things of life right there. And then in your work environment, then the same, when we know that what we’re doing has an impact in the organization we’re part of, in the family unit we’re, in the city we live in and so forth it does make a difference. When we realize our actions do affect another human being. So it all comes down also to that, that connectiveness of humanness, of each other.

Matt Schlegel:

It’s very scalable. From the smallest team, like you and your partner or you and your family, or I joined rock band last year.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Oh, how cool? What do you play? Do you play or do you sing?

Matt Schlegel:

So I’m kind of the utility player. I’ve been doing vocals, bass and drums with this band. So yeah, but all of them have different enneagram styles so you see all those dynamics come into play in that situation too. But it’s everywhere, right? And then, “Oh, she’s a one, that’s why she’s bringing this up.” And okay, I understand that and let’s work with her to help her solve this thing that she thinks is wrong and let’s help her get it to being right.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Did you make them all in the band also take the test?

Matt Schlegel:

I haven’t said anything about the enneagram for that. This is all just going on in my mind.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Yeah, now they’re going to have to take it so that you guys even can just work more effectively. Yeah, that’d be interesting that in every single dynamic that we’re in if we were to take that. But if not, then, like you said, if we even have an understanding of what other people are in terms of personality is just how we relate to them that also shifts and just by even changing that dynamic and that interaction, it already has an effect on the team.

Matt Schlegel:

Right, and this just came up the other day. One of the persons who’s a type one had made a comment and I thought how would I respond to that? And I’m like, so they’re in the intuitive group and I’m in the head group, and the comment they made really made no sense to me, to my rational brain. But whatever I would say would come from a place of like, “That doesn’t make sense. Can you explain that to me?” Whereas there’s another person in the band who is also in that intuitive group who’s a nine. And I know the nine will always say the nicest, softest thing and will understand the one way better than I do. So I just zipped my mouth and I just waited and sure enough, the nine spoke up and said the most perfect thing. So just having that knowledge and just being able to check myself and my reaction and just letting that naturally happen.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Oh, how beautiful?

Matt Schlegel:

That was worth the price of a mission on learning the enneagram, just for that.

Kendra Rinaldi:

That’s beautiful, but that takes a lot of self control to do what you did of just like, “Okay, let me just wait because I know that I will not say the right thing to this number one but if I just wait a number nine will say the right thing in order to be out of the situation. That’s wonderful. Okay, so then how many years has it been that you’ve been using this then in the workspace? I know you said 20 years ago was when your wife first brought it. And honestly, it’s only been in the last year that I’ve heard about this for myself. I had not heard about this. But again, I’m not testing myself all the time to figure out what personality trait I am.

Matt Schlegel:

But the millennials are all over this.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Yes. Oh, I’m hearing it so much now. Yeah.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah. And if you go on to YouTube and you Google enneagram, there is just some hilarious comments, videos about different enneagram types.

Kendra Rinaldi:

What they would do in the same situation? Yeah, like how they would have… It’s funny, it’s funny.

Matt Schlegel:

It’s so funny and it’s a great way to learn about the different styles.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Yeah. So for you then when did you start implementing it then in your strategy?

Matt Schlegel:

It was shortly after I learned. I just started talking to people about it, it was a part of my learning process. Do you know this? Are you interested? And other people in my group would say, “Yeah, I’ll take the test, sure,” and they took it and so it was pretty much right away that I was able to start to use it in the work setting very informally at first. Yeah.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Okay. And now let’s talk about your book. When did you launch it and how do people, how can people get ahold of it?

Matt Schlegel:

Oh yeah. So thank you for that. We launched it March 2020, right as we were going into pandemic world. And so, yeah, and it’s available on Amazon and definitely check it out and you can go to the website and take that assessment and that’s complimentary and just love to get your feedback on your thoughts on the book and how you’re using it. It’s always a delight to hear the different stories and different experiences people are having.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Now, who is this book for? Who is it for? Is it for someone that, like yourself, was a project manager that needed to figure out, is it for a parent? Is it for a teacher? Is it for somebody in the workspace? Who is the best person for this book?

Matt Schlegel:

So the answer is leaders of teams. So I was thinking of project and program managers, I had them in mind. And then I just had managers in general, who are managing a team and leaders in general, who are leading a team I wrote the book for them. It is just such a powerful tool for a leader to have that knowledge, even if their team doesn’t. I’m sharing examples of how I use it with my band, right? They don’t know the enneagram, but I know the enneagram. And as a leader I want everybody to work well together and I know when I can jump in and when I shouldn’t, and once other people can jump in and it’s the perfect thing, right? And so understanding, I mean, and I talk about, I have a chapter called shared leadership. It’s like when is it better for you to step back and let somebody else take that lead rather than just jumping in yourself? But it’s for it’s for leaders in general that I really have targeted the book.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Wonderful, wonderful. Now, is there anything I have not asked you that you would like to share or any final words for the listeners as they’re listening? Again, we’ve gotten a lot, we’ve gotten of how it is you can use it just for yourself, knowing your enneagram, how is that helpful for yourself? How is it helpful when you’re interacting with others in a work environment? How is it helpful in understanding that as you’re dealing with a transition or grief experience in your life, or a difficult time, and then how is it helpful when you’re leading also then teams? So what other things would you like to share with the listeners regarding how they can use this knowledge, this tool?

