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Welcome back to another episode here on the Enneagram at Work Podcast. I'm your host, Sarah Wallace, founder and managing director here at Enneagram MBA, a team training company. And depending on when you're listening to this, we are quickly approaching the end of the year and quickly approaching after that the beginning of the year, when all the goal setting starts to come about. And so to help prepare you for those conversations, we're going to look at how we can use the Enneagram to help us set better goals. But we're going to look at something that we typically don't talk about. Um, but I have said is one of my favorite parts of the Enneagram and something I want to talk more about. And that is our instinctual biases. So this is a concept that we have talked about in previous episodes. I will link those shows that we have done in the past that does an overview of those. Um, it goes into more detail. What is a preserving teammate, what is a um navigating teammate, what is a transmitting team, what it are instinctual biases to begin with, how can you use them for individual growth as well as understanding team and department dynamics and organization culture? So that those we have done in the past. And so I want to um jump into the topic as quickly as possible without doing a lot of reteaching. So if this is new to you, the instinctual bias kind of crash course, the instinctual biases uh is a concept from the awareness to action framework, one of the, if not the uh pieces of their approach that I really, really love personally and professionally. And I think it is so helpful. Um, it's been so helpful just in my own awareness and growth, as well as um I love sharing it with teams and groups because there's only three of them. And there's some really interesting insights that can come from even just understanding these three different perspectives, and it also shines so much light on why you might have, you know, three different eights in a room, but each one kind of showing up a little bit differently. Um, when you overlay the instinctual bias, you get kind of different expression of that type. So in the past, we have talked about um the type being kind of the underlying motivation, the strategy that you use to go about getting those needs and wants met, how you go about doing that, striving to feel perfect, striving to feel connected, striving to feel outstanding. I'm gonna go about getting my needs and wants met that way. Um, but what are those things that you are focused on? That's what the instinctual bias biases shines light on is where does our attention typically unconsciously, where does our attention naturally go to? And the preserving instinctual bias, we tend to first focus on resources, comfort, maintenance, health, traditions, preserving not just ourself. And this is known as the um, you might have heard a similar term uh in traditional Enneagram frameworks called the self-preservation, self-prez, self-preservation. Um, this though is I really like this because it's yes, I want to preserve myself, but I'm also interested in preserving the group around me, the environment around me. So it's bigger than just self-preservation. It's a part of it. And then in previous episodes, we go through in more detail to help you kind of clarify. And then I will also put the awareness to action free quiz in the show notes as well that you can take and it will give you your Enneagram type, either give you another type to consider or confirm the type that you already think you are, and then it will also um share with you the instinctual bias that it believes you are. So, um, and that's free. And so I'll make sure that you uh have that in the show notes. Uh, our navigating instinctual bias, real quick, is the one that tends to be focused on natural attention goes to social dynamics, um, connections, relationships, hierarchy, role clarity, roles in general. Um, and then our transmitting instinctual bias tends to naturally focus on making an impression, making a um a lasting impact, um, having those deep connections and leaving a legacy work that is really meaningful. Now, the navigating sometimes is uh, and it is not a true, oh, we just switched the name. Um, but sometimes people will see themselves as social and say and think like, oh yeah, the navigating's the social one. Um, I think the navigating one is quite possibly the most misunderstood or the social subtype is one of the most misunderstood there. And what I like about the awareness to action um explanation of this for navigating is that it is really focused on those things that I just mentioned. And that person though doesn't have to be a part, they don't have to be leading the group, they don't have to necessarily be the center of attention or you know, they don't have to be talking. You can be an introvert and still be and still identify with navigating because you are focused. That is what you are paying attention to. Um, you don't necessarily have to be a social butterfly to understand or want to understand the inner workings of group dynamics or who has the power and who really has the power, not just the title. Um, and so I think a lot of times people think, oh, I'm social, so I must be a social subtype. And the way that the awareness to action framework talks about, I just really appreciate it because it's it's so clear, it's so clarifying, and that just makes sense. It's like, oh, well, of course, just because you pay attention to it doesn't mean that you are always actively in the middle of it or engaged in it. You're just you can sometimes be on the outside observing it. So there are very much introverted navigators or people who would say, Oh, I'm more, I'm more introverted. And then our transmitters, I think, sometimes have a confusion between um transmitting. Well, I'm social um in other uh Enneagram frameworks, so I must be a navigating. But when you sometimes read the description of the transmitters, there's I think two very different people who might originally identify with a social subtype. You have your navigators and then you have your transmitters who are tend to be focused, like I said, on making an impression. Um, these people might be known as the um one or one, one-on-one or sexual subtype. Again, um, there are some very different definitions between a transmitter and a one-to-one or sexual subtype. Um, but people tend to say, okay, this is this is the equivalent of that. