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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. If this is your first episode here with us on the Enneagram at Work Podcast, welcome. I'm so glad to have you. I hope I get to say welcome back soon. If you are a returning listener, welcome back to you. I am your host, Sarah Wallace, founder and CEO here at Enneagram NBA. And today we are wrapping up a series that we have been going through for the last several weeks now on using our each Enneagram type in a performance review. And so we're finishing off the series with our Enneagram type fives. Our type fives are striving to feel detached, meaning they don't want to have to rely on anybody else. Being self-sufficient, being capable, being competent is incredibly important to our type fives. They don't want to have to rely on anybody else. And really, they don't want anybody else to be relying on them. And they just tend to be really good about managing their resources, managing their energy, knowing how much they have in the tank, knowing when it's time to recharge, knowing just how much how many, how much resources they have. And then they are maybe a little bit more comfortable than some of the others and just saying, no, can't do that because they are so good with their regulation management of their resources. So as we've done in each of these, we're going to do a short overview of some of the strengths that our type five brings to the workplace, brings to our team, so that when you are sitting down in a performance review, rather than just saying, great job, keep up the good work, you can have some specific things to watch out for and to call attention to because this tends to be pretty unique to the type five. And they may not know, you might see it as a teammate, as their leader, but they may just think, oh, everybody does this, everybody thinks this way. Um, when in fact we know that's not true. And so calling attention to the strengths that they bring is also incredibly important. We're gonna look at what it what it can look like when a type five overuses their strengths. And then we're going to look at some specific growth paths for our type five using their resource points, which in this case case is the type seven and the type eight. We're gonna overlay the emotional competencies over the five, the seven, and the eight for some very specific directions. Um, and and more so just ideas for what our type five might might want to focus on on their career development, their personal development. As always, these are suggestions depending on how much growth work they've done, how self-aware they are. They may, all these things may be things that they've already done. They've already kind of been working on them, they've already kind of been focused on them. So pick other things. But this is a starting point for some clear direction uh to for our type fours when it comes to growth, specifically in the workplace. So, our type fives, their leadership style is known as the strategist. And part of that is because they are incredibly strategic and insightful. And this is one of those things where they probably think, or maybe they don't, maybe they realize that not everybody else does, but this just comes so natural to them. They just have the, they are very observant, they love to gather and collect data and information. And then once they have that information, they love to look through it and find interesting connecting points. Um, you know, we talked last week about type fours being incredibly creative storytellers, and that is going to come more from that empathy, that those feelings that they tend to be really in touch with. Our fives can also be very creative storytellers, but it is it will come from the data and the information that they have collected and their unique viewpoint of how they see all of those what seem what seem like random dots, how they can connect those and tell a really interesting, powerful story. They're very perceptive, they're incredibly competent. If you ask a five and answer or you ask them to go do something, if they if they answer you, if they do it, whatever they turn in, you can count on it being accurate, you can count on it being fat-checked. They probably have their sources cited. Um, and they don't get wrapped up in a lot of emotions. Uh, they're not gonna get wrapped up into office gossip. They just want to come in, typically just come in, do their work, do what's expected of them, and then leave. They don't they don't bring a lot of emotional baggage, they don't necessarily want to hear about anybody else's emotional baggage. Um, they have this kind of show me the data, but please do not give me the drama mentality. And uh with that, that is such a strength, that is such a gift. However, when that gets dialed up too high too often, our type fives can seem remote, they can seem maybe a little robotic, they can seem uh they can maybe struggle to connect and build rapport with their teammates, maybe the those that they lead, and this can be tricky for a type five leader. Um, they they may not be as focused on nurturing those relationships as they are finding the answer, getting down to work, doing the work. Um, they are incredibly uh we talked about perspective perceptive, uh, they are incredibly analytical, they are complex problem solvers. However, they may at times struggle with thinking too much and doing too little. Think, think, think, research, research, ponder, ponder, ponder, think some more. At some point, that doing, that taking action is going to have to come into play for most things. And