The Play Within the Play

(from Out of the Box Coaching with the Enneagram)

The coaching relationship is a mini-laboratory for breakthroughs. Whatever inner dynamics brought your clients to coaching will most assuredly be acted out with you. And don't forget you have your own habits of attention. Always ask yourself if you're behaving in ways that help or hinder your clients' growth. Be aware that how you interact with them makes a big difference in their progress.

For example:

• Clients with Enneagram style Three seek approval from outside themselves. They typically list their accomplishments during each coaching meeting. Will you reinforce that in-the-box behavior by approving or will you help them see this habitual behavior as it occurs with you?
• Clients with Enneagram style Six seek authority and then challenge it. Will you be caught in this pattern? Will you let them turn you into an authority or will you comment if you see the pattern?
• Clients with Enneagram style Nine rely on others to provide structure. If you ask a probing question and find these clients somewhat confused, will you jump in with a suggestion or will you be patient and encourage them to start anywhere--an arbitrary choice, a set of alternatives, or even a list of what they do not want to do?

Those you coach will approach potential breakthroughs either as frightening ventures into the unknown or as potent explorations. How they move forward rests in the quality of your coaching. Transformational coaching requires you to:

1. be receptive, provide a safe harbor, listen deeply and with empathy, 
2. take a stand for your shared vision and challenge their self-limitations [this is especially important when they (or you) are most discouraged].

This quality of coaching requires devotion to your own transformation. As you learn about your Enneagram style, you can use your gifts more consciously and observe how your own patterns limit both of you. Then you can allow whatever occurs in the coaching relationship to be data for discussion.

While coaching Jean (Enneagram style Two), for example, I pointed out her retreat from discussing what she felt as a criticism from me, even though she was clearly upset. Tied to her pattern of focusing on my needs and feelings, she diverted attention away from her own.

After that call Jean wrote me an e-mail saying she felt I'd betrayed her needs (a recurring theme for style Two). She wanted to stop coaching after the next session. My first reaction was defensive. As an Enneagram style Nine I worried I might have been too blunt, not kind enough to Jean. But I managed to stay centered, to not take her attack personally.

In her next coaching session, we were able to discuss the dynamic we'd created and explore how this same pattern showed up in Jean's other relationships. During this discussion I helped her express her needs openly (difficult for style Two). When she tried to move the conversation back to me, I gently pulled her back to her own feelings. Jean subsequently decided to continue with me as her coach.

Developing a Work Team with the Enneagram

The following is a snapshot of my work with a senior executive team. Pete (style Five) was the CEO, with a team of three Executive Vice Presidents: Matt (style Six), Sally (style Three), and Joe (style Nine).

Initially, each of the four worked with me to create an individual development plan based on self-assessment, my observations, and feedback from in-depth interviews with their boss (in Pete's case the Board Chair), peers, and subordinates. Our work also included learning about the Enneagram and applying their insights to both individual growth and effectiveness in team interactions. All four met with me several times independently, observing their Enneagram patterns between sessions and engaging in pattern-breaking experiments.

The team members are described briefly below and more thoroughly in the linked posts, in both their own words and a summary of team mates' observations. These are partial descriptions that highlight aspects most impacting team effectiveness.

Matt: "I'd like to be more centered, more at peace with myself," said Matt (style Six), "so my reaction doesn't become a function of what somebody else says every twenty minutes!" He felt close to Joe, but sometimes resented Pete for being "stingy" with praise, and found it difficult to accept Sally's suggestions without thinking she was meddling. Matt's team mates described him as very bright, capable, intense, hard working, and an excellent manager. They agreed, however, that he was "a package of contradictions," cautious yet reckless, confident yet worrying what others thought of him, impulsively decisive or unable to decide. (Read more...)

Pete: Possessed of an outstanding mind, Pete's (style Five) retreat into intellect was apparent: "It's my gift and also my down side that I can be an intellectual dilettante and play with ideas for the sake of playing with them." The other three respected his brilliance, innovative thinking, and love of debate, but said he had a hard time seeing issues from others' points of view. The said Pete expected them to take care of themselves and saw emotional vulnerabilities as weaknesses. (Read more...)

