87. The Evolving Leader

Intro: Duration: (02:22)

Opening music jingle & sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

Welcome to the Human Capital Podcast. I'm Jeff Hunt. Today we're going to talk about emotional intelligence. How often do you feel truly understood at work, and do you sometimes wish your manager or colleagues were more self-aware? When it comes to your own leadership, how well do you navigate your own emotions and the emotions of others?

Lastly, do you think you have high emotional intelligence? If so, you may be in for a surprise. According to Korn Ferry, 92 percent of leaders say they are self-aware, but only 19 percent of employees agreed that their leaders are self-aware. Today on the show, we're going to discuss a tool that can help improve self-awareness called the Enneagram.

If you're new to the Enneagram, you can check out episodes 44 and 45 where I interviewed Ginger Lapid-Bogda, although that's not required before listening to today's show. Those episodes go into significant detail about each Enneagram type and the ways these types tend to show up at work. And so, to explore this today, I'm excited to welcome Scott Allender.

Scott is the author of the Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence. A journey to personal and professional success. And he also hosts a fantastic podcast called The Evolving Leader. Scott's a remarkable guy with deep insights into personality typing systems, the Enneagram, and workplace dynamics. And he helps people understand how applying the Enneagram has significantly positive impacts on their personal and professional lives.

Today we're gonna hear from Scott about how understanding our fears and vulnerabilities is the key to unlocking our full potential. And I just finished reading his book, which I really enjoyed. And we're also gonna cover some highlights from that book on today's show. Welcome, Scott.

Scott Allender:

Thanks, Jeff. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

Jeff Hunt:

I'm excited to have you here today. And. Let's just actually take a pause and start out by me asking you, how are you feeling today?

Scott Allender:

I love starting with that question. I'm feeling energized from a productive week. A little bit physically fatigued from the same productive week.

Feeling playful today as well and energized to be here, excited to be here. How are you feeling today, Jeff?

Topic 1. A thumbnail of Scott’s career and who inspired him (02:23)

Jeff Hunt:

I'm feeling energized and excited. I'm feeling a little bit of low-level stress on some like unresolved tasks or uncompleted tasks at work. And I, some of that is driven by my three tendencies, which we'll talk about.

So those of you that are less familiar with the Enneagram, you'll probably learn a little bit about what a three is today or the tendencies of a three. But yeah, that's kind of how I'm showing up. I really enjoyed your book. You know, I've read a number of books on the Enneagram and we're going to get into that a little bit on the show today.

Before we do, Scott, give us a thumbnail of your career and life journey.

Scott Allender:

So I've worked in the people space my whole career. I've run HR departments and been business partners and always had a passion for talent and development work particularly in leadership, knowing that leaders have a disproportionate impact on the communities and businesses that they serve.

Seeing a lot of, Really good leadership and what it can do and seeing leadership that can cause unintentional harm and, and be unaffected. And so I've always had a fascination with it. When I was in undergrad, I went I was a business major, but I focused my, my specialism was in organizational psychology.

So it's just always been kind of the intersection of how people operate, why we do what we do. And business and organizational effectiveness have kind of been this intersection of interest to me. So I've had the fortunate good fortune to have spent my career in that space.

Jeff Hunt:

Nice. And when you reflect back on your career and your life, is there any one or two people that have really inspired you?

Scott Allender:

Yes. Gosh they're too many to name without leaving a bunch of others out. I would say one of my, one of my first inspirations in the Enneagram space was Ian Cron. We came, got to introduce to him several years ago, and I had been studying Enneagram a bit. At the time, but I wasn't super well versed yet.

And we started doing some work together and became, he's been super influential and a positive force in my life. My podcast partner, John Gomes he, in the leadership space, I've worked closely with him over the last decade, developing leaders. And I feel like in addition to his friendship, I feel constantly inspired by his.

Wealth of knowledge and his ongoing pursuit of knowledge and information and, and growing as a leader himself, those have been two really important people. And then I've got, I could give you a list, a long list of friendships that have been super important in. Getting me where I am. And of course my wife and my kids, super inspiring for me.

Jeff Hunt:

Very cool. Yeah. Ian Krohn has got some amazing material and actually a great podcast in its own. Right. I think it's called typology, right?

Scott Allender:

Yeah. It's a great pub. Yeah.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah. That's a great podcast. And so those of you that are interested in the Enneagram he's got some fantastic resources. I think he wrote. The book, didn't you write the book, The Road Back to you?

Scott Allender:

He and Suzanne Stabile wrote that together.

Jeff Hunt:

So that's another, that's another fantastic book.

Scott Allender:

That's a great, great book. If you're new to the Enneagram, you haven't yet, especially we haven't heard it. That's like a primer to get into it. It's a great entry point.

Topic 2. The relevance of the Enneagram as a tool (05:54)

Jeff Hunt:

And so Scott, when you look, you're trained in a lot of different tools. I believe, right? You've been trained in a number of different tools. What are some of those tools you're trained in and why does the Enneagram stand out or rise to the top for you?

