45. The Enneagram in Business, Part 2

Intro: Duration: (03:02)

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Jeff Hunt:

Hi everyone. I'm Jeff Hunt, your host of the Human Capital podcast. My focus on every episode of this podcast is to uncover the deeply human aspect of work. In the last episode, we began a discussion about personality assessments. These tools are widely used at work for many purposes, including improving team and individual performance.

Self-awareness reduces reactivity and enhances working relationships. They're also used for things like shortening the recruitment cycle, eliminating bias, and even spotting dark personality traits. Ultimately, the goal is to help employees to learn, and to work better together. There are disadvantages, however.

And these include the fact that many of these tools are inaccurate. They can increase recruitment bias, they can decrease diversity, and they can even be weaponized if used incorrectly. In the last episode, we focused on one tool, which I believe has the opportunity to be transformational because it helps people get out of a box, not put them in a box.

The tool is called the Enneagram, which has a long and rich history. But has been modernized to be highly effective for personal and business use. If you missed the last episode, I encourage you to go back and have a listen. I took some time to go through each of the nine engram types. So you could better understand your own predisposition as well as better identify the traits in those you work with.

It's not required listening, but it might provide you with a better perspective when you listen to this episode. Ginger Lapid-Bogda is joining me again today to talk about her new book, transform your team with the Enneagram, build trust, decrease stress, and increase productivity. Boy, we could all use a little bit of that, couldn’t we?

Ginger runs a consulting firm called the Enneagram in business, and she is a consultant trainer and a coach with over 35 years of OD experience. Ginger works with fortune 500 companies and has trained thousands of people and teams in using the Enneagram. I've read Ginger's new book and it's great.

I would say it's a pragmatic look at team dynamics and it shows clearly how the different engram types show up at work and how they relate to the forming, storming, morning, and performing model, which many of you may be familiar with, this is a Bruce Tuckman model that's decades old. The bottom line is that I would say Ginger uses theory and practice and real team stories to show you how to achieve high performance among teams.

Topic 1. What motivated you to write this book? (3:03)

Jeff Hunt:

Ginger. Thank you for coming back to the show. Let me start with a question about the writing of your book. What motivated you originally to write this book? You've written four other books. And tell me about that process.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Well, so teams, before I even knew the Enneagram, teams and leadership, and diversity were the three areas that I probably knew the most about, but I was a general organizational consultant.

When I learned the Enneagram, it was clear and easy for me to understand how it worked with teams, and in the early stages of my work and business, where people were, trying to learn, how do you bring the Enneagram to business, there were people who said, you can't use it in teams. And I'm like, are you kidding me?

They just didn't understand teams. So, in a certain way, writing a book that integrates the Enneagram with teams and team development, team leadership, and team membership, it’s natural. I probably could have, should have. Why didn't I do it years ago? Okay. So then it gets to your question, which is funny.

Why did I do it now? The Enneagram is taken off markedly. And there are a lot of organizations wanting to use the Enneagram in their teams and asking for people to help them do that, consultants. And what I've been finding, cuz I have a network of people and I have other people and clients. So, I'm sort of like tuned in. There are a lot of Enneagram consultants, and trainers who don't know how to really work with teams, and you can do a lot of damage working with the team with the Enneagram as if the Enneagram is the be-all, end-all.

And I was seeing that and I'm getting people calling me about it. Now we did this, but it didn't work, and we need you to come in and work with us. Or somebody is like I work at this person and they were gonna do this, and I'm like, no, that's not gonna work, you got issues that need to be dealt with before you actually bring the Enneagram in.

So I was getting enough of that. And so I feel like. Okay, I need to write this book on teams and the Enneagram for leaders. So, they know how and when to work with it, when to bring in a consultant, how to work with the Enneagram with their team, and also their leadership style. Cause a lot of it you can do on your own, right?