Sally: Her earlier (style Three) reaction to emotional discomfort had been to withdraw without explaining herself. She was convinced she could make a difference and aggressively pursued goals she believed in. Her team mates described Sally as bright and articulate, but they wished she wouldn't hold such a dichotomy between her personal self and work life, and they saw her persistent efforts to intervene as interfering. (Read more...)

 

Joe: At a polar extreme from Sally, Joe (style Nine) was the most open, loving, and emotional of the four. Sometimes he'd blow his top, then apologize, then forget what had happened. He was highly valued by the others as entrepreneurial, well-informed, and passionate about having an impact on the world, but it was difficult to follow his epic tales, and he needed more focus and clarity when presenting his ideas. (Read more...)

Team Session

Their half-day together began by acknowledging their Enneagram styles to the others, with examples of typical motivations and behaviors of each. From their self- descriptions we created ground rules for the session. Joe (style Nine) asked that he be offered multiple options. Sally (style Three) requested that we stop and create some guidelines for self-disclosure if she began to feel too uncomfortable. Matt (style Six) wanted any feedback he received to be balanced, preferably with the positive feedback first. And Pete (style Five) was accorded time to process his reactions internally. We discussed the value each brought to the team, as well as Enneagram dynamics that might impede their full effectiveness. They found this discussion so useful, we created a group action plan based on their styles, with two commitments from each to the other three.

Most of the session's content reflected the assessments described above and in the linked details. In addition, there was an observable emotional impact of disclosing themselves so fully, and their own dynamics became even more evident to them as they had a reality check from each other and from my real-time observations. Furthermore, several additional dynamics were highlighted through the group interaction:

• There was a tendency for "we-they" pairings (Pete/Sally and Matt/Joe), explained not only by their Enneagram styles but also by their MBTI preferences, in Joe's (ENFP) and Matt's (ENFJ) greater ease with openness and more people-oriented observations (both had a Feeling preference on the MBTI), as compared to Sally's (ENTJ) and Pete's (INTP) more reserved styles and logical observations (both had a Thinking preference on the MBTI).
• Joe (style Nine) played the role of facilitator in general (astutely analyzing and explaining some of the dynamics he observed), and mediator between Sally and Matt in particular. In debriefing this behavior, however, it became clear Joe had unwittingly diffused some energy between Sally and Matt by acting as a sounding board to each, instead of helping them find a way to work things out directly, without his intervention. 
• Matt (style Six) showed courage in diving in to speak what was in his heart, and also a tendency to defend himself in the face of perceived criticism. He had promised himself he'd quietly take things in and respond in a non-defensive manner instead of reacting immediately blurting out emotionally, all of which went by the wayside as members of the team lost themselves in the drama of their interaction.
• Pete (style Five) intellectually analyzed others' behaviors in a way that seemed to them somewhat condescending and interpretive. He had difficulty making positive statements. To his credit he hung in and kept trying to be more self-disclosing and to give more balanced feedback. 
• Sally (style Three) showed physical discomfort but honored her commitment to stay engaged in the process. In addition, she brought value to the group with her clarity about the importance of being heard. She asked others to paraphrase what they'd heard her say, which was good modeling for the group. 

By the end of the session they agreed they'd met their goal of "going deeper" than they had in the past, and there were a number of recommendations for working together more effectively. I later summarized these in a group action plan for mutual development, the introduction summarizing three key points:

1. Conflict occurs largely because we all interpret things differently from our various worldviews. When you put yourself in someone else's shoes you'll enhance the possibility of learning about yourself and building more constructive ways of working together.
2. Each of the Enneagram patterns represents only a glimpse of reality. As you wake up to these aspects of your shadow you'll free yourself from habitual behavior, gain tolerance for one another, open communication, and develop trust and compassion. 
3. It's important to recognize each others' gifts. It's also important to acknowledge that working on yourself in the team is an unparalleled development opportunity. Each has separate work to do, but the work touches and moves in the heart of the relationship (Margaret Frings Keyes, The Enneagram Relationship Workbook). 