for a type five, when they overuse those, their research abilities, um, it they may struggle with knowing what that point is to jump into action when enough information is enough, when that pros and cons list is enough. Um sometimes too, they can get a little uh a little territorial with the information that they have. They've spent all this time finding it, gathering it, analyzing it, reviewing it again, putting it together with other information, and then they may not want to share. And so this can be one of those kind of cross-collaboration team challenges. Each type has their own thing. Um, this can be one for a type five because it's like, well, this is my data, like this is my information. I found this. So they can get a little territorial over that. Um, and then sometimes they can can isolate themselves um from engaging with others. And again, sometimes this is great because it's just like, wow, you are so in tune with how you're doing, what you need, and and being able to advocate for yourself. What a strength, what a gift, dialed up to a level 10, maybe too often. And then it does become, okay, this person may struggle at work, not because of the quality of their work, but because of their relationships at work. We we need both, and sometimes they may overdo that. Now, when we're looking at growth opportunities for our type five, their resource points, and uh you may have heard the term your stress arrow and your growth arrow. Um, I like the word resource points because there's there's amazing things that you can tap into to both points. Um, but the stress arrow is known as the type seven. Um, and this is their supporting strategy where the they will use striving to feel excited to enhance that striving to feel detached. So it's this kind of like mad scientist mode. Like, I have all this information, I have all this research, I want to, I'm getting really excited about the numbers coming in, about the information. I just want to take it and lock myself in my office and just figure out all these, all the ways that it's connected. Um, so they can get a little scattered, maybe be a little hyperactive, maybe a little impulsive. Um, and then when they typically tend to be so thoughtful. Um so that's what that can look like. But however, you know, there's still a lot of growth opportunities in that seven arrow as well. So we'll we'll start with the growth arrow, though, for our type uh five. So they their growth arrow is known as the type eight, and this interestingly is known as their neglected arrow as well, and that's they neglect striving to feel powerful. Think about this. The type five is striving to feel detached, try striving to feel self-sufficient, capable, competent. Um it's that's a little, that's a little, there's some friction there. Striving to feel powerful, striving to feel detached. To feel powerful, you got to be out in the front. You got to be leading people, you got to be taking control, commanding control sometimes, demanding control at times. Um, and that can feel like, nope, I don't want that. So that can be the one that they neglect the most. However, there's so many growth opportunities in there for our type five. They can really become more assertive, they can become more action-oriented, they can become more self-confident, more gut trusting, trusting themselves rather than having to, you know, make this incredibly thorough pros and cons list. And and they will probably always do that. We can't just say, hey, just quit, you know, quit making lists, quit looking at the information. Uh, that probably will never happen. However, they can get better at knowing when enough information is enough and when just to go with their gut. And maybe the numbers are saying one thing, but it's like, gosh, I feel this this other way. And to lean into that gift of what most eights have, being incredibly uh gut trusting, incredibly confident um and decisive. Now, with the seven, there's a lot of opportunities for growth as well. Our fives can experience more joy, be more open to fun and and spontaneity. Um, they can fives can allow themselves to get excited, to be happy, to um show some some emotion. They can trust in the goodness of others. Um, and they can take life a little less seriously when they're leaning into some of that seven. Again, you've heard me say this a million times if you've listened to the podcast. In these situations, is it isn't, oh, this five needs to turn into a seven or a five, you need to act like an eight. That's not that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about what are those gifts, what are those strengths from these two types specifically, the seven and the eight, that you can pull from to enhance what you already have, those gifts and strengths that you already have as a type five. Now, when we overlay the emotional competencies to the five, the seven, and the eight, three come up. We have teamwork that's tied to the five. So there's some opportunities for for further teamwork, which initially a five may resist. They may say, oh gosh, that's the last thing I want to work on. However, um, depending on what's going on in their work relationships, what's going on with their career advancement, this might be a great one to embrace as a type five is that is that teamwork. And uh I was gonna read you the definition for teamwork here. Where did it go? Um, and and you know, this isn't to say we always say, you know, fives, it's not that they hate people, it's not that they hate teams, it's just a lot of times they feel more comfortable working by themselves, doing their own thing. So teamwork