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna caution you on doing that. If you think you already know your subtype, I would encourage you to learn more about the preserving, navigating, and transmitting definitions and characteristics because they are gonna be a little bit different than the traditional preserving, social, and then sexual or one-to-one. Um, so that quiz might be a great place to start, or some of the past episodes that we've done, or reading the definitions um in a Google search might also be helpful. So um, quick crash course on that. And then what I wanted to talk about though, once we kind of have that foundation of what is what, um, starting to use those understandings about ourselves to set better goals. And what I mean by this is, you know, sometimes we can um think, okay, well, I need to be, I need to be a direct communicator or I need to have more um, oh, what's the word? Executive presence. And I need this, and and sometimes, first of all, sometimes I'm like, what what exactly does that even mean? Some of those goals, like direct communication, what exactly does that mean? Executive presence, what is exactly does that mean? What does that look like? Um, and then other times though, it's I think really starting with rather than trying to fix something to to grow, why not lean in to the strengths that you already have? And so that's where we're gonna start today. Um, a part of the instinctual bias uh framework is we have those three uh definitions, three types, and then there is a specific way that each gets expressed depending on what your top one is. And they a lot of times you might hear this um referred to in the traditional Enneagram framework as stacking. This is not stacking, it is how you express these patterns um of instinctual biases. So, for example, our preserving instinctual bias, if you happen to identify with that one the most, that's where your attention goes to, and a lot of times it's unconscious, so you may not even know that that's where your attention goes to. Um, that is called the zone of enthusiasm, enthusiasm. Whoo, can't talk. Um, and this instinct just it, you just naturally bring your attention there. You tend to naturally um, you might be capable at it, you may not. It's just you may, your attention just might go there. And so when we're setting goals, if you do see this as kind of a natural strength, like, okay, I'm honed in on this, I kind of do this naturally. Um let's start there. You know, sometimes it is the smartest move to capitalize, leverage what you're already wired to notice and ideally do do well at. So just do even more of it or get get better at that, get even better at it. Um, the second zone uh in the pattern of expression is the zone of inner conflict. And this is the area that can cause some friction, uh, maybe give us some cause us to kind of overgive effort to. Um, we might get frustrated at times. There might be kind of a push-pull tension here in this area. And so for the goal around this uh zone of yours, depending on what it is, I'm gonna go through those. Um, you'd want to pick something that is maybe small enough to practice rather than trying to completely transform yourself around it. So this could be um, you know, what is one behavior in this area that would make work easier or maybe a relationship stronger in the workplace. It doesn't have to trans, you don't have to transform yourself or transform your life here. And then the last zone is the zone of indifference. And this one might be the most interesting goal that you could set. Um, these are things that you genuinely don't pay attention to, you don't um typically value as important. Um, not because you're bad at them, you might be great at them. Um, they're just they're just probably less likely to capture your attention. Okay, so um a really great growth opportunity here might be what am I overlooking? Because it just doesn't naturally feel important to me. So that that could make a really interesting kind of developmental goal, looking at what might that blind spot be and being open to that, to you potentially missing something and by not necessarily even doing a lot with it, but just bringing attention to it. Um, what what could you how could you get better? So for our goals, we have what is one thing that you can, what is one strength that you can leverage inside of your zone of enthusiasm? What is one way that you could kind of stretch yourself and not totally transform yourself, but maybe just something out of just one, you know, one step out of the comfort zone to make something better or work relationship stronger. And then what is one thing that you can bring some awareness to where historically maybe you just there's a blind spot, and that would be a really great one to talk to your manager about, a co-worker about, because uh, you know, blind spot is a term because we're we typically don't know about it, we're we're blind to it a lot of times. So here's the way the pattern of expression goes for our three instinctual biases. I'm gonna start with the preserving. So if you take the assessment or you self-identify as, yep, preserving is my top one, um, that is gonna be your