 

A Package of Contradictions

More information about Matt, Executive VP in a team of four in "Developing a Work Team with the Enneagram."

"My father was dominant, short-tempered, and controlling," said Matt (style Six) during our first meeting. "My mother was caring, traditional, focused on her kids, her husband, her home. She was also fearful: always afraid of an accident, of something bad happening, always talking about who was sick, who was dying. They were both strict and -- although I was a really good kid -- they wouldn't trust me to take care of myself. Even today, my mother asks unbelievable questions about my health."

Matt had impressive presence. He was often one step ahead of me as we talked about the Enneagram and its application to his interactions with the other three people on the executive team. In response to my example of a style Six client from another organization who'd been described as "wearing his emotions on his sleeve," Matt said, "I think I'm too open. I've heard our CEO Pete (style Five) describing other people by how things go straight from their gut to their mouths, and I think that's how he sees me."

Aware that he'd been looking to others for affirmation, Matt was learning to give himself credit. With reflection, however, he saw how key dynamics of style Six had been playing out with his team mates. He felt close to Joe (style Nine), but sometimes resented Pete for being "stingy" with praise, and found it difficult to accept any suggestions from Sally (style Three) without thinking she was meddling. 

"I'd like to be more centered, more at peace with myself," he said, "so my reaction doesn't become a function of what somebody else says every twenty minutes!"

Matt's team mates described him as a very bright, capable executive, an intense individual with "a lot of emotions pumping." They said he brought a tremendous amount of energy and excitement to the group and put in immeasurable hours to reach his goals. He was also applauded for excellent management skills: "He appreciates what it takes to motivate people, understands the little things that make a difference, and treats his people with respect." Another key contribution to the team was Matt's attention to team work across company lines. "He has an appreciation for the various roles that need to be played in the company," said Joe, "so he promotes cross-functional discussions, copies others on voice mail, and reminds his direct reports to include others."

The other three all agreed, however -- as Joe so eloquently put it -- that Matt was "a package of contradictions." He had a good sense of his inner strengths and capabilities and portrayed an aura of professionalism, but he worried overmuch about what people thought of him. "He has this element of caution about 'danger out there,'" Joe said, "yet he also projects a note of reckless abandon" (Matt referred to this as his kamikaze quality). His team mates saw this paradox in Matt as affecting his decision-making: "He can decide on an impulsive, intuitive basis," said Joe, "yet will sometimes say 'We can't do this because...'"Sally assumed Matt "wants to do well and be right, yet has serious doubts, so sometimes he'll take too long to decide, and sometimes he'll back down too readily, especially when challenged by Pete." And, as Matt suspected, Pete said, "Matt needs the most work on not blurting things out."

As a consequence of our personal work, Matt learned to reach inside when he started to react strongly to someone else's opinion and "let it go." In fact, he passed on to me an article by Carl Hammerschlag about ordinary people who journey past fear and illusion:

The primary task in the pursuit of salvation and healthy living is to choose to respond to the summons of life's journey. The truth is that you don't have to take somebody else's path or identify with an established heroic figure. You are the principal character in your own life's drama.

One, Two, Three, Grow

I was in the “City of Power Politics” with vested interests and terrified people intent on maintaining the status quo. Though I could do a cost-benefit analysis and was pretty good at organization, I had absolutely no idea what was really going on, why, or how to change it. This was crazy, and I didn’t have the foggiest idea of how to deal with crazy. For sheer survival, if no other reason, I concluded I needed to understand crazy (Ed Morler, Preface, Finally Growing Up: Living an Authentic Empowered Life).

My day brightened considerably when I read those words. In a world of thieving investment bankers, human trafficking, and strategically planned warfare, I applaud Morler’s conclusion that the ultimate causal factor in human behavior is integrity, or the lack of it.  