here is building trust and rapport, having a good sense of each group's role and responsibilities, and then being approachable and a good listener. Being approachable and a good listener. That might be something specific, even more specific within that idea of a teamwork that a five could work on. So, how might you be more approachable? Um, one thing that we have talked about in the past is when possible, when you're not, you know, deep in thought or intensely working on a project. Could you leave your door open? Um, could you schedule lunch with a teammate once a month? Um, we've also talked about maybe you don't have to be this way with everybody, but is there a person or two that you could be more intentional about being approachable with, about building rapport, about asking their day, about being open to kind of nonchalant conversation, going to lunch with this person or two? Um, and so sometimes that can seem less daunting too, when it's like it doesn't have to be every single person you encounter, but is is there a person or two that this would be helpful with? Okay, so we have the teamwork as a five when we overlay that emotional competency. We also have achievement drive that's tied to the seven in this case, and then we have communication that's tied to the eight. So when we look at, okay, what is achievement drive? What could that mean for the type five? Well, we talked about earlier, they get they can, they can get really focused on their work, can get really wrapped up into you know looking at things, reviewing things, analyzing things, and then they forget to take that action. They they may need some uh some there's maybe some opportunities to be more driven slash action-oriented. And so the definition here for achievement drive is capable of creating milestones and goals to drive momentum, get that momentum going. You push yourself and others to get things accomplished, and then you pursue with energy, drive, and a need to finish. And so again, uh, fives are absolutely capable of being driven, of having high energy. They just they may need to recover longer afterwards or may need some more time to prepare for that. Um, but they're absolutely capable of it. So if you are a five thinking about, okay, what might I need to have more of this drive at work, to have more of this, you know, momentum building. And then the communication one with the tied to the type eight. Um, so this just kind of means, well, sevens, I would say sevens um naturally kind of have this achievement drive, this forward momentum, looking at the future, taking action, jumping into action. Um, and then our eights tend to be really great at conflict resolution, direct, clear communication um when when they're when they're dialed in to their gifts. Um, and so I actually have communication broken out into two parts, and I think both would apply to our type five here. And here's what I mean by that. So the first type of communication um is open communication. So this means that the person is easy to approach and talk to. We just talked about that. They build rapport well. Hey, how are you? How was your vacation? Maybe being a little more self-revealing. Oh, you know, I had an interesting situation happen the other day. So being a little bit more willing to go back and forth, listen and share themselves, um, and then is a good listener. So that's open communication. Um, I think sometimes we will talk about AIDS as as great of a communicator as they can be, as competent, as decisive, as clear as they can be. Sometimes this open communication for our AIDS could be an opportunity for growth, being a little bit more approachable, building that rapport, not dominating conversations with opinions. So there's there's the difference. However, the five I think could could go either way here. So the other type of communication is concise communication. And this is defined as understanding what is important to convey, being direct and truthful, and then simplifying complex strategies so that others can easily understand. This is what I think about when I think of uh Neil deGrasse Tyson. And I mean, he's this astrophysicist. I don't even know half the the words, the concepts that are that are brought up initially, but then he just has this incredible way of making it so relatable, um, so easy to understand, uses examples, uses analogies. It's like, okay, talk to me like I'm, you know, I'm a third grader. Okay, got it. Okay. So this can be a challenge for type five sometimes in the workplace because they are such deep thinkers, because they are so well read, uh, they can be so well spoken, they know so much. Um, and so sometimes they want to share all that they know. And that's where that hyperactivity of the seven when in stress or, you know, when it when they're when this isn't dialed in for them, it can be, it can just be like information dumping. They just can throw this big robust report on your desk. And it's like, well, wait a minute. I just asked for this one question. I just needed this one thing. I don't want to go through all of this information. Or, you know, we just asked one question in the meeting. We don't, we don't need the background, all this other stuff. Um, but fives know it. They they know it in and out and they want to share it. However, this can be an opportunity for growth for our fives to to understand when the situation calls for that deep dive, that big report, and when we just need the cliff notes. When can we be a little bit more concise? Having that other's awareness to know what is important for this conversation, what's most important for me to