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You're listening to the Enneagram at Work Podcast, a show about understanding people at work, including yourself. I'm your host, Sarah Wallace, and I'm looking forward to diving into this week's episode with you. Well, welcome or welcome back to another episode here on the Enneagram at Work podcast. I am your host, Sarah Wallace, founder and CEO here at Enneagram MBA, and we are starting to round out our series on using the Enneagram inside our performance reviews or maybe just a feedback session, maybe just a conversation that we might need to have with a teammate. And the intention isn't, as always, uh, you know, I'll give this disclaimer, isn't to say, hey, you're a today we're gonna be talking about the type four. So you're a type four, you're definitely gonna need to work on this, or this is what you're really good at, and this is what you you need help with. Uh, we won't know that, right? The our type will just give us a starting point, it'll give us a place to start to get curious, it'll give us maybe some deeper understanding, maybe some additional language, but you know, it is impossible to distill all the people in the world down to just nine different types of people. Uh, so we will use this with care and caution and responsibility, and it can also be a really helpful tool to be able to provide some more meaningful and potentially specific feedback. And so today, like I said, we're gonna focus on the Enneagram type four. They are striving to feel unique, they want to feel significant, they want to belong, but belong for being their authentic, unique, one-of-a-kind self. They want to be understood, and it is one of their biggest pet peeves to feel like somebody thinks they know them, but doesn't, uh, to feel misunderstood uh can be really hard for our type fours. And so today we're going to look at some strengths to remember to call out when you're in these performance review sessions to uh be on the lookout for because these things like each type has them. Um, they they probably come pretty natural to the individual and they might not even recognize it as a strength. Meanwhile, you're over here seeing it and just you know blown away or impressed by what they do. And so this will give you some language to call that out and specifically say, Hey, I see you doing this, and you are really good at this. Not everybody thinks this way or does does things quite this way. So we'll look at some strengths to remember to recognize. We'll look at uh potentially where there might be some overuse of those strengths, and that's where those challenges might happen, where that the some difficult feedback, some some uncomfortable conversation might need to come up, maybe around how they're overusing that, uh, how they're overusing their strengths. And then we'll look at some specific growth opportunities for our type four using their two resource points or their arrows. Um, and then like we've done with all of these, we'll overlay the uh emotional competencies and then those three specific options for our four. So, with that, our fours, their leadership style is known as the visionary. Um, as I mentioned, they are striving to feel unique. Um, and with that lens of the world, they bring so many gifts to a team. And I would say four, five, and sevens tend to be the least common that I see on teams. So sometimes um we may not even have a four in the room. Sometimes there's one, it is very rare for there to be more than you know, two or three. And so uh sometimes what companies or teams will ask are it's like, well, gosh, do we need to bring in a four? Do we need to look someone look to hire someone who's a four? And you've probably heard me say this before if you if you've been listening to the show, but it's not about bringing in a type four. But as I go through these strengths, if you don't have anybody on your team that you know identifies as a four, maybe there's some sort of gap in the team or enhancement you could use from this the strengths list of a four. And an example that I've shared before is a sales team. Um, had a lot of threes, had a lot of eights, had a lot of sevens, a couple sixes, a couple ones. No fours. And uh they said, gosh, you know, do we do we need to hire a four? Do we need to bring in a four to help balance our team? And how the conversation ended up going was that we talked about it's not about that four person, but what about the four? And one of the things the fours are excellent at is this idea of um just being really good at storytelling, being very creative, descriptive, uh, moving storytellers. And so you could see how that type of strength could really enhance a sales team in that sales process. Um, we also talked about fours have a strength of being incredibly empathetic, really um in touch with their feelings, others' feelings, um, incredibly aware. They're self-aware and aware of how others are feeling. And so bringing in some of those emotions, bringing in some of that ability to uh empathize and understand maybe the struggle that your client is going through could be a way that a sales team might embrace this type four strength if they don't have a type four. Other strengths that a type four brings to a team is that creativity, um, is that just that um uh they are looking for that deep, meaningful purpose. And so they can get people very inspired, whether it's a client, whether it's a teammate, whether it's people that they're leading by making what might seem like mundane daily tasks, which we all have to do, but they're really great at remembering, hey, we're doing this because we have this big, you know, deep meaning. You've heard me talk about Steve Jobs probably being a type four in the past, again, if you've listened for any time. And he had this, hey, I want to make a dent in the universe, I want to do something incredibly meaningful that's going to leave a legacy. I want to um, I want to create things and make them beautiful and unique and one of a kind. And so fours just have this natural gift to approach life, their work, their projects that they're working on in just such a fresh and interesting way. Now, when that those strengths are overused, we dial them up a little too high. Maybe the situation is a is a four, and we got it, we got a uh 10 level 10 going on. It's the the strength is the strength. It's just we've dialed it up a little too high as a four. So sometimes what can happen when a four overuses their strengths is that