Golf Pro and Director of Golf Operations, Scott Schlegel, is an Enneagram Type 5 leader. Scott shares insights about his personal journey of growth and how he uses the Enneagram at work.
I really enjoyed the way Scott shared his stories about how he is able to interpret what was required of a situation and then appear and play that role. That ability is one of the superpowers of Enneagram Type 5. Even the quiet Type 5 can come out as the emcee of an event and look like a Type 7 if that’s what is required of the situation. Scott really does a great job of sharing these experiences.
[Video Transcript]
Matt Schlegel: Thank you 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’ll be speaking with Scott Schlegel, Director of Membership Experience at Spanish Hills Country Club in Camarillo, California. Scott’s been using the Enneagram for about 15 years and gives us a peek under the hood of what’s going on in the mind of Enneagram Type 5. If you enjoy these conversations, please click on the thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel. And now for the conversation.
I’m delighted to be speaking today with Scott Schlegel. Scott’s held a number of management positions at golf country clubs. He’s a golf pro, and he currently holds the position of director of membership experience, undoubtedly, because he’s so thoughtful, friendly, and conscientious.
Scott Schlegel: Well, thank you, Matthew. Pleasure to be here obviously.
Matt Schlegel: And yes, we share the same last name because we are brothers. I’m guessing it was about 15 years ago when I first introduced the Enneagram to you. I am eager to hear how you’re using it in your current role. Thank you, Scott, for being here today.
Scott Schlegel: Yeah, no, thanks, Matt. When you introduced me to the Enneagram, it opened my eyes a little bit to how the certain types of personalities come out in all of us and you can trace it back as you do in the Enneagram to your behavior early in life and growing into your adulthood. It’s actually been quite useful in many aspects in my current job here. At Spanish Hills, we have about 130 employees at the club.
It helps kind of navigate through the relationships that you build with the other team members at wherever you work at, in this case, a country club, and the different departments that are formed. You have a tennis pro. You have a golf pro. You have obviously a membership sales person as myself, the general manager at the club, a chef. Chefs have a definite personality type, and it seems like that they fit their little niche pretty well. I’ve run into quite a few chefs at this point and they’re similar. Of course, they’re different.
They’re human beings, but they’re similar but different. It’s really been… The Enneagram is a pretty good tool for me to use to anticipate… I hate to say anticipate someone’s behavior, but it really kind of does help do that.
Matt Schlegel: It sure can.
Scott Schlegel: It’s helped me to kind of know what someone’s reaction is going to be to certain challenging or even just pleasant experiences that they have. It’s been a good tool, and I thank you for introducing me to it. I have subsequently introduced it to quite a few of the coworkers team members here at the club. We talk about it from time to time, and it’s really a pretty good tool.
Matt Schlegel: That is awesome. Yeah, you have a lot of moving parts going on at the country club and a lot of different personalities to deal with. That’s fascinating. And then also you’re dealing with members as well and understanding those dynamics. But before we get into that, I wanted to ask you, when you were first learning the Enneagram, what did you discover about yourself that you really didn’t know or appreciate before?
Scott Schlegel: I guess part of… I’ve self-diagnosed, and I think that you helped me to do that as well, as a 5 on the Enneagram. I can see some real definitive behaviors that I probably express that you’ve seen and noticed and can identify it. It’s helped me to identify some od I don’t want to call them shortcomings, just my behavior, my behavioral patterns. I know that I do like to stay within myself. I don’t like to share too much about what’s going on in my mind with everybody.
Whether or not that advances my career or advances any behavior that I have towards the other team members of the club, it just is what it is. But I’ve learned to recognize that to some extent and whether I can make some improvements on myself and I try to. Obviously we’ve talked about this a little bit. As a 5, of course, I’m going to be a little bit of a chameleon and sometimes I’ll jump into the 7 skin to entertain the crowd, so to speak.
As some of the job title that I carry has me… I’m seeing certain events, whether it’s a golf tournament or even a party out at the pool with a Vegas casino style night and someone’s got to emcee that event and keep it going and keep it happy and keep it fun. When you’re standing in front of a crowd of 150 to 250 people, I have become very comfortable in those situations.
Matt Schlegel: That’s amazing. That’s amazing for a 5. You’re there and you’re able to tap into that 7 energy to do it. That is really cool.
Scott Schlegel: Yeah, no. I think that I do that… I don’t know if it’s consciously, but I know how to act like a 7. Obviously we’ve talked about this too. Whether your audience knows or not, our father was a 7. We’re pretty sure of that, I guess. I sometimes find myself challenging or channeling him in a lot of my behavior. I think that it’s benefited me pretty well in the career path that I’ve taken.
Matt Schlegel: Oh yeah, to have him as a role model and be able to just emulate those behaviors and that fun life of the party role that you could play.
Scott Schlegel: Yep. Yep. That’s funny. As we’ve discussed these issues in the past, there’s a couple of very let’s just say very well-rounded professionals that I’ve also tried to emulate in my career a little bit too to make sure that I’m projecting the position that I’m in. You don’t even probably know this, but just recently, I will be… In the very near future, I’ll be changing into the director of golf position, so back into the golf business here at the club, which is the leader of the golf operations of the club.
I’ve been wearing many hats at the club. And again, I think it’s my ability to navigate the personalities of everyone on the team. I don’t want to toot my own horn, but I think that if you asked around the club and even the membership and employees and team members altogether, everyone seems to kind of like the energy that I put out. I think as a 5, I do like being well-liked. I enjoy that. I enjoy that very much.