Scott Allender:

So I'm certified as a Myers Briggs practitioner and I love it, honestly. And what I love about it is that I can go into a team environment and in three hours, we can do a lot of good work in helping people become, you know, a little more aware of their preferences and a little more aware of the preferences of their colleagues.

And there's zero threat to it because there's no shadow side of personality in the Myers Briggs system. Not really. Well, there is when you get deeper and deeper into it. There's a little bit of that but on the sort of introductory level that you would do in an organization in a very non-threatening way.

You can actually help people go, Oh, I thought you were just being difficult, but you really kind of have a different approach. You take in information to make decisions differently than I do. So super, super useful. I've certified in Hogan which is based on the big five personality factors. It's more for.

Helping people in coaching. I think you can do workshops, but I think it's more of a coaching tool, particularly on how people actually show up and get experienced. So regardless of preference or any of those things, this is how people will experience you. I don't use that one as often, but cause it's really complex.

And yeah, it's just not as super intuitive. Emotional intelligence as a tool, there's a tool called emotional intelligence 2. 0. And I use that a lot in my coaching. And then of course Enneagram now Enneagram was a much, much longer journey. It was sort of a two-year journey. I went on with CP Enneagram Academy to get my certification in addition to all my other studies.

What’s different about the Enneagram as you would know, we were talking a little bit offline about your use of the Enneagram. So I'd love to talk about that online. If you're open to it but the Enneagram gets past your preferences and what you do and straight into the heart of why you do it.

Which we might all assume that we're always conscious of why we do what we do. But the truth is you start scratching at that and it's not true. Right. You mentioned in the intro about the level of self awareness and you can look at any number of examples. You know, why do people tip more at a restaurant when it's sunny outside?

They don't know that the reason they're doing it is because their mood, their physiology has been elevated by the sunshine. They probably convinced themselves, Oh, I've done this because the service was so great, but it's been studied to death and has nothing to do with the service, right? Same reason the stock market performs better when there's good weather, right?

So there's a whole host of things that we do on a daily basis where we're really not conscious of the why. In our Enneagram type, it can reveal to us the patterns of the why particular to our type. Patterns of how we tend to see, think, feel, and act in the world based on how we learn to survive and navigate the world as young people.

So, it goes much, much deeper. It's not a surface level tool. Sometimes people try to use it as such. It's not what it was really designed for. It's meant to go deep. So, for anybody who's open and willing to go deeper dive into the under, you know, on that iceberg kind of picture. You might've seen these models before where it's like, here's what you see about the waterline of consciousness.

And underneath is all this other stuff. Well, the Enneagram goes deep, deep, deep into the depths of the subconscious. And so that's why it's so, so, so powerful.

Jeff Hunt:

Sure. Yeah. I've heard. I've heard the reference about the Enneagram as it is the one tool that actually helps you get out of the box that you're already in versus many of these other tools are just putting you in a box, right?

Scott Allender:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up. Cause I forgot to mention that. That's the other thing about the Enneagram. It's not a static. Symbol it actually, you know, we're, we're meant to be able to move about the well, if you think of the Enneagram as a map, we're meant to be able to sort of fluidly move around and access any point on the Enneagram, any of those nine types based on the situation we're in and what we need to use, but we get stuck.

So each of us had a particular strategy that we gravitated toward. In part because of some hard wiring, there's genetics and epigenetics and things that influence us but largely based on the lived experience we had, how in our family systems, and all of these things that we said this strategy on this point on the Enneagram is how I will get my needs met, how I'll find security and love and all of the things that I need.

And it serves us really well and we get stuck there and then what happens usually later in life people are like, Hhey, not everything in my life is working for me the way that I'd like it to. And you start realizing the thing that was the strategy that got you, kind of through your youth is kind of the strategy that might be getting in your way sometimes now.

And ultimately the Enneagram shows you how to start moving beyond the limitations of that.

Topic 3. A high-level overview of the Enneagram and the 9 personality types (10:56)

Jeff Hunt:

Okay. That makes sense. Now, for people that are less familiar with the Enneagram, this is a very deep, robust system. It's like the waters run very deep on it. But can you take a minute or two to provide kind of a high-level overview of what this model is so they can get a sense?

Scott Allender:

All right. So the best way to approach the Enneagram, I think, is there's nine core types, nine core motivations. The way to first approach it is they, they can be divided into three sets of three. So you've got three, what we call body types, which are types eights, nines, and one heart types, which are two, three, and four and head types, which are five, six, and seven.

So at a super 70, 000-foot high-level view. Body types are more tactile. They use their senses more. They don't think they really can fully understand something unless they can touch it and feel it and hold it, you know, embrace it with their senses. They have a more general concern with matters of justice and fairness.