zone of enthusiasm, enthusiasm. So what is one strength within that zone that you do naturally? And this would probably be another one where because it comes so naturally to you, um, because your tension just naturally tends to go there, um, it might almost be like a blind strength that you have potentially. Um, you just may not even be aware that that you do it. And so this would be a great one. Hey, you know, what what strengths do you see around um me in this one? And um these are uh these are going to be things potentially in the workplace, um, like risk assessment, um, being conscious of procedures and processes, setting them, following them, um, being willing to be a devil's advocate to new ideas. Uh, you might be a little bit more cautious and more thoughtful and want things to be planned out. So when somebody gets excited about planning an end of your meeting or the end of your Christmas party, um, you might be the one, how are we gonna, how are we gonna pay for this? Have we made reservations yet? Um, you might uh prefer traditions to experiment. So be really great at um kind of bringing out the the tried and true method that you have used to streamline things, um, to make it work for people. You can be good at predicting future problems. Um, and so what you know, what within those examples, there's you know, so many more, but based on some of that, what do you get an idea for what might be a strength of yours that you're already doing that you could just do more of in this zone of enthusiasm? For our preservers, their zone of inner conflict is the navigating. So um, you kind of have a push-pull relationship with navigating. Um, you know, I I want to navigate, I want to understand um role clarity, but also, you know, I kind of just want to stick to maybe myself, maybe what I know, um, the resources. I want to focus on that, not get too entangled in the people side and office gossip and all that sort of thing. But also, in order to preserve, in order to assess risk, in order to um, you know, follow processes and procedures, I need to understand that the landscape too of the organization, the navigating part. So you want to do it, you may not feel good at it, you may have some inner conflict about it. Um, and so for this one, for our preservers, think about okay, what inside of this um zone of inner conflict, what is one behavior in this area that I could focus on or do a little bit more of that would make work easier and relationships stronger in that navigating area. And then the zone of indifference here is our transmitting energy. And so the biggest opportunity for our preservers is to toot the horns a little bit more, kind of um infuse some standout factor, maybe um, you know, work on talking about yourself, talking about your team, talking about your accompl, um, your accomplishments. Um I think preservers tend to have kind of a natural um, well, my work should speak for itself kind of mentality, but we know that sometimes it doesn't speak for itself. Even if you're the best, you don't know, people won't know you're the best unless you put yourself out there and you promote, you promote yourself. So that is an opportunity for our preservers is to pull from the transmitting um strengths and look at, okay, what is one, how might, how might not paying attention to this be impacting my career trajectory? How might it be impacting my success with a specific project? How might it be impacting my relationship with my boss? They maybe they forget that I exist at times. Um, but you know, whatever that might be for you. So I'm gonna encourage you to once you understand, okay, yep, preserving is my top one, look a little bit into the navigating, look a little bit into the transmitting qualities and look at where I might be able to pull from, um, not to become a navigator, not to become a transmitter, but to enhance the strengths that I already have. Now, if you happen to be uh your top-ranked instinctual bias is a navigator, your that's your zone of enthusiasm enthusiasm. So you are just naturally drawn and paying attention to those social dynamics, um, hierarchy management, role clarity, understanding kind of information exchange. Oh, this person would be great to connect with this person. Um, you're great at understanding pecking order, like what is the title, what does someone's title say, but then who's really in charge? Kind of thing. Um, you might focus on reputation management, office politics, kind of that organizational savviness. You might like, okay, I'm gonna sit next to, I'm gonna sit at the front of the room, I'm gonna sit next to uh the boss, you know, just to kind of uh solidify my position, my role uh in this particular meeting. So those type of things you might be doing without even noticing. Um, you tend to be drawn to those office politics, good at forming new teams, understanding who would be good where. Um, kind of you're really good at identifying ways of working together, able to build consensus. Um now, with that said, think about some of those things. This is by no means an exhaustive list of some of the strengths of the navigator, but just consider okay, what am I already doing that where I'm kind of navigating that I could do more of or um get better at that, right? Those those tend to come natural to you. So how can you just do more of it, but with maybe more intention? The zone of inner conflict for our uh trans or our navigators is the transmitting instinctual bias, meaning you kind of have some inner conflict with it. It's like, oh, you know, I I want to be seen, I want to be noticed, but also I don't want to be uh, you know, I don't want people to think I'm I'm being, you know, too out there, too, too much too tooting my horn horn that I um kind of mess up my what people think of me in the group. Um it's you got that reputation