In this inaugural interview of the Enneagram Leadership Path of Growth Series, Marketing and Business Development leader, Michael Kornet, shares his personal and leadership path of growth as an Enneagram Type 6. Michael reveals his own communication style and shares important tips for how to communicate well with Enneagram Type 8 co-workers.
[Video Transcript]
Matt Schlegel:
Thanks for joining me in conversations with business leaders who are using the Enneagram as a leadership tool and a tool for personal growth and development.
Today I will be speaking with Michael Kornet, a marketing and business development leader who has been using the Enneagram for about 10 years.
If you enjoy these conversations, please click the thumbs up button and subscribe to the channel.
And now for our conversation…
I am delighted to have Michael cornet here with us today. Michael is a marketing and business development expert who helps companies develop a strategic vision and grow the business around that vision until very recently, Michael served as the executive for vis RT group, which acquired new tech, where he served as vice president and general manager for new Tech’s NDI business. I first met Michael over 20 years ago when we worked together at Replay TV. As Replay TV’s vice president of business development for media, he helps secure Series B financing and forged Replay TV’s strategic relationships with networks, studios, and advertisers. We also overlapped for a while at NewTek. Michael is a dear friend, and I’m so happy that he can join us here today. Michael, welcome.
Michael Kornet:
Thank You so much, Matt. It’s really cool to be here with you. And it’s funny you’re listening to the background there, it used to be where titles and I remember graduating from UCLA and all I really cared about was getting my first business card with my on it and wearing a three-piece suit and flying out a plane with my briefcase and it was all about that business card. And, it’s funny because now titles, to me really mean nothing. And what really matters is your purpose. As a person and what you want to do in life. And hopefully, that is something that makes a difference in the world. But in terms of titles, things have really changed.
Matt Schlegel:
Well, you have some really great titles, so I just wanted to make sure I got those in. So hey, we’re here to talk about the Enneagram and leadership and I am so happy that you agreed to come on. Cause I know you’ve been using the Enneagram probably for around 10 years now. So maybe you could just start off and give us a little background about how you came to know the Enneagram.
Michael Kornet:
Sure. Well first let me just preface by saying that, I’m a little reticent about this kind of thing normally talking about my personal stuff, and Mixing that, especially with business is not something that I usually do or usually comfortable with. But I do think that this is really an important subject and, because I’ve… You’ve been such a great help to me over the years and I really want to, see if I can help as well. Anybody else that’s out there. I got lucky because I met this guy named Matt Schlegel many years ago and back then at Replay TV, I saw, here’s this hard worker, kind, you know, he’s good.
Michael Kornet:
But then later on, many years later on what I recognized was, there’s some wisdom here and there’s an expertise in business relationships that turned out to be really, really valuable. And you came back into my life, as you said, at new tech and it was just the perfect time for you to show up. And so I kind of, when you say, well, how did Annie grams, come into your life? I just kind of put that under the moniker of the universe provides. It was just for you to show up and I’m grateful for it.
Matt Schlegel:
Very cool. So as you became familiar with the Enneagram and if you would like to share your type what did you discover about yourself as you were learning about that Enneagram and your type specifically?
Michael Kornet:
Yeah, I mean so just a quick background, there was a big organizational change, and if anybody else out there has gone through that or is going through that right now, it can be a very tumultuous and sort of… You almost feel like you’re in a rock and a hard place sometimes, and you have some real gut checks that you have to do. Like, do you want to leave? Or do you want to stay, stick it out and make something worthwhile of it all? And, it’s funny because there was another executive there, that went through the same organizational change. And we were both reporting to the president at the time and then it switched to the COO and he ended up leaving, and I ended up staying and sticking it out and wanting to make it work.
Michael Kornet:
And, here’s the good news that he actually ended up being very successful on his own and leaving by leaving. And I ended up being very successful, staying and making it work. So the good news is that there’s options for these, for anyone going through this there’s options and you can make it work either way. By staying, what I gained? First of all, I learned a lot, but what I gained was a lot of respect internally, to turn something like that around and make it successful internally within the organization with the other executives there who knew what was going on. I gained a lot of respect. And that means a lot when you’re in an organization with a lot of people that you respect as well. So what I really learned was one that I don’t get right to the point, have you noticed?
Matt Schlegel:
You don’t say. We need all the contexts, don’t we? Now what Enneagram type is that?