So they have some common issues around matters of control and an underlying, often unconscious emotion of anger about the way things are. So they have something of a rigidity in them. And kind of posturing and standing against anything that doesn't feel fair, just or right in the world and trust their gut instinct.

They're really body types, like I mentioned the senses, but they have this gut sense of the way things should be. And struggle with anything that doesn't fit that paradigm. Now, the way that an eight, nine, and one will then deal with that varies. So the eight will deal with that underlying anger and control with much more intensity, more going directly out with it.

They are known as the challenger. Sometimes they'll challenge themselves and other people. They really want to push and force their will into the world. Not in a way they're often a very misunderstood type because they can appear so intense. But in reality, they, they usually have very good intentions about what they want to achieve and why they want to achieve it.

Nines are known as the peacemaker. They kind of go to sleep to that anger and they want to avoid conflict at all costs. And they want to keep a sort of inner and outer sense of equilibrium in their life. They don't want to have to connect to the Depth of their will. So they go along to get along and they're more malleable in that way.

And then ones they deal with it by trying to perfect and improve things. They're known as the improver or the perfectionist. And they set about trying to correct things and trying to get things to be just right so that they can alleviate that sort of dormant sort of undercurrent of anger. So that's a look at the body types at a superficial level, eight, nine, and one, and then you've got the heart types.

And they're the most image-conscious of the three types. They're undercurrent of emotion. That's often very unconscious as a sort of sadness or shame. And what that's resonating with is that they desperately want to know that they could be liked, loved, wanted, needed, and appreciated for just being who they are.

But they sort of don't believe that's possible. So they set about trying to earn it. So twos will go out as the pleaser or as the helper and try to seduce in some way, try to offer their advice and their help and their resources, particularly for people that they think if they could help or serve them in some way they would appreciate that.

And that receiving of appreciation would then validate them for who like validate their worth and they would feel liked and wanted and needed and loved. And so they get stuck in that cycle, the threes they want to perform for your approval. So they want to impress. So, they are dealing with that sort of latent sadness.

And image concern around, well, if I can know the right people and I can, achieve the right goals and I can impress you somehow, then your applause will somehow validate me as a person. And fours, they say, I don't see a world that I think I can really fit into at all. I feel like I don't quite belong.

So instead of trying to belong, I'm going to kind of actually push myself farther out and be special and unique instead. And I'm going to, I'm going to sort of want you to kind of validate my uniqueness in that way. And if I can do that well, and I can avoid the ordinary, then somehow I'll find my, my worth.

Now head types they're dealing with the primary emotion of fear, which is very unconscious. And they're each comp, five, six, and sevens are compensating for it in different ways. The fear is, really around anything that they can't be certain about. Five, six, and sevens really, you know, want certainty.

So for fives, they want to understand things. They think if they can go up into their minds and analyze and process and guard against anything that would overwhelm them and be very, very competent that that would alleviate the fear. Six is used questioning. So they are trying to avoid all risks and that could be there by questioning your plans and questioning everything that might go wrong, right?

They want to anticipate what could go wrong. And sevens use planning and being out in the future and thinking about their next big adventure and wanting to avoid any limitations or restrictions of any kind. as a way to try to stay away from their fear, right? If I can outrun my sort of any, any possible suffering, if I can outrun it, then I'll be safe and I'll be okay.

Now that's not even a probably very good 90, 000 foot view, but a good starting place. If you're like never heard of the Enneagram is to maybe work with somebody or start reading about those more in depth about those sort of three different, what we call intelligence center, the body intelligence, the heart intelligence, and the head intelligence, and how Those intelligence come very natural to us, and part of the work, once you understand where you sit and what your strategy is, is to learn to access the other two intelligence centers and to find that common ground integration.

Jeff Hunt:

Fantastic. Yeah. I appreciate that overview and listeners, as you just heard Scott explain these various types, the head, heart, and body triads, and the various types, you could be thinking, wow, which one of those tends to describe who I am. And then you can go take an Enneagram test.

There's a number of tests that are out there that are, yeah, I think you can even find them for free, but there's also paid ones that are probably higher quality. Scott, you could probably talk a little bit about that as well. What I was reflecting on as you were sharing that is when I read Ian Cron's book, the road back to you, the way I really knew that my type was type three is when I read that section, I started cringing.

I was like, Oh, okay. I think this actually kind of describes me, but it's good that I know my type, but I also like, uh, am feeling some embarrassment about some of these tendencies that I might have, but just that self-awareness in its own right was incredibly beneficial for me. So, um, yeah,

Scott Allender:

I'm glad you brought that up because part of the work of self awareness is leaning into the uncomfortable parts and sometimes the thing that. Makes you cringe the most. It's the thing you need to pay attention to. Cause it's pushed out of your like awareness. Cause it's something you don't want to acknowledge.

Topic 4. Learning about fear-based decisions (18:23)

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I think I heard you, I don't know if it was on your podcast or you being interviewed by somebody else, but I heard you say something along the lines of believing, and you were just referencing the fear, you know, in that last section of the six.

