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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. Today we are continuing the series around what to think about if you have specific type gaps on your team. So we started talking about at the beginning of the series how we want to make sure that we're not hiring based on Enneagram type. And the Enneagram type can be descriptive, it can be prescriptive, it can give us some very specific growth guidance, but it cannot be predictive. It is not predictive of how we are going to behave. We could have 10 twos in a room, they could behave very differently. Um, while there is common are there are common tendencies in in many situations with our type twos, they don't all act the exact same way at the exact same time for all of the rest of their life. Um, but they all, if they are a type two, the thing that makes you a two-a-two, um, using that that strategy of a two is striving to feel connected. So there's some preference that they have with their kind of that that logic will influence their thinking that will then influence and their influence their behavior, but how that behavior actually is presented may look very different. So we want to be careful about using the Enneagram to hire anybody. However, it can be as soon as the the day that they sign on the dotted line that they, yes, we have an agreement, you're coming here. As soon as they're in the door, let's use the Enneagram. And uh in fact, we will use the Enneagram uh with some companies uh who have uh who will work with us uh uh to bring on as part of the onboarding process when they bring on their new team members. And we'll use it for um kind of a like an additional personal growth. Hey, we want to let you know we're very into professional development, we want to invest in you. Here's an opportunity to learn more about your workplace preferences, pet peeves, your style, communication style. And here's an introduction to your team. Um, and here's some here's some places to start with getting to know them. And uh, if you have not listened to the benefits of using the Enneagram in your onboarding process, go back to that uh first episode in this series. And then last week we covered types five, six, seven, what to do if you don't have that that person on your team. The answer is don't go out and try and hire a type seven. Um, in that first episode, we talked about a lot of times too, people are, you know, they mistype themselves. So we, you know, you'd hate to be like, oh, we absolutely need to type, you know, five on the team, and then come to realize they're really a type one. And and so that's why we don't, there's just another reason why we don't use the Enneagram in the hiring process, but it can be so powerful in the onboarding process, and it can be powerful in in looking at the team as a whole and and using some language and deeper insight for, hey, where might our opportunities be based on the makeup of this team? Um we actually might be stronger because we don't have somebody like this on our on our team or we don't have this. Um, and it makes sense because the this this team, this department, this organization requires us to whatever, whatever type it is, to have a lot of this type. However, um, we may need to look for some opportunities to to bring in more of something we're missing. So an example um that I used in the first episode was uh if you have a team of physicians, for example, and you're heavy on the ones, maybe have a couple fives, uh, couple sixes, maybe even heavy on the twos, kind of that connection piece. Um, you know, I think it's okay that you don't have any type sevens on on that team. Um, it's like we want uh we want our physicians to be striving to feel perfect. So, you know, bring in all of that striving to be perfect to to your role as a physician. However, there may be opportunities not to act like a seven or to have to go higher at seven, but like where might our teen dynamic improve if we added in a little more joy, if we added in a little more fun, probably outside of the working hours. Um, but where where might those opportunities be um that could enrich our work relationships by thinking more about the gifts of the seven, the strengths of the seven, and how we could we could use those as well. So that's that. Today we're gonna be looking at type eight, nine, and one. Our type eights are striving to feel powerful. They are striving to um protect the weak, fight injustices, avoid vulnerability. And one of their many superpowers is their ability to speak directly and get straight to the point. And I will hear from, especially with maybe with larger teams, um, thinking of a a group I worked with, it's it's been a while now, um, that was heavy on the twos, heavy on the sixes, heavy on the nines. So very others focused, very much caring for one another, wanting everybody's opinion to be to be heard. And there were, I don't even know if it was a handful of eights on the team. Um, and they felt frustrated because you know, the pace had to be slower, things didn't get accomplished as quickly because everybody had to give their opinion and every opinion had to be considered. And eights tend to just, hey, direct to the point, let let's move far, let's move fast, let's go far. And uh, you know, again, you want that balance. Um, but if there are some issues the team is running into, um, maybe serving clients, maybe um, you know, moving the company goals forward, whatever that might be, because we do have so much of this others focused, deeply caring for others' energy. But there may be situations where, hey, we need to be a little bit more direct here. We need to move a little bit more quickly. Maybe it's just, you know, the executive team makes needs to make a decision and then and let everybody else know what we're doing. Maybe we don't need to ask everybody's opinion every single time. Um, and or maybe people get to voice their opinion, but we don't need to, you know, consider and and deep dive into every suggestion. Um, so that might be uh a strength of an eight that your team needs to pull into, you know, how can we how can we move faster, get to the point quicker? Um kind of along these same lines is uh this bold action that eights will take. And you know, it's just like nothing is too ridiculous. Um, most