Michael Kornet:
And so, yes, I see all sides to it. I have to see it up and down, inside and out. And so it’s funny because I didn’t realize that about myself, which is strange. You would think you would, but I really didn’t until my supervisor who I guess would be in an eight. So very instinctual, just has all the instincts is, just acts on stuff immediately and gets right to the point. And, I wrote an email once that I CC’d him on. And he immediately called me up and said, that person that gets that email is not going to know at all what you were talking about or what you wanted from them. And so that was a real, clear indication that things were very, very different in the way we approached things.
Michael Kornet:
As it turns out, and that happened a few times. And as it turns out, I was actually still very successful in doing those emails that way. And he recognized that. And so it then became almost something of a laughing matter. So it wasn’t butting heads or anything. It was more of, okay, that’s funny, we’re so different, but you’re still really successful in doing it that way, but I would never do it that way. That was, putting up a mirror to me was really, really interesting, that things could be so different and that I was not right to the point on the very first sentence of an email.
Matt Schlegel:
Yeah. I mean, it’s really amazing how, each Enneagram style has a communication style associated with it, a preferred communication style and how by knowing your own style and knowing the style of the other Enneagram types, you can tune your style to perfectly match up with the style of the person you’re trying to communicate to. And so that you just, you’re highlighting the fact that your style is perfectly tuned for communicating with the 6 while communicating with other types, you may have to make those adjustments.
Michael Kornet:
Yeah. And that’s a good point. And I also felt like when I did that, I still had to be authentic. So I still had to be myself, but if I was cognizant of it, then I could address it a little bit better, even still being myself. Does that make sense?
Matt Schlegel:
Yeah. Well, that’s great, Michael. And so just one last question, and thank you again so much for being here, but I’d love for you to share with other leaders who, particularly, if they’re Enneagram type 6 leaders, what advice would you give them?
Michael Kornet:
So I would just say, use your strengths. Don’t worry so much about… This is just my, so I’m no expert, but I would, I didn’t feel like I wanted to worry so much about my weaknesses there, but just really leverage the strengths that I had and know that if you’re successful, then things will work out. Even if the relationships are very, very different that if you can still figure out a way to be successful at what you’re doing, you’ll be okay. And it’s kind of like I had a boss a long, long time ago who had a wonderful saying that said “When the numbers are up, all problems go away.” And that’s kind of how I felt there where, just be successful, be true, and things will work out.
Matt Schlegel:
And maybe you could just elaborate a little bit on where you think your strengths are, what strengths did you lean on as you were going through that?
Michael Kornet:
Yeah. So mine were relationships and the kind of deeper caring about. So I focused on third-party relationships, which a lot of what my role was and their success. And so while we, while the business unit really needed to grow, and there were revenues involved with that, if the focus was more on their success, rather than the dollar signs, then I was much more successful in that way. And I was really true to that. And I think that, that was probably the biggest factor in the success of NDI in the beginning. And so, and while an eight might be much more, let’s track the numbers, let’s do all that kind of stuff. For me, it was, this will happen over time. If I just show that I’m here to help them be successful and because they’re successful, we’ll be successful. And that worked really, really well.
Matt Schlegel:
That’s fantastic. So really leveraging off of your strength, your ability to make strong relationships is the strength that you use to kind of carry you throughout your success it sounds like.
Michael Kornet:
Yeah. And I’m a, one of my hobbies is tennis. And so I have a analogy there where, if you have a really strong forehand and maybe your backhand is not quite as good, you could spend hours and hours just practicing your backhand and trying to improve it to the level of your forehand. Or you can take that strength that you have and improve that even more as a weapon and just run around the backhand every once in a while, if you can. Right? And so, and I think that you’d be a lot more successful there than spending all that time, trying to get the weakness up to where your strength was.
Matt Schlegel:
And you know what, you could probably say the same thing about your Enneagram type too. I think a lot of people try to compensate for their Enneagram type, by trying to build up strengths in other areas when they have all of these latent strengths right there at their disposal. And it’s really great that you were able to recognize those and tap into them and be successful. So, Michael, I just want to thank you so much for being here today. I know, like you said, it took some courage to do this, and I really appreciate you doing that. And I hope that over time, I can have you come back and share more of your insights. So thank you again, Michael.
Michael Kornet:
I would love to. Thank you for everything that you’ve done it’s been such a tremendous help in my career. And I appreciate it.
Matt Schlegel:
Thanks.
Michael Kornet:
Okay. See you Matt.
Matt Schlegel:
Thanks for watching.
If you found this helpful, please click the thumbs up button, subscribe to the channel and get notifications of future episodes.
If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments section and I will respond as soon as I can.
Thanks again!
Leave a Reply