I'm sorry, the five, six, and seven types and the sevens fear, and I heard you referenced something previously about believing in the validity of our fears. Is the biggest thing standing between us and not only maturing in our emotional intelligence, but also realizing our fullest potential.

And I'm wondering if you can share what you mean by that.

Scott Allender:

Yeah. So each type, and you might've read between the lines on my 90, 000 foot kind of whiz around the map there, but each type is often responding out of an unconscious fear. That's part of the, the strategy, the personality. So that the, you enter the world, you don't have any of that, but you soon learn what will and won't be okay to get my needs met and sort of navigate my story.

So for starting in the same place, you know, for an eight, eight's fear being controlled. They, they therefore want to avoid vulnerability or the appearance of weakness. So they are constantly moving away from anything that might make them feel weak or vulnerable because that sets you up to be controlled and taken advantage of in some way.

Now this is often happening very unconsciously. Now the nines, they fear being lost or separated from important people in their life, being cut off somehow. That's why they have that strategy. I mentioned of trying to create peace and calm and avoid conflict. And cause conflict to them comes with a big alarm that, well, you, you and I might now be separated from each other.

We might be cut off. Our relationship might be permanently damaged ones. They're improver perfectionist that I mentioned is because they. internalized a story somewhere along the way that it wasn't okay to be wrong. So they have this fear that they are wrong or bad or corrupt in some way. So their whole strategy every day, often very unconsciously, is to prove to themselves and others that they're not bad, wrong, or defective.

Twos, moving into the heart type again, they fear being unwanted, unneeded, or unloved. So, not believing they could be just for being themselves, They engage in strategies, like I said, like pleasing you or seducing you or offering you some advice or some help, because if you could appreciate them, that would make them feel wanted, needed, and loved threes.

This one is kind of hard for, uh, for most threes to connect to threes fear being worthless. Threes carry an unconscious narrative in their heads that apart from what I accomplish, I am worthless. And. That's why they want to accomplish so much and they won't stop moving. And sometimes for a three, they don't find out that that's even part of their frame, their belief system until they have a big crash of some kind fours.

I think I alluded to this. They fear being, you know, insignificant. They fear being that, yeah, that they don't fit in, that they're insignificant, that they're fatally flawed somehow. And so all of their strategies every day are born out of that. Yeah. And fives, they fear being incompetent. They also fear being overwhelmed a lot.

So they guard against big emotional experiences or anything that might be overwhelming. By being up in their heads that can make them appear a little out to lunch or a little aloof or that they're disinterested, which isn't really true. They're actually quite sensitive and that's why they're so up in their head all the time.

They're guarding against that. Six is fear being without any kind of support or guidance and they don't believe they can trust themselves. So depending on, there's, subtype, which we won't get into, but, you know, Depending on subtype, they have different ways of trying to deal with that. Sometimes for some sixes, they completely distrust and doubt everything.

And for some sixes, they latch on to certain authority figures or belief systems as a way to compensate for this, having a sense of being without any support or guidance and not being able to trust themselves. And sevens, they fear being deprived or trapped in pain forever, so they think if they ever allow suffering into their lived experience, they'll be trapped in pain forever, it'll never leave them.

So all that jovialness you tend to get from sevens, they're out there having so much fun, it's an avoidance tactic. So that's the sort of nine core fears. Now, there's the, there's more generalized fears. This isn't the only fears these types have but these are the often unconscious fears that prevent us from doing the kind of self-awareness growth work we need to do if we want to move past the feeling of being stuck where we are.

And I think this points to the stats that you shared in the opening, right? Because when we talk about self-awareness, do we talk about this stuff ever? Do we get into the heart of like, Hey Jeff, what's your deepest Totally authentic fear that you don't want anybody in the world to know is there. Do you know it's there? If so, would you share it with anybody? Or do you protect that secret?

Topic 5. The importance of self-awareness (23:56)

Jeff Hunt:

I love that, that reference. And I'm also reflecting on the importance of our listeners, understanding the benefits of this self-awareness, especially as it's associated with the Enneagram. That are realized both in terms of improved leadership within an organization.

So if you put this into the context of work and you have a team that's working together, that has a greater understanding of all of these different aspects of the Enneagram and how they're showing up both in themselves and the tendencies of others. Then you can enter a phase where you have increased trust.

You have improved vulnerability and the byproducts and the result of that often in most organizations is improved innovation and improved creativity and reduced turnover and a better culture and ultimately better performance because. Like, and I'll just throw this out there, Scott, and I want you to reflect on it, but one example could be, Oh, I know better what's going on inside me and I can sense how this other person is reacting with me.

And I'm willing to have a difficult conversation that I might not have otherwise because I've addressed some of those internal core fears. Is that a fair statement?

Scott Allender:

I think, yes. I think backing up to what you said at the beginning about empathy. The real important starting place with this tool is that we never weaponize it and that we use it for that exact purpose.