share out of all the information that I know in this for this specific situation. That's not easy. All of nothing about these that we have talked with any of the these types are necessarily easy. Um, but they're absolutely doable. And the only way that we're going to uh consistently make progress towards them is when we can kind of reframe what it means, what these growth goals mean. What how can we make these emotional competencies in this situation align with our core strategy? In this case, align with striving to feel detached, being seen as capable, being seen as competent. And sometimes the story is the more I share, the more people will understand what I understand, will know what I know, um, how much I know. And the reframe in this situation might be actually people will see me as more capable and competent because I'm able to concisely articulate the key points. I'm I'm able to distill complex ideas and concepts to an easy in into an easy to understand way. So those are the opportunities for. Are five. And again, if you are a five or you're coaching a five and they've already been working through these, great. Obviously, work on something else, pick something else. If they don't have any challenges or issues, um, I wouldn't change anything. These are only relevant if the individual or if you yourself are running into some issues, having frustration, having stress, having conflict and challenges. Um, so let's look at how we can start uh applying these, taking this information and putting it into action. So with all of these, we have covered a implementation or an information to implementation process. It's three phrases, phases. Oh my goodness, I can't talk. It's three phases. And the first phase is growing your awareness. So we want to identify the goal. And I just kind of started doing this. So let's say, as a type five, our goal is to communicate more effectively, to be more concise, to be able to distill down all this information that we know in an easy to understand way for our teammates and for our projects, um, for our clients potentially as well. So our goal is concise communication. Well, how am I currently behaving that might be in conflict with concise communicating? Maybe I'm oversharing, maybe I'm giving too much information, maybe I'm making people feel overwhelmed. Um, what are those behaviors that you're currently doing? And I guess making people feel overwhelmed isn't a behavior, but what are you doing? Kind of data dumping, what are you doing currently that's in conflict with concise communication? Then you want to think about okay, what are the impacts of this current behavior? These things that I just listed, how do they impact my team? And then how might they impact my career advancement? How might they impact the work and uh the success of the work that I'm currently doing? That's where that, well, it may be overwhelming people. People may be shutting down, um, clients, potential leads might be dropping off or ghosting you because they're so overwhelmed, they don't they're they have too much information to make a decision. Whatever those current behaviors on the team, whatever that impact is on your career as well, include that in there. Then the fourth thing is what are the potential benefits on your career, on the success of your projects, on the team, if you were to work towards this new goal, if you were to become a more concise communicator, what might happen? What are the benefits? That's phase one. Phase two, we want to understand what might get in the way. And a lot of times it's that initial story that is in conflict with the goal. So I this is exactly what I just said. I we want to identify how striving to feel detached, how wanting to feel capable, competent, um, we want to always know enough. We always kind of want to be the smartest person in the room, know the most. How is that in conflict with concise communication? Well, you might think, gosh, if I don't share everything that I know, if I don't present all the information, people maybe don't know that I know all of that. And I do, and I want people to know that I know more than enough, that I'm so well versed on this topic. However, we talked about some of the impacts of this. Um how what might how might we be able to reframe that story so that striving to feel capable, competent, to have knowledge, to be seen as um self-sufficient, to be seen as knowledgeable? How might we reframe that so that it aligns with concise communication? We we already just kind of talked about that. Um, so that's you know, whatever goal you choose, you want to reframe. And then the last phase here is planning and practicing. Okay, so specifically, what are the actions that you are going to practice say to get closer to this goal of communicating more concisely? Or are there some new ways of thinking that you're going to have to adopt? The second one under here is who else needs to be involved? Is there an accountability person, your boss, a teammate, um, somebody outside of work? Who else needs to be involved in this process and to be supportive? And then lastly, I love this question. It's one of my favorites. Uh, how will you know that progress is being made? Again, you probably won't always and forever for the rest of your life speak concisely. There are gonna be times where that's just you, you know, you're it's it doesn't happen. And that's okay. We're not shooting for perfection, we're shooting for progress. So, what does progress look like for you? Is it sending over a one-pager with key highlights rather than the full report that you created? Is it um in your presentation