they can um they can actually get a little rigid and insistent on being right because they just have this big, very meaningful vision of how things could be better, a little bit like that one, how things could be better, um, how things could be different and unique and special. And it can feel like if anybody else is trying to add to that vision, um, it can kind of feel like, well, this is my vision, this is what is this, this is how it's going to be. Um, they they can get a little rigid, which I don't know that we think of for as that way initially. But again, it's just that some of those strengths dialed up. Um, sometimes in the workplace, too, they can get a little, uh, I think probably one of the more common challenges is getting a little impractical. So this is wanting to create something, you know, new, one of a kind every single time, adding that creative spin to every single thing. And they see it so clearly. It's like, oh my gosh, we could just, we could do this and it would make it beautiful, it would make it unique, it would make it amazing. Um, but there are some things where it's just like the status quo is going to work in this situation. We only have, you know, so much uh time, we only have so much funding, we only have so much energy in a day. And if it was unlimited, maybe we would do that, but it's not. And so the job, the kind of the growth opportunities for the four will be understanding that in in some places they're gonna have to go with the mundane, they're gonna have to go with with all with what has always been, so that they do have that time and energy and and budget um to to go all in and and really make some creative new ideas in the situations where it it needs to be, where it's it makes more sense. Um, and then kind of along those lines, sometimes it might just they might be complicating things just for the sake of being different. You know, it's like, okay, everybody's going, everybody's going right. Well, they want to go left just so that they can be different. Um they can feel really misunderstood. Um, and when that happens, they may shut down, get really remote, withdrawn, maybe get a little melancholy. Uh, sometimes they get a reputation for being kind of over-dramatic, maybe overly emotional because they they are so in touch with those emotions and that empathy. But when that's dialed up, uh there may be it, it may be a little too intense for the person on the receiving end. It may be a little too much for the situation. Um, and that will be where that that gift of the self-awareness for the four can can come in and they can kind of readjust that dial. So those are some things that you might notice in your type four teammate, or if you are a type four, some things, some strengths to continue to lean into, and then just some overuse strengths to consider. Gosh, where are my challenges? Are they coming from any of the ways that I'm overusing my strengths? Now, our type four uh is linked to the type one, striving to feel perfect, and they're also connected to the striving to feel uh, let's see, I did I say that right, striving to feel perfect, type one, and then striving to feel connected, type two. Uh and so when we talk about, you know, the stress arrow is kind of known as that type two. They can lean into that, they might get a little clingy, they might become a little people pleasing, they might become um even more uh emotional, emotionally charged. Um, and then they say the growth arrow is the type one where you're bringing in some of that discipline, that emotional regulation, that um rational, yes, feelings can be facts. And then sometimes um we need logic and uh you know the the real situation to help us see like, okay, this is not as bad as it could be, um, or this is not as bad as it might feel in the moment. So there's a lot of opportunities in there, but really for for both of them. So when you're leaning into your growth arrow, um as a four, you have that the objectiveness of the one, the discipline of the one, you become a more emotionally grounded, you become wise. And this discipline and consistency is such a gift for the four when they hone, when they kind of dial that in in a way that works to complement their creative visionary ideas, it helps them bring it to life because otherwise they just have all these incredibly creative ideas, but they don't have that discipline, that consistency, that uh the objectiveness to be able to bring the right ideas to life. So, man, when you pair that four and that that one, you can you can really make some some big things happen uh with your four energy. And then also, though, within the two, there are a lot of opportunities for growth and and ways that the four can become a little more maybe others focused. Sometimes they can get really wrapped up. Um, they are incredibly self-aware. And with that, sometimes comes being um overly focused on how they're feeling, how they're doing, what they did wrong, what other people are thinking of them. And so that too can help them put some of that focus on others, helping others, focusing on others. Um, they can highlight kind of some some uh maybe being a little bit more service-oriented. And sometimes that can help get you out of a funk. Not always, right? But but sometimes focusing on others, how can I be of service? Um, and then bringing in some hope and positivity that twos tend to have. So, high level, those are some ways that our four can look to grow or just things to consider. That, hey, I would like to do a better job at this. We'll get to okay, what does that mean though in a second? So when we overlay those emotional competencies for our type four, um, the four that come up are self-confidence, positive outlook, and self-control. So self-confidence is tied to the type four point itself. And as unique and creative, and as much as type fours want to stand out and be noticed, they also like like we all can can uh at times really struggle with their self-confidence, with their abilities, with you know, again, it's just like I they can get really wrapped up into what do people think of me? I'm defective, there's something wrong with me. Why can't I, why can't I be as good as whoever? Why do I have to be different or why do I have to think this way? And so fours have a lot of opportunity to really focus on, okay, how can I become more confident in my abilities, in my own power? How can I remove some of that comparison that a lot of fours are doing? How can I not see myself as defective and