Right? So if you're going to use it in an organizational context, bring somebody in to talk with it, with your team, with each other, even what I just shared, like the undercurrent of what's going on often unconsciously is very vulnerable and exposing. And so we have to not weaponize it. And I've seen it, unfortunately, even unintentionally people be like, Oh, you're being such an eight, like stop doing that.

Right. And that just immediately shuts down all the value. And now it turns into something that's a negative, right. As opposed to, Oh, I remember that when that person who identifies as an eight is being particularly intense, I know they're probably guarding against some sense of vulnerability right now.

I can have a lot of empathy and understanding for that. Their intensity isn't about me, right? Or the five who seems to be aloof or doesn't sort of do well in an impromptu meeting and I think they don't really care or they're not participatory. Oh no, I remember they're a planning type and they need some advanced notice before just being pulled into a room and asking to perform.

Right. The nine who that person always kind of just goes along with the status quo. It's like, Oh, you know what I should start doing is asking them what they think first. So they don't have a chance to merge with the opinions of other people. So if we do it well, and really take the time to understand, there's a whole lot of narratives and fears and desires that are running the show for every single human being in that room.

And we approach it with the fact that the way I see the world is just one of, you know, Nine vantage points. It's not normal. It's just the way I see it. I then learned I can flex my style. I can be empathetic for what you're going through and I can really meet you where you're at.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, and to weaponize the Enneagram is actually trying to put somebody back into that box.

Right? Right. Talking about getting out of the box or putting them in the box. So if it feels like that's kind of a cardinal rule, I can see how that cardinal rule could not be violated or you would have real, real problems.

Scott Allender:

Yeah, because people aren't a type. People have a type. You're infinitely more than your type. And that's kind of the point, right? With part of the work of this is a Jeff, you're infinitely more than a three. Yes. You identify as a three. You've got a lot of features of the three, and I would love to understand the story of your threeness and you're infinitely more than that. And if I only like, say, I think I know you now entirely because you said that the number three, then I'm missing the whole point.

Topic 6. Operating from a healthy place (28:14)

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly. So take us to the next phase of this, which is truly getting out of the box. So you started us with this description of the fear-based tendencies of each of these nine types. What does it look like when we've been able to kind of address that fear and share how each of these types can operate out of a place of health?

Scott Allender:

That's a big, it's a great question, Jeff. It's a big question because it's a long journey and it's a kind of never-ending journey. Like I say, in my book, There's no self-awareness station where you just sort of, I've arrived. Here I am. I found it. Right. I got on the right train. I'm here. As soon as you've said that you've already started to lose your self-awareness.

So first of all, I think it's, it's becoming really open. It's it's being willing to explore a, what the system has to tell you, then be getting into with compassionate self-awareness. With self-compassion and curiosity and self-addness friendship starts to sit with and understand and gently interrogate the stories and frames that you hold that have been keeping you stuck in that place. Cause you know, there's no bad type. I'm not saying you're ever going to leave your type. Whatever type you have, that'll be your type. But when you have, when you get more and more self aware, you've learned to access the other vantage points as well. But to do that, you have to compassionately interrogate your own stories and why that is.

So we're both, we both identify as threes. So threes have this story somewhere, they internalize the message that it wasn't okay to have their own feelings and identity. It took me a long time to really get like, when did that, when did I start to believe that? And I had to really kind of go back and, unpack big moments in my life, my parent’s divorce and post-divorce stuff.

And like the kind of Oh, I, if I operate this way at my mom's house with my stepdad, that'll be successful. And if I come over here and operate this way with my dad and stepmom, that'll be successful, very, very sort of subconscious, but who I was in each of those different places was vastly different because that's what success looked like in those rules.

And in that sort of subculture. Yeah. That is such like common three stuff is that I've learned to subtly adapt. I don't even know I'm doing it. And I become that thing. And until I lose all sense of self, I lose all sense of my own identity or my own emotions in this. And I just express and reflect what the people around me expect.

Cause that's what success looks like. And for each of the nine types. And in those different strategies, there is some story or stories there. So that's where, that's where you need to go. You need to go back and really, after you've learned about your type, learn about the system, learn what it reveals to you, go back and do some real-time.

And it takes a long, long time and there's no rush. And then when you, when you've done that and working with a therapist, I've done a lot of EMDR work, which has been helpful. And then there's some other practices that can help you learn to access the other intelligence centers. So as a heart type, I have to do work learning to access the body center and the head center.

And that's part of unlocking and unsticking me from my, my singular vantage point. But yeah, That's just a starting point. It's a long, long journey and quite honestly, few people are willing to take it. And I think that's why we don't see a lot of progress for all the books.

There's been so many books and papers and studies on emotional intelligence. We know what it is, right? And we don't have it. Right. So, you said at the beginning, right, the, awareness study, I saw another study from Cornell said only 15 percent of people are truly self-aware. It's phenomenal.