Matt Schlegel: That’s awesome. Do you have a specific example of how you’ve used that the Enneagram lately?
Scott Schlegel: Well, yeah. Not that long ago, we had a very strong 8 as the general manager at the club, and she was very demanding, but at the same time very protective of a lot of the other people in the team. I did find her… Her mood swings would be a little up and down. But she was I don’t want to say a perfectionist, but she definitely was very demanding.
I think that I used some of the knowledge that you and I have discussed over the years about how to just interact with an 8 without attempting to be manipulative, but definitely knowing how the mind of an 8 works can help you to navigate when that said 8 is your boss. You have reports you need to get done and ideas that you’re going back and forth on and with, and making sure that you at least get your point of view out there. I’m not necessarily going to always get my way.
I feel in my personality definitely lends to, if I need to, I’ll take the back seat and just ride along with the team. But then again, if I need to jump into the skin of a 7, as we’ve been doing lately, I can try to be the life of the party. To some extent, I’m amazing at that. I’m pretty good at that, Matthew. It’s been fun.
Matt Schlegel: The 5 and the 8 can form a really great working relationship. 8s want you to get to the point. You could get to the point. 8s want to feel in control. 5s can let 8s feel in control. 5s are going to have some ideas they want to share, but they’re not going to be super assertive about it. They can just slide it in and let the 8 kind of ruminate on it or work their intuition on it to come out to see if it influences the direction. I’m glad to hear that that all worked out well.
Scott Schlegel: Well, yeah. We talked about that and not necessarily needing to win every single interaction that you have or feel like you’ve come out on top with your idea of being pressed forward. When we talked about this, introducing just a small nugget of information and then maybe let the 8 run with it, think about it overnight, and magically the next day, your idea gets kind of put on the whiteboard and we all start talking about it. Whether or not we run with it, at least you got my point of view out there. It’s been good.
Again, I think that it helps… I don’t know if it necessarily suits a 5, I think that it does, that I have to have a more even-keeled demeanor. I try not to get too high or too low, and I don’t know if that necessarily fits every aspect of a 5. I do feel like when something gets very excited and everyone’s running around a little bit in a panic, so to speak, I can keep my head. Again, like I’m saying, I’m not necessarily saying that I’m always right about things, but it almost will…
I’ll come off as a duck on a pond with the above water looks very calm and cool, with the feet just paddling like the Dickens down below.
Matt Schlegel: Calm, cool, and collected.
Scott Schlegel: Calm, cool, collected. But little do they know that I’m working my butt off to try to keep that keel even, so to speak.
Matt Schlegel: Right. Right. Well, that’s a great story, Scott. Just one last question, what advice would you give to other leaders of your type, of Enneagram Type 5?
Scott Schlegel: Well, I think a lot of times a 5 will want to close the door to his or her office and maybe be a little more studious about things and try to figure it out by themselves, and sometimes to their detriment. It can work. But when you’re dealing with a team of, in my case, 130 people that we’re managing and we got a department heads and we have 12 different managers, so to speak. It has benefited me to be able to open that door and let people come in and listen to their ideas and not feel offended or not maybe release my ego.
I think that that’s a big thing when you’re working in a team environment with a lot of very strong personalities. In the hospitality and entertainment type industry, which country clubs essentially are, I know there’s some sport aspects to the club, but it’s like a big resort out there and we’re just trying to make everyone happy. Again, it’s one of those things where you can gather three or four or 5, or even all of the team together. We can talk about it.
I think as a 5, you can sit back and take the input from others and hopefully come out with an idea that is at least working towards success for the team. I don’t want to talk negatively about other personality types. I just think that, like I explained to you earlier, the 8 seems to be, “This is my idea. This is my show. We’re going to run it my way,” where I feel like as a 5, I get to sit back, listen to everyone’s ideas, process it in my mind.
Whether or not I come out with an idea that day or the next day, I think that it benefits the team to have that a willingness to listen to everybody else, accept the ideas, and then press forward with what we all think is the best idea for the team.
Matt Schlegel: Right. Right. Yeah. What I heard there was that it’s really important for 5s on teams to actually engage with the teams. Be out there. Be listening. 5s are great listeners, so that’s a great go-to skill to lean on. And then give back to the team and share your ideas and make sure that they’re folded into what everybody is thinking. That is fantastic advice, Scott.
Scott Schlegel: Thank you.
Matt Schlegel: Well, thank you so much for taking the time to share your stories with us today, Scott.
Scott Schlegel: My pleasure.
Matt Schlegel: I know as a 5, sharing stories can be a little… It takes some courage, so I really appreciate you doing that. I hope that in the future that you can come back and share some new stories with us.
Scott Schlegel: I would love to do that. Thanks for having me, Matt. Appreciate it.
Matt Schlegel: All right. Thank you, Scott.
Scott Schlegel: Bye, brother. See you.
Matt Schlegel: Thanks so much for watching. I really enjoyed the way Scott shared the stories about how he is able to interpret what was required of a situation and come out in that role. And that is really one of the superpowers of type 5 is to be able to put themselves into a role and play that role. Even the quiet 5 can come out as the emcee of an event and look like a 7 if that’s what is required of the situation. I thought Scott really did a great job of sharing that and those experiences. Thanks again to Scott and thank you for watching.
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