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Welcome back to another episode here on the Enneagram at Work Podcast. I am your host, Sarah Wallace, founder and managing director here at Enneagram MBA, a team training company. Today you were listening to one of our weekend bite-sized episodes. And today we're kind of opening, opening up the mailbag, if you will, and pulling out a question that I had received specifically from a recent workshop. However, some version of this question has come up in different ways over the years. And I know that we've talked about it in various conversations on the podcast, but I wanted to address it specifically and directly here, ideally with a short and sweet answer. And the question specifically that I received was you know, I used to be a type seven where I had big ideas, I had a lot of energy, I was excited. And now I feel like in my job, in life, I kind of have to be more of a type one where I'm buttoned up, I'm more disciplined, I'm more structured. Um, so you know, my type changed. So there's some version of that. And the general gist of the question is can my type change? And the short answer, um, according to Enneagram theory is no. But what will change is your behavior and how you use that strategy, either adaptively where it serves you, or maladaptively where it does not serve you and your relationships. And so, of course, your behavior is going to change over your life. Um, you're gonna have spurts of growth, you're living your best life, you'll have moments of stress, hard times, hard chapters, seasons that, you know, invoke different feelings. Um, but that underlying core motivation will remain the same. And it they say that this has kind of shaped, helped shape who you are over the years. And it it is that core one that you reach for most often to get your needs met, um, to cope with difficult situations. And early on, you kept reaching for it because it it was serving you. And as you get older, um, as time goes on, um, you start to use it on autopilot without intention, without thinking about it, which very well might be fine. Um, but in some situations or over time, you may be overusing it, you may be using it without thinking about it unintentionally. Um, and so it may not be, you may not be using it, behaving with it the way that is going to be most helpful to you. Um, and so again, your behaviors are of course going to be all different kinds of behaviors, all different days, um, weeks, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna show up and behave differently, of course, but that underlying core motive that is driving the bus most of the time will remain the same. Now, again, I will say, of course, you can, you know, I hey, of course, I'm striving to feel, I want to feel connected at times. Of course, I want to feel at peace. Of course, I want to feel powerful. Um, sometimes I want to feel unique, right? But there's going to be one that drives the bus most of the time that you most use on default. And how that gets expressed, that striving to feel, whatever that type might be, how that gets expressed will absolutely vary and hopefully will as you as you grow. Um one example that I can think of is, you know, I know type eights get a reputation for being um, you know, sometimes domineering, sometimes intense, passion, passionate. Um, sometimes others might experience it as, you know, an anger, emotional volatility. And that striving to feel powerful in a maladaptive way, let's say in a meeting, the behavior can be dominating. It can cut off conversation, it can shut people down, it can cause, you know, maybe invoke some fear or hesitation around speaking up in a meeting. So, same striving to feel powerful, but the way that person is using it and behaving isn't probably the most adaptive behavior. Whereas you can have another type A who is really dialed in using that strategy really intentionally, very aware of their impact on others, and using striving to feel powerful in a really adaptive way, where they are creating a safe place for people, encouraging everybody to speak up, protecting the group from, you know, maybe outside comments or maybe, you know, creating a safe environment. Um, so that's that still I'm I'm striving to feel powerful. I want to have autonomy, um, I want to be in control, but I'm doing it in a way that serves me and the relationships around me. So um along these lines, I want to mention if you if you've been familiar with the Enneagram for a while or you dive into anything else, there is a concept called the levels of development where they will label um certain behaviors as healthy or unhealthy. You're using your strategy in a healthy way or a non-healthy way. And I do like the the terminology that the awareness to action framework uses with the maladaptive versus adaptive. I think that is a little bit more um responsible. You know, who who are we to say what's healthy and what's not healthy, right? And that's kind of getting into maybe more therapeutic, um, uh more therapeutic lane. Um, but so if you're reading more on this, that would probably be the thing that you see levels of levels of health or levels of development is what um we're kind of referring to here, but the way that we talk about it is just a little bit different. Um, and I do think it's a little bit more appropriate for the workplace. So um I had mentioned that somebody had said early on, I think I was a seven, but now I think I'm a one. Um, one reason for that might be that you have a role that requires certain specific behaviors from you. So when you go into work each day, you're not necessarily changing your type, but you're changing your behavior to be successful in that role. But that underlying motivation of a seven, for example, striving to feel excited is still going to be there. And so in order to use the behaviors um and just show up in the best version of you, you will have to find a way to still feed that motivation um while also behaving in the in the way that maybe the the type one stereotypically is known for. So what I mean by that is um, for example, I very much identify as a type seven, um, and I know that they have a reputation for structure and routine and consistency and follow through to uh to just be in lack of, I guess, is the the stereotypical uh story around that. Um and it's because I'm striving to feel excited. I want to I want to find the next exciting thing. Um and sometimes