Well, self-awareness is the cornerstone of emotional intelligence.

We know that emotional intelligence is more important at work and in life than your IQ is. We know it, and we know actually what it is, how to measure it, what it looks like in action, and yet 15%? Yeah. That's, that's atrocious.

Relatively low. Yeah. Because we're not, it takes a lot of time and commitment and vulnerability and intentionality, and patience. To start going underneath the waterline of consciousness to truly get at the thing that's going to unlock that for you.

Topic 7. The shield exercise. Layering behaviors and emotions (32:40)

Jeff Hunt:

And it seems as though the most mature and evolved people in terms of self-awareness and emotional intelligence have the ability to very much be in alignment with they're fully integrated with what's going on inside of themselves and also outside.

And I heard you mentioned previously about some sort of exercise that you've used with teams before. I think it was called the shield exercise. And that kind of talks a little bit about that, I think. Can you share what that is? What's that phrase? Don't try this at home.

Why don't you explain a little bit about this, Scott?

Scott Allender:

Yeah, I think, yeah, well, it is an exercise that I think you do need to have a guide with and it's really better done in groups. Yeah, we did an exercise I've done it a few times, where after people have gone through a pretty prolonged period of cultivating more self-awareness, What's truly going on inside of them.

And a lot of the things we've been talking about, it doesn't have to be with the Enneagram, but just in general doing that. Okay. So the shields exercise is it's a really interactive and kind of fun way. Well, it's fun and also deeply emotional at times. And essentially at the long, at the end of a long journey of working in groups on building a bigger interior world, or at least understanding your interior world.

Getting more aware of your intentions and your impact. We ask people to kind of do some arts and crafts. So we get cutouts and magazines and glue sticks and confetti. And we are just anything that's tactile at all. And they're each given this sort of shield. And the, uh, the ask is over a period, I think of an hour.

That you would build the outside of your shield. And that's everything that represents what you show to the world on the inside is everything that's kind of behind the shield. This is your inner world. So it's like the inner world and outer world, and it's super powerful. Then you sit in a circle and you sort of with a coach and people sort of share their shield and oftentimes you'll show.

You'll see that people have learned to put more on the outside than maybe they did at the beginning. You'll see that there's more alignment for people between what's on the outside and on the inside. And some people really kind of still are in a very vulnerable self-acknowledgement are saying, There's a lot of stuff back here that I still don't feel like I can show people, right?

So I'm using this outer shield to show because this is what I'm comfortable doing. Now, it's not an Enneagram specific exercise, but it certainly could be because so much of what our Enneagram types actually are, are shields. The personality itself is developed as a protection mechanism to keep us safe.

So we have all this natural essence. You see it in little kids. That's why we're so drawn to their uninhibited expressiveness and just openness and honesty. And then they slowly learn that that's not going to be okay. And the Enneagram type you put on is your brand of external shielding to protect you, right?

You, I can, you know, you've got kids, you mentioned, I've got kids and I know I've seen moments, my, I have middle schoolers and I've seen the moments on simple things where. Man, you left for school really liking this one musical artist and you came home from school telling me that musical artist is dumb because somebody taught you it wasn't okay.

Yeah. In this environment, it's not okay to like that. And that's a layering until what's on the inside. The truest part of ourselves, our essence gets lost. And so much of like the growth of the Enneagram again, isn't about learning to escape your type. It's learning to understand the persona, the mask of type.

That is protecting some of the truest, most valuable parts of yourself. And if you can reaccess those lost parts and set them free, you can really un like it just, it's filled with just so much power and importance. And from a leadership perspective, it creates the kind of. Appropriate vulnerability where people trust, you mentioned this a moment ago, where people will trust you, you're authentic, you're believable, and they want to follow you.

Jeff Hunt:

That's worth a lot. And for those CFO types who may be thinking, this is so woo-woo, and I don't know how I can get behind it. I mean, I think there's actually. Research that has proven organizations with these types of cultures outperformed those that don't financially. That's a huge thing to pay attention to a very important thing to pay attention to.

As you were mentioning earlier, I was thinking about your, you said things about these layering of the behaviors, feelings, core beliefs, and attitudes. And I'm wondering if you can just, because this seems to connect with this shield exercise. Can you just take a minute before we start to wrap up to just talk about what this means and looks like?

What, in other words, you have this layering of behaviors and then you have feelings, you have core beliefs, you have these, you know, Attitudes that inform your feelings, but oftentimes people aren't aware of these undercurrents, right? Can you explain this a little bit?

Scott Allender:

So the behaviors is what's truly visible.

So I'll go back to, I think I, at a very cursory level, gave, mentioned the iceberg. Model, which essentially, if you, if you're listening picture, you know, the iceberg is as the portion portion you see, and then there's the waterline and then underneath it is the rest of the iceberg. You cannot see most of what we deal with when we deal with emotional intelligence, awareness, leadership, effectiveness is really just the visible part.