really lean into those differences as strengths, many of which we just talked about now? So self-confidence might be an um a point of growth for our fours that they want to focus on. Um, we also had positive outlook that's tied to the point two. They're known for being for being pretty positive. And in that their positivity kind of comes from uh, oh, I'm here, I'm stepping in, I'm here, don't worry, I I can help. It's all gonna be okay. Um I'm here. So it's a little, it's a little um maybe not quite as intense as the positive outlook of a of a seven, for example, but it it's still very much there. Um, and so are there opportunities? Could there be some changes for the better, whether in your relationships, career development, um your the way that you work through projects, if you embrace this positive outlook more? It's defined as being optimistic about challenges, it's defined as celebrating success, recognizing your own accomplishments, um, and then just kind of having an overall positive attitude. Uh our type seven, we talk about sometimes when that this is turned up to a level 10, it can become toxic positivity. I don't know that fours need to worry about that too much, but with all of these, it works when they're dialed in. So again, depending on where where you're running into challenges, what's causing you stress, what's causing you frustration, um, one of these two might be an option to focus on. The last one uh to focus on is this idea of self-control. Um, and that is at the point one. And this kind of goes back to those, those, uh, that description of the growth arrow that I just that I just shared about um just kind of controlling your emotions a little more effectively when you're in the midst of some really challenging situations when there's a lot of stress. Um, because sometimes a four can just lean really hard into those emotions and those stressful or intense situations. Um, but especially in a leadership position, whether it's leading a team or leading a project, um it can, it can really benefit the four and the people around them if they're able to better um, they're able just to kind of get a little be a little bit more grounded and control those intense emotions. Again, we can't necessarily control how we feel, but we can control how we behave and express those feelings. And some situations, it's going to make it worse if we if we overdo it. So this will be, this could be another one for a type four to look at. How could I get, how could I dial this idea of self-control in a bit more? So that's usually a good starting point to consider for our type fours. But again, there's all kinds of opportunities. Obviously, some some fours have been doing a lot of self-awareness, self-growth, personal development, professional development work. And they may already have a great handle on these. These are simply suggestions. Um, there are there are other uh emotional competencies here. There are obviously other things to to work on growing. And it really just comes down to, gosh, where are where are the majority of my challenges coming from? Like if I had to write them down, where do I keep running into a wall? Where do I keep getting frustrated? And it may seem like a million different things on the surface, but if you kind of take that down, take that down, take that down, there's probably some common themes. So um I'm gonna I go through this with each of these just in case people are picking and choosing their type or the type that they have on their team and and miss this framework in another episode. So then once we kind of identify, okay, what what's maybe a word or what's what's the phrase I really want to focus in on? We don't need to pick 10 things, we're just gonna pick one thing right now. So let's say it's maybe um, let's say we're gonna go with self-control. Okay, so we're gonna walk through this three phase, this three-point phase uh here. And so we have phase one, we're gonna increase our awareness. Okay, so let's identify our goal. What what's the thing we want to focus on? Let's pretend as a four, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna focus in on this self-control. Okay, great. So currently, what are the behaviors that you're struggling with with? Like, how are you running into where are you running into issues, challenges, frustrations with this idea of self-control? What what are you doing currently? So we want to take inventory of that. Now, the third thing we want to look at is okay, we have those behaviors. What are the impacts of that current behavior on your career, on your day-to-day, and maybe on your team? How might that be impacting your team? Well, you know, it can maybe intensify the stress even more, you know, whatever that might be. So you'll list those impacts. And then lastly, in this section, you're going to list the potential benefits on your career, on your day-to-day, on the team, if you were to meet this new goal, start progressing towards this new goal. What benefits might happen at work in with projects with your team relationships? So you'll note that. And then in phase two, what are the obstacles? And this is such a this is such a good one. When I learn this, I think about it all the time in all different things. Like anytime I set a goal, I think about what's inevitably going to get in the way. Because there's going to be something. And so let's go ahead and be aware of it. And let's go ahead and try to have a plan to help us navigate through it or help us maybe avoid it altogether. So what so understanding our obstacles. Okay. So what is the how does your preferred strategy, so striving to feel unique, how does that conflict with this goal of being in control of your emotions, being in control of yourself? Um, I think sometimes, you know, it can be important for a type four uh to, you know, one of the things that can make them unique and make them feel special is their ability to express their emotions. So it might feel like, gosh, if I'm um controlling my emotions to this extent, like, am I being authentic? Am I being fake? Um, and and you know, we've we said at the very beginning, it's incredibly important for our force to be um understood and to be able to express themselves, to be authentic, to be real. And so controlling your emotions, uh, especially in challenging situations, can feel like that's an that's in direct conflict with that strategy um that you want to feel striving to feel unique. So then we have to reframe the goal so that it aligns with