The way the Enneagram as a framework is dealt with in Singapore is very much:
I show you the box you are in.
I show you how to ‘get out of the box’ but don’t really show you the pathways to do so on your own.
You then get stuck and don’t know what in God’s name you just went through but you seem to have ‘clarity’ of who you are.
Nope. You just were made more aware of the box your core motivations are in within your Enneagram Type, stance, triad, connecting lines and emotional challenges, and not shown how to even to begin balancing your thinking, feeling and doing within yourself to get to your next level of best.
There is a difference in teaching the Enneagram as just the WHY behind your actions.
It is quite another experience to teach the Enneagram as the instincts that power the WHY behind your actions.
Then, show you the pathways to recognise when you are in healthy or unhealthy space within your instincts of your Enneagram Type, and then see that you have built access to the conditioned traits of the other non-dominant Enneagram Types (in other words, the other Eight) that has helped you wholly become the person you presently are.
This is where my work resides. This is where my particular perspective of the Enneagram is.
The Enneagram teaches you to receive and give love to yourself and others.
Often times in SIngapore, whilst teaching the Enneagram, practitioners (I refuse to call them experts, no one can ever be an expert in a dynamic, always evolving framework) often just show how you support other people in their Enneagram instincts.
While it is true that the Enneagram does bridge the gap between the worlds that our core motivational instincts creates; it is also true that a lot of these practitioners also don’t share this view of mine:
That the Enneagram is not only to bridge the gap between you and the other person’s instincts and worldviews.
It is to learn to bridge your gap between your lost instincts of the Enneagram type you were born with and the conditioned traits that suppressed the true expression of your Enneagram instincts to help your survive your childhood, past traumatic events, upbringing, culture, environment of where you lived, schooled and your interpretation of your life experiences up to this point.
Woah Jarrod, that is a lot to digest.
Okay how about this?
The Enneagram teaches you to love all parts of yourself, regain access to your birth-given instincts in your Enneagram core motivations and integrate the painful lessons of your past with the true essence of your Enneagram Type.
Learning to love yourself first is key to learning the Enneagram for yourself.
It is not to learn to type other people. It is not to use this as a party trick to impress others with your new found ‘understanding’ of who people are just based on what their Enneagram Type may be (or may not be). And it is certainly not to be used to defend your reluctance to grow out of your basic Enneagram instincts and to defend your bad behaviour (This last point deserves a post on its own).
Only when you start learning to use the Enneagram to appreciate yourself and love yourself for who you are at your core, will you then be able to use that same experience to see other people’s points of view and perspectives, and learn to speak to their world according to how they want to be seen, heard and understood within the worldview and core motivations of their Enneagram Types.
That is how I teach the Enneagram and that is how I know people will benefit most from this beautiful tool and the wisdom it has within its framework.
The Enneagram is inclusive. It doesn’t judge others and certainly doesn’t use its function to exclude anyone else.
This one is important and it is often not talked about in the Enneagram courses I have attended in Singapore.
It is often abused at a corporate level where HR practitioners are encouraged to attend an Enneagram course and to see how it can be used to filter out the ‘best fits’ for the organisation, according to their Enneagram types.. This is horrifying to me because it explicitly and intentionally excludes individuals, who may be suited for the job based on their life experiences and conditioned traits alone, because they took a 45 minute Enneagram test and was filtered away because of the results of that test.
In my earlier post, I asked the question about how financial advisers were taught to serve their clients according to (what they thought) their perceived Enneagram types were, and how they were utterly confused when it just didn’t work.
Why? Because none of those clients just appeared as the basic, instinctual, stereotypical Enneagram Type the advisers thought they were.
So to companies who have ordered their HR managers to use the Enneagram tests to see the best fit for the organisation, I would need you to stop.
The test will only carve out the core instinctual traits of the candidate before you, according to its results, it doesn’t show you the WHOLE person – with his/her lived in experiences, lessons they have learnt from overcoming obstacles in their lives and the level of experience the person may possess.
And don’t even get me started on how Agency Leaders (ALs) in the insurance industry use the Enneagram to typecast the agents below them and then tell them that because they are an Enneagram 2, 9, 4 and so on, they aren’t suited to be financial advisers. I would imagine a special kind of hell awaits for bosses like that and yes, this is also a post for another day.
The Enneagram is inclusive. It helps us understand why the person before us is instinctually different from us because of their core motivations. I further teach in my courses why two people who are the same instinctual Enneagram Type can also present themselves very differently. Spoiler alert – it is because their childhood and life experiences are different.
If, in Singapore, Enneagram courses are taught to people as a corporate tool to find the best fit for their organisations, then we need to do better.
Let me be very clear.
Every Enneagram Type has a place in any organisation and industry. We need all Enneagram Types to form a team that brings out the best instincts of their members for an organisation to grow.
That should be the way to use the Enneagram in the corporate structure – for people to learn to see the best instincts of not only their own Enneagram Type but also of others. This fosters unity, understanding and more importantly, psychological safety in an organisation in which the team operates in. A psychologically safe team will be able to explore without being judged, say what’s on their minds without any negative consequences, and bring the best instincts they have that their core Enneagram types give them to the table, in order to help the organisation become better, more productive and ultimately more profitable in the long run.
The other way just promotes anarchy and selfishness.
And if any Enneagram practitioner teaching you says they have used the Enneagram successfully in building a strong team, but you know they have had a revolving door of people cycling in and out of their company, you may want to ask a lot of questions about the discrepancy of what is being said and you actually see. Because I guarantee you that these practitioners are using the Enneagram to exclude and alienates team member, and not using it to promote unity and understanding within the team working in the company.
The Enneagram is a tool for self-growth, self-development first. But for it to be effective in our lives, we need to also learn the lessons that the Enneagram exposes within the present ways we see ourselves and our life at this present moment.
If we allow the Enneagram to shatter some illusions in our lives that has held us back from being our next best self, I guarantee you that you will gain more from its wisdom that it has to offer you.
And the world will begin to become more beautiful, vibrant and meaningful for not only you but also the people around you. Just because you allowed your old self fall away by learning new ways of being through integrating your Enneagram instincts and the rich experiences you get to have by living your life on your terms.
That is how I know the Enneagram is.
And that is how I want people to experience it in their time with me.