That's just the behavior. So I might say, Hey, Jeff, I see this behavior in you. This is really great. This other one. Can you turn that down a little bit? Can you adjust it? We don't like it. It's not helping. And you with sheer white knuckle determination say, yes, I will do this for you. Right. Until you're under stress and pressure.

And then it all falls apart because you haven't made any real change. You're just adding more performance to your repertoire, right? You're like, Oh, they want this number played again. I'll, I'll, I'll sing this one again for them. Right. Or they don't want me to use the, do this song, whereas below that is personality.

That's like the kind of part there. And below that is sort of, you know, desires and motivations and fears as you get deeper, deeper and deeper. And we touched on the fears. So the invitation first is to understand the behaviors, like the top of the iceberg still matters. That's still part of you. You definitely need to understand the behaviors.

And then it's just slowly. And again, I can't emphasize enough in the right setting with the right coach, with the right guide, with the right therapist, whatever it might be to do the traverse downward into yourself a little bit, that inside of the shield to understand what's there, because I have seen instances where people didn't put a lot on the inside of the shield.

There's some people that had it filled. They knew exactly what they were guarding against or exactly what they were willing or unwilling to share with the world. And some of it's appropriate, right? There's some things I keep on the inside of my shield stuff about my family or whatever. I'm not leading with that.

Then there were people that had a little on the inside of the shield and felt like they didn't. fully know what was there, right? They hadn't still hadn't traversed down deep enough to what's in there. Like that, that outside of the shield has been so effective that I actually don't even know what's on the inside sometime.

So yeah, that's the invitation. And I think there's, you know, there's a lot of exercises, a lot of good coaches, therapists that can help. And this isn't woo woo. I know it sounds that way, but. Going back to our earlier, you know, you've said something, some stuff about this. I've said some stuff about this, which is we know that emotional intelligence is more important in the workplace than your IQ.

We know that 70 percent or more of the reason somebody succeeds or fails is because emotional of emotional intelligence related measurable activities and behaviors. We know the cornerstone of that is self awareness and we know that self awareness numbers are Pathetic. So if we know that our competitive advantage is tied to a highly emotionally intelligent culture, which is predicated on strong awareness, both individually and collectively, and we're lacking in that awareness, well, then it is hurting our value creation.

That's just a fact. It's a great way to put it. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, it's just, it's just a fact. And I think, you know, the thing is it takes time and resource and it feels like a distraction and people convince themselves, well, we can just muscle through and get to the results another way. And sometimes you can, but it's for truly like sustained high performance teams and cultures.

They're usually they're almost always the ones that, but I would say they're always that have a high culture of awareness. Empathy, high relational equity, and all of that requires that we take time to know ourselves and each other.

Jeff Hunt:

Is one of the ultimate goals with all of this work to be able to increase the spaciousness, if you will, between the stimulus and the response.

Scott Allender:

Yeah. Yeah. I love that Viktor Frankl quote. And I put it in the book. You know, between stimulus and response, there's a space, and in that space is our, is our choice, and in that choice is our freedom, and that's a paraphrase, I just messed up the quote, but, the point is, we have this, uh, most of the time, we're on autopilot, that's really the issue, right, we have this beautiful ability to automate most of our lives, so that we don't have to put too much mental energy into most of our activities, we can brush our teeth, and we can talk on the phone, and we can yell at the kids, and we can do almost all of it without any conscious thought.

So, the advantage of our Part of our survival advantage is the ability to have habits so that we devote our thinking to more important survival strategies and things that we need to accomplish. But the consequence of that is that we automate. our awareness as well, right? We automate things to the point at the detriment of understanding why we're really doing what we're doing.

So to quote, you know, Carl Jung, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. So the stimulus between stimulus and response, we want to widen that space between stimulus and response. We don't want to just have the doctor hit our knee and our leg kick. Well, we want that when we're at the doctor's, but we don't want our whole life to look like that, where we have stimulus-response, stimulus-response.

This thing happened. I respond this way. This person said this to me, this trip, this makes me mad. And I respond this way. The Enneagram allows you, if you work with it wide in that space, so you have more agency over your response where you actually can hit the pause button long enough to internalize and process what's going on in my body, what are my emotions telling me, what is the belief I'm holding in my head right now about this person or this situation?

Is it true? What else could be true, you know, all of those things, and then to respond with intentionality. I, I love that you brought that up because it's such an important outcome. It's not super woo woo. If you could have everybody on your teams, widening the response between stimulus and response. I mean, why didn't the space between stimulus response?

Wouldn't that be a good thing?

Jeff Hunt:

Exactly. Absolutely. Be much less reactive. We'd be more proactive.

Scott Allender:

Yeah. Can I ask you, I know you mentioned that you've been using the Enneagram and, you're coaching. I'd love to hear how it's helped your clients.