How to be a really good team member if you knew how to do this? Because teams, good teams don't just happen magically. Sometimes they just feel that way, but here is a process and you can almost make any team into a really high performing one if you know how to do it. And so then for consultants, trainers, and coaches, a lot of coaches shouldn't be doing team Enneagram because they're not trained in teams.

And so I was seeing like work coming out or people getting misled, and I thought, okay, I'm gonna write this book and sort of share, put it all on the table about everything you need to know and do. And then I had enough stories. I like this needs to have a story example, another way I didn't exhaust even all my stories, but it's full of examples, but it's more in story form than the example and you know, you've read it.

Jeff Hunt:

That's great. And I was just appreciating as I was reading the book, how the book actually provides a framework, whether you want to try to implement some of these tools internally yourself, or you're a consultant and you want to go in and assist an organization, it's really a playbook.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

And in the last chapter, it's about, so what if you're a team member? Here's little stuff you can do based on having read this book. So yeah, it's, multi-layered,

Topic 2. How to become a good team member (06:13)

Jeff Hunt:

I'm also just kind of amazed at how little organizations invest in leadership development. About what it looks like to build a successful and engaged and productive and high-performing team, and also how to be a good team member.

That seems to be a non-existent thing, right?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

It surprises me too because we're so team-based now, and it's been a trend for many years almost getting to be decades. And then with the pandemic and remote, we're no longer all in person. We often, we're kind of a hybrid, but now it's really hybrid.

Some teams are remote, some are full, some are in person, rarely, fully, anymore. Some are mixtures. But it takes new challenges to be on that team. I don't think it's harder.

It's just different. I'm sure there are some companies that do teach you how to be a really good team leader, but I don't think there are many.

And what are they teaching you really? It's a story in my book too. But one of my coaching clients is a very talented person, no leadership training whatsoever just drive-in and, you know, figure it out. And it's like, what? That's why I was coached. Right. Because it shouldn't be that hard. And why I would do that, maybe they don't know how to train leaders or they don't wanna take the time.

But now it's like leaders, it's very stressful. It's stressful when you're new and you haven't been trained or you're just trying, it was like, what do you do? You know, it's stressful when you're at the top. Cuz it, as one of my old clients said, this is not the book, but I'm consulting to you on a topic in your company and I'm not your coach.

Why do you always wanna talk to me when I come here? And he said because when you get to my level, nobody tells you the truth anymore. So there's that, and then it's stressful that way. And it's stressful, you know, if you're any role you're in, it's just different kinds of stresses and leadership. So why can't we reduce that?

And I think the Enneagram can be really helpful in that there is no leader, really. There are some people who are called leaders and they're kind of who do they lead just themselves, but most people are leading some other people and why aren't we training them well to do that?

Jeff Hunt:

Right. Oftentimes it's a financial decision. So, they don't wanna invest in that training, but what they're not seeing is the opportunity cost of not investing in it.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

What are they investing in? Because they have money to invest in development. What are they investing in?

Topic 3. Psychological safety, why is it so necessary? (08:41)

Jeff Hunt:

Well, they're investing in sales growth and development and marketing opportunities and new strategies and entering new markets and acquiring other companies.

And the list goes on and on and on. And the reason why they invest in those things is that the CFO continues to demonstrate that there's a return on investment. That's very tangible. So you can look at a profit loss statement or you can look at a proforma and see, did we make it, did we not make it?

Whereas the investment in human capital is much more intangible, it oftentimes has an even greater result than investing in those other elements of the organization. So, all right. In your book, you provided a great definition of psychological safety, and I think the way you put it in there, ginger was that it's the belief that you won't be humiliated or punished for sharing your thoughts and feelings.

And that it also means that you feel safe to take personal and interpersonal risks with others. I love that definition. And I'm also curious, why does it not work well when psychological safety is not present?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

If you don't feel a team or where there's a lack of psychological safety, how productive are they gonna be? What are they gonna do? How committed are they gonna be? Aren't people gonna leave? The cost of people leaving the organization is huge. How productive is a team gonna be? Not too much. There's gonna be a huge leadership loss, and I'm not saying lack of psychological safety is it all about the leaders' behavior, but how is that helpful?