that. So how can we change the story so that actually self-control, controlling our emotions effectively, can actually make us feel more unique, more significant, actually be more authentic? What is that story? What is that reframe? And then lastly, phase three is planning and practicing. So, what specific action or new ways of thinking are you are you can help you support this goal? How are you gonna think differently? How are how might you behave differently? The second thing to think about here is who else needs to be involved? Is there somebody on my team, a boss, a teammate, somebody from a different department? Is there somebody outside of work, a therapist, a friend, a partner, a parent, a you know, who who else needs to be involved in this? And then this is also uh an important question that I don't know that we always consider either. Who else needs to, or not who else, how will we know when progress is being made? Like what does success look like? It's one thing just to write down, okay, I'm gonna be in more in more control of my emotions, but what will that look like if we're recording that on a video? Like what will change? What will be different? Um, and so we wanna make sure that we have a clear picture of what progress looks like. And notice that it's we we're talking about progress here. Um, it doesn't have to be perfect. You hit the goal and then you never mess up again. You just remain in control of your emotions all the time, forever and always. Of course, that's not gonna be true. And if that's your expectation, then you're setting yourself up to feel like a failure. But progress, progress, you're getting better, you know, you're getting, you're, you're improving. So maybe instead of 10 out of 10, you know, you're having these strong emotions um and challenging situations, maybe it's hey, you know, uh, I'm getting better. Uh two, two out of 10 times, like I'm able to keep it together. Seven out of, then maybe it gets to seven out of 10 times, you know. Um, but it's progress and you're gonna move forward and then you're gonna move back. And that's okay. But we want, we want to understand what does progress look like. So if you happen to be sitting down with a type, uh, a type four, and having this conversation with each of these, we have talked about um maybe even the delivery of how you might want to position some of this um this feedback. So it's one thing. So we we have our words, we've talked about our words, maybe giving some specific suggestions. We've also talked about specific uh strengths we want to make sure that we're highlighting. But as we deliver whatever feedback we need to deliver, whatever conversation we need to deliver, at the end of the day, um the fours want to know that their feelings matter, that their creative expressions are understood and valued. They want to know those feelings are understood and valued. And so as you're delivering this message, whatever it is, whatever the message is, want to make sure that okay, I'm keeping in mind that their feelings and their creative expressions are very important to them. So I want to make sure that I'm understanding them and that I'm valuing them. So you might need to say, hey, I really value this. You may need to ask some additional questions to make them feel like you you understand and so that you really do understand. Um, and they want their unique perspective to be appreciated. So making sure you're highlighting that. Um, and then whatever feedback you're giving, whatever goal you're giving them, whatever you know, growth path you're discussing, it goes back to it's it's really going to, they're gonna have more success. You're gonna have more success on your end communicating that. Um, if you're able to connect it to the bigger picture. If it's like, hey, if you're able to be more in control of your emotions in these intense moments, this is how it can actually impact the bigger picture, the bigger vision, the big significant goal that we're working on. So making sure you're keeping that in mind as you're delivering this message to a type four. So, with that, that is the highlight of thinking about some things with our type four and sitting down. Um, and you know, at the beginning of this series, I had talked about we're we're doing this to give ourselves some specific language, some specific ideas so that we're not just giving or getting feedback that's like, great job, keep it up. It's like, well, what exactly is great that I'm doing? And so we have some things today that we covered with our type four specifically. And then we've also talked before about, you know, some people will say, well, they just said, you know, be more confident or, you know, uh use more effort or, you know, whatever, whatever that thing is. It's like, okay, that's kind of helpful, but it's still not very specific. So again, we have some more specific language, some more specific angles for helping those that we lead, those that we work next to, and potentially if leading ourselves in in our jobs, our careers, and and in our work relationship. So next week we will be wrapping up this episode or this series with our type five. So if you have somebody on your team, somebody in your life, or if that happens to be you, um please come back to that one. I'd love to hang out with you over there. As a reminder, Enneagram MBA is a team training company. I just talked last week about how different organizations and teams were using the Enneagram inside their team retreats, off-site team retreats. So that is an option. We also have options for um kind of diving in a little deeper, uh, doing some longer uh programming, really kind of getting into the meat of challenges, really getting into the meat of growth opportunities for the individuals on the team, for the leaders on the team, for the team in general to really understand each other. And while, you know, a one-off uh retreat workshop is really fun, it can be really entertaining, it can also be very eye-opening. Um, it's like, you know, it's like anything. It's like you you do it once, great, but if you practice more, you get better, you get that much better. If you do it again, you get that much better. So we have opportunities uh as well to continue um learning about the Enneagram in specific areas and really get specific with your your team dynamic team challenges and and where your team wants to go. So all of that starts at EnneagramMba.com. And with that, I hope to see you back again soon. Thanks for being here.