Growing Up, which integrates the Enneagram with his Six Levels of Emotional Maturity, is about “consciously choosing to be responsible, and in that process, doing our best to discover and live our noble potential.” Morler recognizes increasing self-awareness as the path to greater emotional maturity:Integration is the result of a willingness to face and go through our fear, an exponential expansion of our willingness to be responsible and behave proactively, which broadens and deepens our sense of empowerment. It often tends to manifest as a dramatic, positive shift in our awareness of our being, doing and having. It is thus a major letting go of the compulsive, limiting aspects of personality (p. 216).

Morler proposes six levels of perceiving and responding to life’s situations, each level with characteristic emotions and set of filters, with 26 categories in each such as "Chronic Patterns" and "Willingness to Confront. Along the path of emotional maturity, he suggests, our questions change from “Am I getting enough?” to “Am I good enough?” to “Am I learning, growing, being enough?” to the secure realization, “I am enough.”

In this article I’ll illustrate the growing up of “Jake,” an Enneagram style Six, as an example of how Morler’s categories are grounded in real life. I do this in part because I learn best by trying things out, which – by the way – places me in Morler’s category of Learning Capacity somewhere between Level 6 (“...quick study”) and Level 5 (“Open to concepts supported by experience...”). So for today, I feel emotionally mature. [Sometimes, when confronted with highly theoretical abstractions, I dip to “rejecting new concepts as threatening” (Level 3) or even “It’s impossible, why bother?” (Level 1).]

Because Jake’s self-realization in this particular aspect of his life centered on his willingness to confront, the following outline will provide a frame of reference for his progress. Here are Morler’s six levels of emotional maturity in the category of Chronic Patterns, as well as descriptions of each level in Willingness to Confront, and Enneagram-specific descriptions for style Six:

Level 6 – LEADER Chronic Patterns: “High integrity. Comfortable presence. Clear focus. Big picture. Considerate of real needs. Positive action and results. Appreciates and enjoys life. Life is an adventure. Humor.” Willingness to confront: “Will confront whatever needs to be dealt with. Observational abilities finely tuned. Willingness to explore other beliefs and reassess one’s own. Great presence.”

Enneagram Six at Level 6: “Creator of security in and for others. Dynamic interdependence. Open. Perspective. Committed. Engaging. Playful. Integrates primarily to positive 9 and also to positive 3.

Level 5 – DOER Chronic Patterns: “Conscientious. Positive, provided claims are substantiated. Pleasant. Proactive devil’s advocate.” Willingness to confront:“Selectively confronts. Fair to good observational abilities. Cautious progress.”

Enneagram Six at Level 5: “Highly practical. Organizationally effective. Analyses. Tenacious. Troubleshooter. Constructive critic. Devil’s advocate.”

Level 4 – COPER Chronic Patterns: “More an observer than a participant. Casual, mellow. Takes the path of least resistance. Careless.” Willingness to confront:“Minimally confronts. Observational skills minimal. Difficult situations are avoided or ignored.”

Enneagram Six at Level 4: “Dutiful. Cautious. Security oriented. Skeptic. Ambivalent. Indecisive. Evasive.”

Level 3 – OPPOSER Chronic Patterns: “Sees world as hostile, threatening. Narrow emotional range. Best defense is an offense. Angry person. The debater.” Willingness to confront: “Attacks others to avoid confronting own irresponsibility. Tends to back down quickly when threats do not work.”

Enneagram Six at Level 3:“Phobic – Anxious. Pessimistic. Defensive. Looks toauthority figure. OR Counter-Phobic – Daredevil. Cynic. Blamer. Rebel. Antagonistic.”

Level 2 – MANIPULATOR Chronic Patterns: “World is so threatening that must hide own fear, hostile intentions and behaviors. Highly self-absorbed. The con man. The gossip. The martyr. The two-face.“ Willingness to confront: “Covertly manipulates and misdirects to avoid confronting and owning any responsibility.”

Enneagram Six at Level 2: “High anxiety. Immediately discounting of anything positive.  Everything is a crisis. Self-disparagement. Denial.”

Level 1 – VICTIM Chronic Patterns: “Cry-baby. Complainer. Whiner or just numbed out. Poor me. Yes man. The victim.” Willingness to confront: “Avoids almost all issues. Too inwardly focused to observe much at all.”