that means I don't always finish. Sometimes that means I jump around a lot of different things. But a type seven is absolutely capable of those behaviors and they're gonna, they're going to uh show up even um be even more successful when they can also bring that motivation and that narrative along with them, where instead of hey, striving to feel excited and striving or and uh being structured and having a routine and being consistent, having follow through, it's kind of it feels like it's in conflict with one another. So I'm gonna have to shove down that striving to feel excited, but that's not the case. Um, you can change that story to if I'm able to be structured and consistent and et cetera, et cetera, I can actually do more exciting things because I'm, you know, able to follow through, or I'm able to um get to experience the whole process of this because I am following through and the beginning can be exciting, and I can find ways for the end and the uh the middle and then the end to to be exciting. So there has to be some sort of narrative shift with all of these um to not, we're not trying to shove it down, we're not trying to suppress it, we're just trying to dial it in in an adaptive way. Um, and in and in certain times, in certain situations, there may be some behaviors that feel kind of counterintuitive, um, but we're absolutely capable of it. And in order to be successful, we'll just have to kind of make sure that they align with that core story. Um, let's see, what else did I want to say here? Um, another reason for behavior changes in certain moments or over time is we also have the fluidity with our arrows or our resource points. So for the type seven, we have where we have a connecting line to a one and a five. And so depending on how, you know, what's going on in life, depending on the day, um, we might actually be behaving from a from a point of stress um and frustration. And so we might be showing up one way, and that could lead somebody to think, oh, I've I've changed over the years, right? Um, and then the other thing that might be playing a role in here, and we're we'll we're gonna be dedicating some specific episodes to this, but later on, but I do want to mention it is that the instinctual biases can also make someone seem like their type has shifted, um, even when it hasn't. So a seven with a strong self-preservation instinct, um, it's gonna come across probably a little bit more grounded, maybe a little bit more security focused, security-oriented, resource-oriented, um, less of that kind of classic stereotypical seven than maybe a seven with an instinctual bias of the navigating or the transmitting instinctual bias. Same core motive, same core motive, striving to feel excited, but a different flavor of it. It's getting expressed in a different way. So, like I said, topic for its own episode. But as you can see, there's all kinds of things that can influence how that core motive gets expressed. And so that's why when we're typing ourselves or others, depending on uh, you know, who's listening, this coaches or consultants, is we do have to be very careful about typing for that core motive versus typing for the behavior, what we see somebody do. So if you're a manager, a practical version for thinking about this is that when you're helping your team members grow, we don't necessarily want to help this person become a different type. You don't want to say, oh, you're a type one, you need to be more of a type seven, or you're a type seven, you need to be more of a type one, or whatever that is. Um, it's we want to help our people um tell the difference between their stress lines, their growth lines. Um, we want people to, we want to help people be more self-aware and pay attention to their actions and their behaviors, using it with intention. We want uh to bring awareness to their impact on others with some of that. And so it is not you need to change your type, you need to become a different type or be less of that type, but it's hey, let's let's look at how to bring out the best of what you are already naturally motivated by. Um, instead of telling someone, someone, you know, you're you're too intense, like we were talking about the type eight. Um, we can name the strength. What is the strength that is underneath that pattern? And then we can talk about what their current behavior is is costing them when it's left to run, you know, unchecked, and what a better way to behave and express that same strength and that same motivation, um, but just dialing it in. And it may be, it may vary in different situations with different people. Um, but that is something to think about as a manager is we don't want to change people because that that never works. We just want to figure out what is the the behaviors that we might want to change, not kind of who we are and and how we're actually motivated, because that's probably not going to be sustainable. So, long story short, long answer short, I guess. Can people change type? No. But the goal was never to change who you are anyway. So we want to keep expanding um our adaptive range of behaviors and expressions of our type. We want to understand our arrows and those resource points and how we can use them to serve us and the people around us. We want to understand those instinctual biases and really stay rooted in what is actually driving us, but just making sure that when we express it, it's in a way that serves us. So if you want to go deeper on adaptive or maladaptive uh patterns, uh, talk about some of those arrow lines, stress versus growth lines, the instinctual biases, um, how to coach individuals on your team. Um, that is what we do here at Enneagram MBA. We do it individually with managers, with leadership teams. Um, we do obviously workshops with groups of teams. We do workshops with different departments coming together. Um, and we also have some DIY options if you feel like, hey, I got this. Um let's let's dive in a little. I feel like I could I could take this on and share this with my team. Um, all of those links are at the bottom of the show notes here. I'm gonna invite you to check out those, or you can head directly over to our website at Enneagrammba.com. With that, any other questions? Like I said at the beginning of the episode, please share um over at Enneagram MBA.com forward slash contact. I appreciate you being here for this one as always, and we will see you in the next one.