Jeff Hunt:

So much of what you've shared, Scott has kind of come out in the work that we've done with our clients. An example are, was two executives that were really at loggerheads with each other and running different parts of a company that we were working with. And when they realized their own Enneagram types and the types of the other people on their executive team, they had a revelation that they couldn't have had otherwise.

In other words and just to be a little bit more specific, one person was a three and one person was a five. And so going back and for listeners, you can go back and get a little bit more information about the specifics or just try to remember what Scott just shared about these two types.

But the five had a really high need for information and had to have the opportunity and ability to analyze data in a way that the three was not used to or didn't find value from. And the three had a need to move quickly and make decisions in a more timely manner than the five appreciated. And so once both of these types got a better understanding of each other's predispositions.

Then they had greater, as you were saying earlier, greater empathy, greater respect, greater awareness. So the three could slow down and the three could say, Oh, this person's need is different than mine when it comes to information. So I'm actually going to take the time to put together, put together this report that is going to be a little bit more detailed than I would do otherwise.

And then I'm also going to go back to the three and be very specific about the timeline that's important to me because the five wasn't necessarily adhering to these timelines in the past. And then now we have much better engagement. We have more respect. And we have a unique understanding that's not done in a critical way.

It's just like, Oh, this is how you show up and there's value to that. So anyway, that's a little bit of

Scott Allender:

Such a great example. That's, that's a perfect example. We should, you should have just talked about this the whole time. I was, I was all over the place. You you've honed in on something so pragmatic. I love it.

Topic 8. Lighting round questions (47:07)

Jeff Hunt:

No, not at all. I love this information that you've shared. I mean, And we could go on for four hours because that's the level of detail that is available in this model. And unfortunately, we got to wrap it up, but I do have a set of lightning-round questions I'd like to ask you if you're open to that, they're just quick, rapid-fire questions.

And the first one is, what are you most grateful for?

Scott Allender:

The opportunity to do lasting impact work.

Jeff Hunt:

What is the most difficult leadership lesson you've learned over your career?

Scott Allender:

Just cause something looks good. Doesn't mean it's super valuable. So I used to orient towards a little bit more towards the thing that was That appeared more successful than, than it actually had impact.

And so I think I learned early on, which had me pushing my team members towards things that I think were more shiny versus substantive. And I, I learned that lesson a while back that doesn't all have to be shiny.

Jeff Hunt:

Who is one person you would interview if you could living or not?

Scott Allender:

Man, I go between John Lennon and maybe Barack Obama. I don't know. I mean that one person I could probably give you a list of 30 Jeff

Jeff Hunt:

Those are both good. Anyway, do you have a top book recommendation you want to share with our listeners?

Scott Allender:

I would read a lot of the quotes I pulled out in terms of the stats is in Tasha Yurek's book insight Definitely recommend that one.

Yeah, oh gosh, there's, there's so many, but maybe we'll stick with that one.

Jeff Hunt:

What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Scott Allender:

Don't take yourself so seriously.

Jeff Hunt:

I love that Scott, you brought so much wisdom to the show today. And I feel like we're just getting going which is tough. But if you had to think about our conversation and this work that you've done, what are like one or two really key takeaways to leave our listeners with?

Scott Allender:

You're vastly more than your type and part of understanding the vastness of your personhood of your whole self of your essence. Is to understand your sort of personality type and your defense mechanisms and the things that are guarding against and protecting you and looking at the ways that they have protected you, but they're also now maybe if you're 30s, 40s, 50s, they might be working against you.

And there are a lot of people that are walking this path. And the growth path and wherever you are in life, like you don't have to, nobody's looking to make you change overnight. You don't need to change overnight, right? There's, there's, when I did my Enneagram certification process, it entailed three full weeks off sites.

And the first week I walked in, one of the things that warmed my heart and got me so open and ready is I think the average age of the person in that room was probably 60 years old. Wow. And there was people in their seventies and they're going. While I'm here, I want to walk the growth path, right?

I want to understand myself better. I want to understand my relationships better. I want to understand the turmoil that I see in the rear view mirror of my own personal vehicle, like that I still don't understand. I want to, and I was so encouraged and remain encouraged by people at all phases of their life saying, I just want to take steps towards better.

Becoming more of me. I love that. And I would, so wherever you are and whatever, how deep you want to go is up to you, how far you want to go, when you want to go, it's all up to you. If you need to go, I mean, you might decide you don't, but this path toward radical self-awareness is available to everyone.

And there's a lot of resources and people out there want to help you with that.

Jeff Hunt:

And that seems to me to lead to a much more fulfilling life. Yeah. Scott, thanks again for coming on the show today. This was great.

Scott Allender:

Thanks for having me, Jeff. My pleasure.

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Outro(51:44)

Closing music jingle/sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

Thanks for listening to the show this week. We release new episodes every other Tuesday. Let me know what you thought of this episode by emailing humancapitalgoalspan.com. Human capital is produced by GoalSpan. Subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. And please share this podcast with your colleagues, team, or friends. Thanks for being human kind.