Enneagram Six at Level 1: “Whiner. ‘Continual unsolvable problems.’ Masochistic.Persecuted persecutor. Projection. Disintegrates primarily to negative 3 and also to negative 9.”

When Jake first sought coaching, he was new to the Enneagram. As he identified with the Six’s driving force of fear, he reported times in earlier years when he’d accepted others’ negative attributions of him, endured several emotional crises, and suffered high anxiety, sometimes to the point of depression, all more characteristic of levels 2-4 of the Six’s emotional maturity. Subsequently, through his own tenacity and desire to outgrow his fears, Jake had developed many Level 5 qualities, celebrating outstanding successes as an expert in his field. In addition, he’s extremely bright and self-aware and his life experiences had created great readiness to learn more about himself and to develop his full potential.

Primarily a phobic Six, Jake explored his behavioral patterns in the context of the Enneagram, particularly some ambivalence about his career choices – which had opened up the possibility of much greater responsibility based on his past successes. As he learned how to be more present, he had many moments of facing and moving through his fears. On the strength of that foundation, Jake embraced the opportunity to take an executive position in a turn-around situation, and entered that job at a level of self-awareness that placed him solidly in the 5th level of emotional maturity, with some signs of level 6, particularly in his desire to be a manager of others instead of a lone troubleshooter. We’d supported this vision and anticipated his new level of responsibility by exploring, rehearsing, and reinforcing the attributes and responsibilities of leadership.

During the first six months of Jake’s new job, however, the organizational dynamics threatened to trap him in the City of Power Politics described by Morler. The following comments capture Jake’s description of his shift into empowerment during his first six months on the job, as he continues to deepen his self-awareness and broaden his perspective.

“I realized I was very scared around people at higher levels in the company,” Jake began (illustrating his self-observation that he’d been selectively confronting at Level 5). “There are several very, very angry, insistent senior VPs in the company, and some of them I’ve known for ten years or more. But now that they’re at the top, I found myself saying “Yes, sir!” Jake was not the only one reacting to the organization’s top-down culture: “I got to the root of why the company is messed up – when they see something dysfunctional they ask the person reporting to them to find out what’s wrong and how to fix it. That results in many hours to prepare a summary, then the VP casts off what they’ve brought and says “You have to do twice as much.” People reporting to VPs say “Yes sir,” and then go flog the troops.” 

Jake related this dynamic to “child abuse” and we talked about how he was beginning to think systemically (Level 6’s “finely tuned observational abilities”). We identified what Peter Senge  (The Fifth Discipline) would call the organization’s archetype as most likely a version of “Fixes that Fail.” In this archetype, managers aim their responses at the symptoms rather than spending time identifying the underlying, systemic problem; with the unintended consequence that the quick fix exacerbates the initial problem symptom (William Braun, The System Archetypes).

Having analyzed the organization’s dysfunctional pattern, Jake found the courage to confront the VP: “If we look back at the insecurities I had, they were coming from all those people asking me to do things my gut told me not to do. So this week I’d been silently sitting there, taking a beating, when I finally decided the worst thing he could do was fire me. And I stood up to the VP, with my boss in the room. I acknowledged the company’s needs and the urgency, then said, ‘Here’s the reality of the organization you have today. . .’ I told him what we can do, which is focus on things with the broadest appeal and realize it may not be perfect immediately. The room was silent. The VP then turned his attention to someone else and started yelling at him!” Note that the VP – at best – was operating from Level 3, OPPOSER, in Morler’s lexicon of emotional maturity (“Best defense is an offense. . . Tends to back down quickly when threats do not work”).

As Jake’s story continues, you can see him gaining firmer ground in Level 6 (“Will confront whatever needs to be dealt with...”): “I stood up to the VP,” he said, “because it was the right thing to do. And it worked! So I started doing it with everybody. My boss asked me for some calculations, which had left no time to do my job. So I told him ‘I’ll be glad to keep you posted, but from now on, I’m going to spend my time doing what you hired me to do.’”