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, and I just so appreciate this conversation and you asked all the right question, is so great to be able to share this. So you did such a good job of leading us through that, I don’t have anything else to add.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Oh, well, I’m glad, I’m glad I was able to ask the right questions to get to that. So thank you, I learned so much about it. I learned so much about it. And again, the book is Teamwork 9.0 and author Matt Schlegel, who is with us today again. And thank you so much again for sharing your knowledge and on this topic and your own life experiences of how you’ve used this in your life so thank you.

Matt Schlegel:

Thank you, Kendra. It was a delight meeting with you today.

Kendra Rinaldi:

Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today’s episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode, and if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do. So also, if you or someone has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well. Please reach out to me and thanks once again for tuning into Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.

Podcast Host Josh Elledge Shares Insights as an Enneagram Type 7 Leader

June 7, 2022 by Matt Schlegel Leave a Comment

Josh Elledge is CEO of Up My Image and host of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur podcast. Josh is an Enneagram Type 7 leader and his enthusiasm and excitement shine through in this conversation. I am so impressed with Josh’s journey of self-awareness that allows him to surround himself with teammates who complement his style. He has done the work to understand at which activities he excels and which activities he needs to delegate and has built a team that ensures all aspects of his business are well served.

Josh is founder of UpMyInfluence.com and Chief Executive Angel at SavingsAngel.com.

Check out all Josh’s podcasts:

The SavingsAngel Show

Authority Confidential

Thoughtful Entrepreneur

#Team #Leader #Leadership #Enneagram #Entrepreneurship #Podcast #EmotionalIntelligence #EQ

[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 Josh Elledge, host of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Podcast and founder of UpMyInfluence. Josh is a Type 7 leader, and he shares how the Enneagram is helping him and his team grow his business. And now for the conversation.

Matt Schlegel:

I’m excited to be speaking with Josh Elledge, host of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur podcast and founder of his firm UpMyInfluence, where he applies a novel approach to solving the problem of B2B sales, providing an endless stream of high ticket qualified customers using the go-giver approach to building relationships. During our recent conversation on his podcast, I discovered that he uses the Enneagram as a leadership tool at his firm. So, I’m grateful that he can share his experiences with us here today in his using the Enneagram. Thank you so much for joining me, Josh.

Josh Elledge:

Matt, thank you so much for having me.

Matt Schlegel:

Great. Well, we were having such a great conversation and when you said, “Oh yeah, I’m an Enneagram Type 7 and I use Enneagram all the time”, I was just delighted about that. We had a great conversation on your podcast. So, let’s just jump in here and I’d love to know how and when you discovered the Enneagram.

Josh Elledge:

Yeah, gosh, I had a client who was pretty proficient, talked about it quite a bit. I made some guesses about who I am and he said, “Oh no, now you do not filter the world the same way that I do”, because that was his and he said, “You, my friend, I’m just going to guess you strike me as a seven, but go ahead and take a…” he recommended a test. Went through it, sure enough, I’m a seven, I’m married to a six. My director of operations is, and you’ll have to forgive me here you have to let me know, very perfectionist, what’s that?

Matt Schlegel:

Type One. Type Ones frequently work together and work very well together. So that’s awesome.

Josh Elledge:

We are a great combo. My Six wife and I… I feel like she loves what I bring to the relationship. I love what she brings to the relationship. So I’ve got to tell you, I feel very lucky.

Matt Schlegel:

Yeah, very complimentary relationships in your life.

Josh Elledge:

Yeah. Listen, I think that this ain’t my first rodeo, I’ve been in business for myself for decades, and so this is my second seven-figure company. One thing that I’ve learned in terms of building a team is I absolutely recruit for my deficiencies. As a leadership team too, we’re very conscious about how people show up and we really think hard about, “Okay, this person’s coming across in this personality style, but I’m not sure that’s what we really want for that role.” and so we very… I mean, we hire for personality, that’s really important for us. I think that’s one thing that wisdom and experience will teach you as well, that if you aren’t cognizant of what people bring to the table in terms of their soft skills and just how they’re wired and how they filter, you’ll learn it eventually, hopefully. Otherwise, it’s going to be a big costly, expensive mistake, time and time and time and time again.