of the time, nothing is too ridiculous, nothing is too unbelievable. Um, they have that like let's go big or go bigger. Um, thinking small is not typically, you know, uh feedback that an eight will will receive. Gosh, you gotta think bigger, thinking too small. That that's just not the case for them. So again, are there opportunities to just like blow the the walls out of your current goals and think massively bigger? Um, you know, there's uh there is uh some gurus out there who talk about, you know, 10xing your action, 10xing your goals, 10xing your life. Um are there opportunities to to do that, either maybe in your career as an individual or um your team, department, organization as a whole to bring in some of this eight bold energy if you happen to have a gap or maybe you have a few here and there, but really how could we as a team maybe channel more of that? And then the other one that I had here was this ability to instill confidence in others. Um you just you hang out with an eight, and not only do you feel confident in their abilities to accomplish things, uh, to get things done, to make the right decisions, to move things forward, you yourself start to feel confident in your ability, in your ability to take action, in your ability to make bold moves. And so if you don't have a lot of energy on your team, um, are there opportunities to be more confident, dress more confidently, so that you not only are bringing confidence to yourself, um, kind of acting as if in certain situations, but if you happen to be a leader, you're channeling some of that confidence in yourself, which then overflows and your team feels confident and they feel confident in your ability to accomplish things. Maybe your customers, maybe, maybe they need to feel more confident in your abilities that you know exactly where you're gonna take them. You're gonna take bold action, you're gonna, you know, be decisive, you're gonna be honest with them. Um, you're not going to sugarcoat the truth. And maybe your customers, you know, customers uh is always right is not the motto of the eight. Um, but that doesn't mean that they're being mean. It's that clear is kindness energy. It's where the eight's coming from. Is there an opportunity to do more of that? All right. Our type nine, um, our type nine are is striving to feel at peace. Um, some of their strengths include consensus building. I actually just used this in the eight example. Um, there are times where it's like, gosh, this person, you know, maybe you have a lot of eight energy on your team and you don't feel you're you're starting to feel disengaged. You're starting to um not speak up. Maybe you're just giving your bare minimum because no one's asking your opinion, nobody's asking your thoughts, nobody's checking in with you. How do you feel about this? How you're doing. Um, because we have so much eight energy. We've kind of swung to the opposite end and we're just going, we're just going far fast. And a few key people are the ones driving the bus a hundred percent, nobody else really gets a say, and that can feel really defeating. That can feel like, oh, what's the point? What's the point of speaking up? What's the point of asking the question? Um, nines tend to be incredibly influential because of their ability to consensus build. So if you don't have a lot of nine energy on your team, where might there be opportunities if if there are specific challenges or obstacles or issues that you're working to navigate? Could adding in some of this consensus building strength of the nine be beneficial? Um, are our nines tend to also be incredibly aware of others? Um, we talk about, you know, emotional intelligence is self-awareness and others' awareness, and then self-management and relationship management. And nines are really sometimes they may they may fall asleep to themselves a bit and not be as self-aware. However, they are incredibly others aware, they are incredible at relationship management. Um, and so are there opportunities for us to be more others aware? Um, and and and maybe it's the team with each other. Um, maybe it's another department. Nines tend to be really good at being that mediator between sometimes tricky relationships between different departments who, you know, at the end of the day, you work for the same organization, but it might feel like you have competing goals and interests. Um are there opportunities to bring this consensus building, this other's awareness, really listening, seeing the other person. Um, maybe bring it to your clients. Is there an opportunity there? And then the other one that I had on for our type nine was uh this calmness and steadiness that they can bring. And our eights, for example, have so much passion. Um, they can be incredibly influential with their deep beliefs, their their strong opinions, their passion and excitement. Sevens too can get really excited, really passionate, um, really enthusiastic about whatever it is they're saying. And and you know, that absolutely has a place. But again, we always talk about kind of dialing it in. Sometimes that gets dialed up too high, and it can come across as um little maybe especially with the seven, sometimes like this you salesman optimistic. Oh, it's okay. Well, look, yeah, the bumper's missing, but you know, it actually makes it more, you know, aerodynamic. It's like, okay, this is this is feeling weird. Um, so we got we gotta be we gotta be careful right there. Or the the eights might it might feel too intense. And it's like, gosh, this person didn't even ask me any questions about myself, and now they're pitching me their idea. And I, you know, I don't even know, I don't feel seen, I don't feel heard, I don't feel like they've customized the this pitch for me, and and they're just like so intensely trying to sell me on this one idea, and I don't even want it, or I didn't even say, you know, they didn't even ask me enough questions. Whereas nines are gonna ask those questions, they're going to really listen, they're gonna be really others aware. Um, and sometimes that excitement, that passion. Um, last week we talked about the six sometimes might bring in some, some, some uh, you know, questioning, maybe some concerns, maybe some worry. Um, and and you know, sometimes it will uh, you know, land uh well. Sometimes people