management going on. So you can absolutely transmit when you need to, but most of the time you will transmit for the sake of navigating. Um so what within that zone of inner conflict here with the transmitting? Um, what's one little tweak that you can make to help you um get better at a specific relationship at work or a specific situation? Um again, this does not have to be transformational. Um it just Just as just a small little practice that you can do in this area. One little behavior change, you know? Um, it might be, you know, raising your hand first. Uh, it might be, hey, once a week I'm gonna, you know, make sure people know what our team did last week and and what projects we're moving forward or, you know, whatever that might be. And then the zone of indifference is around the preserving instinct. So this might be, you know, I'm not paying attention to the budget and the the processes and the policies because I'm really focused on the people. Uh, I just, you know, whether I'm good at it, I'm bad at it, I just really it just feels heavy to have to pay attention to the preserving things. But there may be a blind spot within there that if you just tweaked it, just brought a little bit of awareness to one of those areas in the preserving instinct that could really help you in your career, on your team, with the relationship with your boss, um, with just kind of your your day-to-day, what what's one little, what's one little kind of piece of awareness, what's something, and again, probably needs to be a conversation with your manager or team. And then the last zone of enthusiasm we have is with our transmitters. So if you ranked top for the transmitting instinctual bias, your zone of enthusiasm is known as the transmitting. And here, these people tend to be really focused on leaving a legacy. They have really high ambition, sometimes low inhibition. Uh, so almost the opposite of the preservers, where it's like risk management, what? Just push forward, go bigger, go home. Um, they tend to be pretty magnetic. They're gonna kind of signal that they're here, whether it's with the way that they dress, their just their presence, the way they style their hair, how they decorate their office, um, their tone, their delivery, their presentation mannerisms. Um, so they're gonna do a lot of signaling. Um, legacy is gonna be really important. I want to leave a dent in this universe, kind of Steve Jobs type of mentality. They probably are pretty charming and um charismatic. And in the workplace, these people tend to be natural presenters, they're kind of gonna bring the sizzle to the sales team, to the sales message. Um, they're tend to be pretty bold, probably on the extroverted side. Um, they intuitively understand the market, um, good at articulating a goal or a vision, really good at being influential and persuasive, and can make a customer or a team member feel like they're the only person in the room. They can really make you feel special. And that's some of that um kind of broadcasting, but then also narrowcasting. So I'm gonna walk into a room, I'm gonna kind of broadcast, I'm gonna signal once I set my sight on maybe the most interesting, impactful person to talk to. I'm gonna zone in on them and make them feel like the most important person in this room. And then when that conversation's done, I'm gonna kind of move back out and and and broadcast again. Um, so that is, they have a lot of natural strengths. I would pick one, what's something that you tend to do naturally well? Maybe you don't even realize you do it so well. Um, so this would be a great conversation again, uh, talking about some of those strengths and just lean more into it. Be more intentional about transmitting. Um, take a look at what areas of your role, where within the company can you do more of what you're already paying attention to and what you're probably already good at. Their zone of inner conflict for the transmitter is the preserving instinctual bias. So it's basically I'm preserving for the sake of transmitting. So this might look like um, you know, I I want to go to the gym, I care about my health, I want to um, you know, have a good routine potentially. I want to uh make sure I have enough money, I want to another resources, um, so that I can adequately transmit. And so that tends to be kind of that zone of inner conflict where it's like, oh, preserving, you know, um, it's almost almost kind of opposite though. So there's definitely a push-pull there. So again, you don't have to totally transform your life uh with any sort of preserving behaviors necessarily, but just, you know, what's one behavior in the preserving area that could make work easier or a relationship stronger? And then the last one, our zone of indifference for our type or our um transmitting instinctual bias people, um, is the navigating instinctual bias. And so this doesn't mean that they don't like people. It doesn't mean that um they're not good with people necessarily. Um, it just, you know, I I can navigate again, but I just want to do it for the sake of transmitting. And so they might feel like information exchange, understanding exactly what role everybody has and exactly what they do. Um, it's just a waste of time, right? Let's let's just go. Let's just go. We don't need to understand all this inner working, inner personal dynamics here. Let's just, let's just go. Um, and so they again, they can absolutely do it for the sake of transmitting. Um, it just may not, they're just kind of indifferent to it. Take it or leave it. And so there might be something here that is a blind spot that if you were able to tweak, just hone in on something little, um, could really benefit and strengthen the ability that you have to already, you know, what you're already doing with transmitting and and just um just strengthen those