having three bullet points instead of 30 slides? Um, what does progress look like? How will you know that progress is being made? And that is really important. It's one thing just to you know put a goal up and and then sometimes it can be like an either or like I did it or I didn't. Um, and so that's not usually helpful either, because it's like, okay, well, what exactly, yeah, what it's like, oh, you didn't do it well, you failed. And it's like, no, no, no, no, you're not gonna do it every time, of course. Um, but what does progress look like? And then identifying some specific actions. Um, so there is our type five. Uh, we have talked about specific strengths to make sure we're calling out if we're giving feedback to a five. Uh, we talked about what it might look like, where they might be running into some challenges because those strengths are being overused. We just went through some specific growth opportunities, some guidance for growth for our type five. And then the last thing that we have talked about is the delivery of this message. And so, for a five, at the end of the day, they want to know the reasoning. What is the logic? What is the rationale behind this feedback that you're giving me? And how will it help me actually improve my knowledge, my expertise? How can I be seen as more of an expert if I take on this feedback that you're that you're giving to me? And so we want our feedback to be steeped in facts and data. Uh, you know, sometimes we we might say, some of us might say, I feel like dot dot dot. Uh for a five, they don't that that's gonna, it's gonna maybe shut them down. It's like, nope, I don't, feelings are not facts uh for for this case. So we want to say, hey, I've noticed in these specific situations, I've seen this, I've learned this. Um, so we want the feedback to be coming from a place of facts and data. We want it to be objective. And then we want it to be um as much as possible void of a lot of emotion. So avoid an overly charged delivery, whether that's excitement, whether it's anger, um, you know, being too nervous, whatever that might be. You know, our fives just tend to really appreciate a delivery that is, you know, mature, logical, rational, objective. And so just kind of going in with that mindset. And for some of you, you might think, oh, great, perfect. I appreciate that too. We're gonna get along great, wonderful. Now, there are others that might, that might seem so cold and robotic and like, I don't know if I could do that. Um, but just know our our fives typically appreciate that. And you could ask, you could get curious, hey, um, you know, what's your I've learned this about delivering feedback. I've I've learned this about delivering suggestions to a type five. Here's what I learned, X, Y, Z. Um, is this true for you? Is there anything you would add? Is there anything that you would disagree with? Like, I want to understand you as a human, not just understand, you know, Enneagram random Enneagram type five. So this could could give you some things because sometimes if you're like, well, how do you how do you like to be given feedback? How do you like it to be delivered to you? And you might think, well, I don't know. Uh I don't know. But if you can give people, you know, some specific ideas, it's much easier to say, oh yes, or oh, please no, you know, so this can help uh just give you a starting point as well. So with that, we are at the end of our performance review. Using the Enneagram in our performance review series, whoo, it has been a long one. I know we've uh we've added in some other episodes to kind of break some of this up, but uh, you know, with the Enneagram, I'm always being asked, people are always questioning and thinking about themselves. How can we actually use this in real life? Like, how can we turn this fun information into something useful that we can implement and apply? And so, as I mentioned at the very beginning of this series, um performance reviews had had been coming up a lot at the beginning of the year, which it makes sense because many people had just gone through that at the at the end of last year. Um and so I thought, let's let's do a series on on this. So I hope that you found that somewhat helpful. And uh you took something maybe for somebody else that you're leading, maybe you took a tip for your for yourself to be able to advocate for yourself better, um, to give yourself some ideas for for growth in your career and work relationships. And uh if you have thoughts, ideas on future series or future uh episode topics, there is an opportunity to either call in or send a text. And I would love to hear from you. I truly would. Any additional ideas? Um I'm not yet sure what series we're going to do next. I have a couple of shorter topics I'm gonna sprinkle in. We have some interviews coming up. Um, so that'll be fun to get some other voices on the show. So look forward to that. Um, as a reminder, Enneagram MBA is a team training company. And so we do uh one off, you know, workshops, two hours, half day, full day, two days. And then we also have opportunities for our clients to continue to work with us, um, both in a group setting to continue to dive deeper, dig in deeper with their team to learn about each other more, and then also uh pairing those programs with some uh self-awareness coaching, um additional Enneagram guidance for the individual as well. So all of that starts at Enneagram MBA.com. So I'll I'm I'll invite you to check out the options over there to get started. And uh thanks for being here as always, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.