Matt Schlegel:

Right, absolutely. Well, that’s so great that you are using the Enneagram in that very powerful way to build a complementary team and then lining up the right style and dynamic for the roles that you’re recruiting for. That is a great application to the Enneagram. As you were first learning the Enneagram, what did you discover about yourself that you hadn’t appreciated before?

Josh Elledge:

I also feel like because I’ve been highly, highly focused on personal development, personal growth, recognizing my weaknesses, and if I go through and I’m really kind of reading articles and books we talk about what are the fail points. Fail points, this isn’t a good, a good term. But where does Sevens need to be very conscious about their own shortcomings and maybe how they might show up in a relationship in a way that you need to be aware on this. I feel like I’ve worked on those quite a bit. But, I also, when someone says, “well, aren’t you going to work on that?”, I said, “No, no I don’t really enjoy accounting for example, or the details, or dealing with customer service issues or whatever”. I very intentionally delegate and promote to solve those issues. Because here’s what I know is that if I get stuck doing roles that I know that just it’s not fun and in cases makes me feel bad about myself, or it demotivates me or something like that. I could evolve to like that stuff, but I kind of don’t want to and I’m okay with…

Matt Schlegel:

There’s other stuff to do.

Josh Elledge:

Yeah. Like asparagus, I’m sure some people love it. I just don’t and I’m okay giving other people the asparagus. I cook it, I’ll make it, I just don’t want to eat it. Right. And so, all other people eat my asparagus.

Matt Schlegel:

So what I’m hearing is that you really appreciated that your style is much more big picture. It’s much more looking at novel things and not necessarily diving into detailed work, grinding, detailed work that you’re just fine demotivating. And rather than just force yourself to do that, “Hey, let’s find somebody who likes doing that work because there’s plenty of people who like doing that work,” have them do that. Then you can focus on the work that motivates you and encourages you and just makes you feel better. That….

Josh Elledge:

Yeah, I feel like I have a moral obligation on behalf of my team. I have a moral obligation on behalf of my family if I want to grow this company and I want to provide for my family. I have a moral obligation to being conscious about my strengths and weaknesses and certainly, I have a moral obligation to serve my audiences and my customers in the way that I do best. In fact, one thing that I’m very clear on with them, as I said, listen when you get in I’m going to give you to better hands in terms of deployment ,and build out, and that sort of thing. You wouldn’t want me doing that work. It would end up being… Because a lot of times, and here’s the thing. I want to talk to like business founders and CEOs and stuff right now, if you are working in account-based services like if you’re an agency owner, you’re a consultant, you’re a coach but you’re at the point now where you have a team.

Josh Elledge:

A lot of times your clients will make investments because they really like you, they believe in you. They really resonate with you and your philosophy. We have to let our clients know coming in. I know it sounds like it would be a lot of fun if we were to be on all these calls together, but I just have to tell you I’ve tried that. It ends up being really frustrating because I’m just not the… I love being on a call. I love coming up with lots of other ideas, but I love having somebody else on the call with us so that they can make sure to execute on everything and they don’t let anything fall through the cracks. If you’re relying on me, it’s going to strain our relationship. So if you don’t mind, I’m going to bring some key team members that they are the best in the world at this very nichey, nerdy, specific thing. You cool with that? Yes. Great.

Matt Schlegel:

So, and that again, allows you to be kind of freewheeling and talking and sharing ideas, and then you have somebody else just following up and making sure that everything is being tracked and monitored and taken note of so that you can have great follow up later.

Josh Elledge:

That’s it. Listen, I am just so grateful. To the person who’s listening to our conversation right now, you know this stuff and I got to tell you there are major weaknesses and threats as you’re doing your… that you will be able to better overcome as a result of your awareness of how these personalities, the dynamics of these personalities, how they mesh together, work together, recognizing your own weaknesses, and being okay with working around that. Again, it would be the same thing. There’s certain aspects of taking care of my car I’m good at, I can do, and other aspects, I just trust the hands of other people that are much more, better equipped to do that stuff.

Josh Elledge:

Don’t let your ego get in the way of a greater impact in the world, because I only do, let’s say maybe overall within my company at this point, maybe three to 5% of the total work that gets done week to week to week. I want to be the best in the world at that three to 5% and that’s why I talk about this moral obligation. Again, particularly I’m talking to my leader friends out there. Don’t get in your way. Don’t get in your own way because of your arrogance or ego. Let it go.

Matt Schlegel:

Well, you’ve brought up already a couple of really great applications of how you use the Enneagram One in recruiting and then also just in your working day to day, just figuring out which style is going to be the best in a certain situation. That’s just two excellent ways to use the Enneagram. Just as we wrap up and feel free to jump in, if you want to ask something else, but I do want you to give advice for other leaders of Enneagram Type Seven. Specifically, what advice would you give to them as they’re on this journey of self-realization and self-awareness?