strengths even more and just potentially bring some awareness to a blind spot here. So um again, we're looking to how can we leverage a strength, choose one behavior that's a little bit of a stretch in that uh zone of inner conflicts, and then how can we build awareness around a blind blind spot in that zone of indifference? So we have one goal to leverage, one goal to stretch, and then one goal to notice. And I'm gonna, I really do, I do hope that you dig in to these three instinctual biases if this is the first time you're you're hearing of this, um, or you've heard me talk about it before. Um, maybe we've gone through a workshop together and introduced it. Um, but I'm gonna encourage you to dive in a little bit more. Like I said, I'll include the awareness to action um descriptions on it. I will include some past episodes that we have done, and I will make sure that you have that free quiz that you can take. And so I just I really like this because um it's it it just adds another, yes, more information. Yes, a little bit more complex to just, you know, the standalone type. But I really think it helps just look at ourselves from a different angle, kind of like a prism. It's like, okay, now we're looking at this angle with our instinctual biases and just help us better understand ourselves. That's that's what it is. It's not a, it's not meant to be just one more thing you have to memorize and try to uh remember when you're talking to someone else, like, okay, I'm I'm this type, and they're this type. But I I think, especially with this, there's only three of them, and you can start to kind of see um, you know, yes, type, but also these typically are are pretty evident. I think navigating is probably the one where you don't see it as much because this is another one that's typically happening in in our head. It's like we are we are navigating, we're thinking through these things, whereas like preserving, you're kind of gonna see the the preserving, preserve. You're probably you're definitely gonna see the transmitter, transmit. Um the navigator, you might notice how they talk about things, the questions they ask, the concerns that they have are around that, but it just may not be quite as visible because so much of that is is happening up here. So um I hope that gives you something new to think about. Hope it gives you uh, you know, excuse me, a new angle um to kind of bring some self-awareness to, some self-reflection to. And um, I hope that this prompts a conversation, a meaningful conversation with a coworker of yours, um, you know, talking about what theirs might be, what yours might be, or and or um a meaningful conversation with your boss, or if you are the boss, the leader, um, some meaningful, interesting conversations with your team members. With that, I appreciate you being here. Um, we typically introduce the nine types first inside of all of our workshops because that is what people know the Enneagram as. I do go back and forth between do we want to start with the instinctual biases? I know with the awareness to action, it is known as dimension one, and that's where they start. Um, we start with the nine types, and that's one of the ways the I mentioned, I mentioned before we follow awareness to action about 95% of the way. Um, and this is one of those ways in the 5% that we kind of diverge uh from their original um teaching simply because that's what people know, the nine types, that's what you know people want to hear about initially. Um, but in our full day workshops and our team development programs, um, when we go back and do part twos or threes, um, we get to introduce the instinctual biases. And there are so many fun aha's that people will have. Um, we'll do some really fun activities with the instinctual biases as well. So if you happen to be a past client and you've already done the nine types, this might be a really fun um topic to introduce next. If you happen to be a team that years ago you went through the Enneagram, or maybe you've done your own Enneagram trainings with the nine types, this could be a great addition to that or great complement to what you have already started. Um, I just find it so helpful. And this was something that was just such an eye-opener when I understood my instinctual bias. Um, I thought, oh my gosh, yes, I do. I am, I do pay attention to this. Holy cow. Like I, I, I, I guess I am, I guess I am good at this. I guess I do notice these things. Um, and that was that was really fun. So um kind of like when you first start to understand what type you are and you have all these light bulbs, uh, the same can be experienced with the instinctual biases. So I'm gonna encourage you to kind of dive into that, but I do hope that this gives you um some things, some food for thought as you plan your goals for this upcoming year or whenever it is that you're listening to this. Thank you for being here. If you want to learn more about how we introduce the instinctual biases into our workshops and um retreats and team development programs, um that is all over at Enneagram MBA.com. Um, and I will say we have a free resource that I am currently obsessed with. I love it. It is, I think, so valuable that we could potentially charge for it. Um, and that is the Enneagram uh workshop planning kit, and that is over at Enneagram MBA.com forward slash resources if you're wanting to do it yourself. Um, so all kinds of room setup ideas, how to pitch the idea to your leadership team, um, sample agendas for a two-hour and a half day, things to consider, kind of pre-workshop checklists, all that are over there. Um, and you can download that for free. Um, so and it's not even a download, actually. It's uh get access to to the the portal there. So with that, thank you so much. And uh I look forward to getting to see you hopefully in the next one.