I asked Jake how he came to respond with such integrity. “There were a whole bunch of things I did,” he acknowledged, “but one sea change – I said what I believed to be true instead of holding back out of fear.”

Jake then planned a five-day team building agenda. He would bring his whole team in from around the world to be face-to-face, some of them for the first time. We agreed he would facilitate the session instead of bringing me in, to support his role as coach, not boss. He would embody empowerment and model a change from the historically hierarchical culture to one of collaborative interdependence. 

After exploring several concepts of team building, he adopted the Drexler Sibbet team performance model, addressing the first five stages during their week together: (1) Orientation (WHY am I here?), (2) Trust Building (WHO are you?), (3) Goal clarification (WHAT are we doing?), (4) Commitment (HOW will we do it?), (5) Implementation (WHO does WHAT, WHEN, WHERE?), (6) High Performance (WOW!), (7) Renewal (WHY continue?).

After the team’s week together, Jake’s e-mail to schedule a meeting with me was short and sweet: “The week went tremendously! Very interesting culture.” From the moment I picked up the phone it was evident he was enjoying Level 6 qualities (“High integrity. Comfortable presence. Clear focus. Big picture. Considerate of real needs. Positive action and results. Appreciates and enjoys life. Life is an adventure. Humor”). 

He started our conversation by joking, “I think they were afraid I was going to come in with Velcro suits and foam bats, so it was a little scary on Monday morning, but I used a simple, get-acquainted exercise where they interviewed each other in twos, then reported out about the person they’ve been talking to.” During Monday afternoon and all day and evening Tuesday, Jake brought in the company Vice Presidents to “to say directly why my team’s mission matters.” (He had been smart enough to give each of the VPs 30 minutes and talking points in advance; the rest of their time was to be for discussion.) “That turned things around,” he said, “to see that I had the VPs’ trust and the VPs took time to talk and answer any questions from team members.”

“I told my team the goal was for each person to have ownership in the results, and by the end of the week to have an entire plan with everyone knowing what they own and how they’re going to do it. Then they all sat at attention waiting for me to tell them what to do! I acknowledged that empowerment had not been the culture here, and said we had to completely let go of the way we’d been doing business: 'You’ve been told we have to do these things by these dates. I’m turning the meeting over to you now to solve these problems and decide how you want to be set up as an organization in order to do it.’ And it worked! I didn’t realize until the middle of the week how important it was to them to be treated like professionals. I kept in mind to model empowerment and, when they saw me not taking over, it would reinforce what I said. So I intentionally stepped out of the meeting more and more as the week wore on.” 

You can see evidence in the following comments of Jake’s moving back and forth between Level 5 (DOER) and Level 6 (LEADER): “I did find I had to keep monitoring myself. I kept wanting to solve problems that were on the table, but I think I did OK on that. At the beginning of the week I found myself diving in too much. Then as a gauge, I knew when I was feeling frustrated it was time to step back.” Describing the week’s outcomes, Jakes summarized: “We had two difficult things we needed to get done: to determine how long it would take to meet our goals, and how much it would cost. In the beginning, everyone on the team said we could not accomplish what we were expected to do in the given time frame, but by the end of the week they’d figured out how to do it! We’re still on a scary precipice, but as long as the family is tight and they know where they stand on things, we’ll be able to accomplish what we need to do.”

Jake also coached his team on how to do what he had done to interrupt the old pattern of top-down blaming and time lost preparing reams of reports. “I believe I’ve taught them how to respond when upper management starts getting on our backs again: ‘If you’re not proactive, they’ll keep doing it more.’”

In follow-up conversations there was every indication the collaborative change Jake encouraged and modeled was holding. “When I came back to work the following week,” he reported, “everyone was working and invigorated. I’d been wondering how to present to upper management what we’d done, and when I walked into my office found a presentation on my desk from one of my team members!” 

“My biggest challenge,” he concluded, “is to change this culture, and to do it by example, as if I’ve walked into a black and white company and I’m able to pour color all over it.”