Josh Elledge:

Yeah. This is important for me as a Seven. So Sevens love their variety. They can get bored. What I want you to do is I want you to treat your work almost like a game or a challenge. What we know, and I’m a big fan of like atomic habits, James Clear kind of, where the difference between a champion and an amateur is that a champion just does it longer. They just do it more. Well, you might listen to that and say, “Ooh, I don’t know how a Seven’s going to do that”. So, we want to look at what is the thing that we can do that gives us… For me, again, I like variety. So what do I do professionally? Well, as a CEO or a founder, listen, we go back to Michael Gerber, E-Myth, I have one job.

Josh Elledge:

I got to grow this company. I am responsible for growth so how can I do growth in a way that meshes with my personality? What do I do? Here’s what I chose. I am a very avid podcaster and while I do use the same mechanism, day in, day out, I have about seven to 12 interviews with seven to 12 different people every single week. I am constantly learning from new people and I get to ask them any question that I want to ask and I have made that a part of how we grow our company. For me, podcasting is the ultimate networking tool, so I have a business justification to do the thing that me, as a Type Seven, can excel at. I’m generally pretty good at connecting with people in rapport and I love it. I love people.

Josh Elledge:

Sometimes it’s going to take a little bit of mind mapping. You’re going to need to work with someone who can really help you identify your strengths, weaknesses, and “okay, well, how could we do this in a way that works well with your personality type?”. I got to tell you, Matt, I am very grateful, very grateful. I mean, I’m the founder, so I mean I had some say in this, right. But I’m very grateful that I found a way to make it work. For those leaders out there that you know that your current role is just not meshing with your personality type, again, I would find a coach who understands this, and you’re going to have to do some serious mind mapping exercise where you can think about “what are some ways that I can tailor my responsibilities, or I can accomplish the things I need to accomplish that are absolutely going to be in alignment with my ability to show up day in, day out”.

Matt Schlegel:

Right. Oh, that is such great advice, Josh. Just a couple of things. One, just as you point out, you have built into your week lots and lots of variety meeting new people, which is just right in the sweet spot of the Seven, something they love to do. I noticed that you keep using that word, “learn”, “learn from,” and what I found is that people who are growing in their careers will tend to move along their path of integration towards that integration point. For the Seven, it’s the Five which is the epitome of learning all the time. You are actually building in that growth right into your daily or weekly activities by just learning from other people all the time. You really have wrapped up a lot of healthy dynamics in what you’ve situated yourself in and I applaud you for that. Just really sounds like a super fit and I could just tell it from your enthusiasm that you love it.

Josh Elledge:

Yeah. Matt, thank you so much and thank you for the work that you’re doing. Again, leaders like me really appreciate being able to just make those big discoveries about ourselves and, most importantly, to take action on those discoveries. Again, it’s one thing, “Oh, I know the Enneagram. Oh, I know my personality”. Okay, great. So day to day, what are you doing to go along with that? It’s like knowledge without action. I feel it’s like if I give you a big sack of cash and you go bury it in the backyard, it’s worth nothing. Matt, the work you do, you’re handing out big sacks of cash. Okay folks, go spend that money on stuff that really is meaningful to you.

Matt Schlegel:

There you go and you just handed our audience a huge sack of cash too. So thank you.

Josh Elledge:

There you go. Cash everywhere.

Matt Schlegel:

Thank you for sharing your stories and your wisdom and your experiences. Best of luck to you growing your business. Sounds like you’re just on a perfect track for you. I do look forward to having a conversation in the future. Let’s check in and just see how it’s playing out and how the Enneagram is playing in that.

Josh Elledge:

Matt, you’re awesome. Thank you so much for having me.

Matt Schlegel:

All right. Thank you, Josh.

Matt Schlegel:

Thanks for watching. Wow, I love Josh’s energy. You can feel that Type Seven enthusiasm shine through. Clearly, Josh is very thoughtful and he’s well named his podcast The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. I very much appreciate his insights. That Type Sevens can frustrate themselves by doing things that aren’t a fit for their style and recognize that they can partner with people who complement them and can fill those roles, leaving the Seven to excel at connecting and learning. Things that the Seven are masterful at. He also identifies two types that are very complimentary for the Type Seven, the Type Six and the Type One who are masters at the details, planning, organizing, and follow-up. Things that the Type Seven would rather not do. If you like this, please click on the thumbs up and subscribe to the channel to get notifications of upcoming episodes. If you have any comments, please leave them in the Comments Section and I’ll respond as soon as I can. Thanks again.

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