experience them as being overly anxious. Our nines a lot of times are just ex very experienced to be very calm, cool, collect, very steady. So whether they're expressing a concern, whether they're expressing something that they're excited about, um, they tend to not overwhelm people. Um, they that that message can be really well received many times because it isn't overly emotionally charged, whether it's with anger, whether it's with uh worry, whether it's with even excitement. Sometimes we just talked about the the the seven, how even excitement dialed up can feel a little overwhelming. Um, so again, when this is under functioning, though, it can feel uninspiring. But if you don't have a lot of this nine energy and you have a lot of the opposite energy, you might need to kind of blend in, fold in some of this. Okay, and then last but not least is our type one. And our type ones are striving to feel perfect. Um, they are looking for how can I make things better, what needs to be fixed, um, what's right and wrong, what's good and bad, what's ethical, what's not, and they're really paying attention to those things. They want to avoid doing having or they want to avoid making any mistakes, um, being criticized in any way. And so one of their strengths that come from this energy, one of their many strengths, is this ability to take things from good to great. It's like, yeah, you know, this is pretty good. Yep, we could get by with this, but what if it could be even better? And so I don't know that ones get thought of a lot as being visionary, but they are incredibly visionary. It just may not be maybe with the excitement of a seven or the the level of creativity of a four, but they are visionary and like, hey, this is how we could take this um and make it excellent. It's great right now, but could we take it and make it excellent? And another strength that they have on their tool belt to to actually help do this is that they are they tend to be very process oriented. There it they see a path forward for how to go from good to great, great to excellent. Um, a lot, not a lot, some of the types have this big vision. And it's it's just like, oh, like I just I have this huge vision. Uh it's just not super clear how to go from here to there. And so I will procrastinate or I will just forget about it. Um, but ones are have this ability to see the process, have the discipline, the commitment, create the routine to execute on that process, even when it is not an exciting, sexy process, and to actually take the thing from good to great. Um, and then the other thing that our ones are excellent at and really are considerate of and really see um are standards. Um, and sometimes that might mean ethical standards, and not to say that anybody here is is operating unethically. Um, but are you know, are you cutting the corners uh in in some areas where um some situations it's okay, cut that corner, you know, we'll won't do that. Um but in other situations, like, well, we, you know, we we just needed to to ship it. Um so we cut a few corners, we didn't get the approval, we, you know, uh we didn't we didn't get the the permit or whatever um because we needed to get up and going. And I, you know, especially in that startup phase, like let's go, let's get after it, let's start it. Um, I get it. I get it why you wouldn't do that. At some point, though, you may need to go back or look back and channel some of this one and say, okay, where do we now need to, you know, uh dot our I's and cross our T's? Maybe we were just, you know, wild westing it over here with our hiring process. But now that we're at this level, um, you know, we we may need to look at an employee handbook. We may need to look at the questions that we're asking in the interview process. Um, or, you know, we may need to raise our standards a bit for quality. Um, we may need to raise our standards for the quality of the people that we're hiring, you know, who knows? But this is something that a one tends to be very good at seeing, thinking about, and making happen. And so if you don't have a lot of ones or any of that one energy on your team, you may need to look and see, hey, where where might there be opportunities to bring in some of the strengths of a one? So we have covered just a short list of our eight, nine, and one strengths that if we don't have anybody on our team or just have a few people, um, you know, it always doesn't hurt to ask the question, where could this benefit us? Where where might bringing in some of this eight energy benefit us? Where might be um our opportunities to improve, bringing in the some of the strengths of the nine? Where might there be an opportunity to take us to the next level by doing some of these, um, thinking about some of these things that a one thinks about? So what that will look like and what you will actually do with the answers to these questions will obviously be very different from from company to company, team to team. But I I love the the question um asking yourself that I think there's a saying that says the quality of your life is the the quality of your questions determines the quality of your life. And uh I think these kind of these kind of questions, this kind of thinking, um, are great are great questions that just that just make our teams, our work relationships, our client relationships, um, our relationships with our community that much better. So we will wrap up this series next time, looking at our twos, threes, and fours, what to do if we have gaps or a small, small amount of people, how can we channel more of that if we need to? What does that look like? So um, I hope to see you back next week for that one. If you are, like I said, looking at planning an upcoming team event. Um, a lot of teams right now, depending on when you're listening to this, are looking ahead to the end of the year and even uh kickoff events in 2025, again, depending on when you're listening to this. Um so feel free to start over at nneagramba.com to start with some options, and then that will give you kind of next steps for um how to reach out and connect and talk specifically about your team and event. With that, I appreciate you for being here. Um, as always, if you're new, welcome. If you're a returning listener, welcome back. And uh I'll see you in next week's episode.