But in the context of the book, you know, Jeff, what I'm talking about is the Enneagram doesn't solve all problems. If there's not at least a moderate level of psychological safety, the Enneagram can make things worse because of how open are people gonna be to uncover themselves and to self-disclose or shares things about themselves.

So, if the level of psychological safety is low, here's my invocation. Hey leaders. Hey people, Hey companies, fix those things. Those can be, you need to find out why it's low. And then it goes to which I know you're gonna ask me the relationship between trust and psychological safety, right? I know you're gonna go there.

And I think it's a good question, but it's like if people don't trust, there's a lack or low trust. The question you need, one needs to ask, when working is, why? Trust it's a symptom, not a cause. If there's low psychological safety, there's gonna be low trust. If there's low trust.

There's gonna be a factor of something where psychological safety plays in, but even with psychological safety, what's the cause of it, right. There's always a cause. And then work with that. That's my thing.

Topic 4. The difference between a group, a team, and a high-performing team (11:37)

Jeff Hunt:

It seems like organizations that try to implement this Enneagram stuff without having the undergirding of psychological safety.

Would essentially be doing a check the box event that could actually have a counter effect. Tell us about the difference between a group and a team.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Okay. A group is a collection of people who have something in common and something they probably do together. But a team is a subset or a special kind of group.

Where yes, it is a group collection of people and they have something, but a team needs to have at least one common goal that they agree is a common goal and some degree of reliance or interdependence on each other, not everybody, but. Within them to be able to accomplish that goal or the goals.

So, I've seen a lot of leaders in organizations, you know, who have a group and they try to make them a team and they spend a lot of money trying, but they're never gonna be a team cuz they don't have any common goals. Or the level of interdependence and that can often happen. Depends on how are the organizations, but you might find the head of finance has HR reporting to them and logistics.

And like, those are seemingly random, but they need to report to somebody that's a group. Do you see what I mean? So it's very important for groups not to try to be teams if they never will be. But the other is also true if you are a team, but you're functioning like a group where you've never defined your common goals, or you don't have the interdependence, get there, stop acting like a group and define your impossible team would spend some time, what are our common goal or goals.

And what's our interdependence for getting there that will serve us well. And then you can move from a possible to an actual.

Jeff Hunt:

Why is impatience the greatest enemy of becoming a high-performing team?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Oh my, because it takes some time to get to know each other. It takes time to work the issues out and takes time to get clarity on our charter and get to know each other, and who are we? What resources do we have? It takes time and most people want to jump to the action, jump to the deliverable.

There's no exception to that. Now there are a few types that realize, Hey, we don't really know each other. We need to spend some time, but they'll get overridden. They also wanna jump, you know, but if you start to jump, get to the action, what action? Is it the best action? No, probably not. And not everybody's going along with this.

So sometimes it might be the right action, but everybody, you need to get people onboarded with it. They're not informed if they're not included. If they don't, you know, it's not gonna go

Jeff Hunt:

We not only provide performance management software, but we have a consulting arm. And so we'll do strategic planning sessions and we'll take teams and do two days offsite and they'll do all this great vision casting.

And I've found that over the course of my career. That team will be overly zealous. So they get into impatience mode and they think that they're actually gonna execute the entire plan in the next 90 days. We're always having to reign them in and say, okay, let's get really realistic and pragmatic about this.

It's difficult for people to do that. Isn't it?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

They don't want to, but they need to, and we're people too. I mean, I can get impatient. I'm sure you can.

Jeff Hunt:

Me too. Especially as an Enneagram three.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

I don't know. We probably are both equally impatient but over different things.

Some of the things that cause you to feel impatient are maybe not the things that would generate impatience in me, but.

Topic 5. The Enneagram in forming, storming, norming, and performing (15:28)

Jeff Hunt:

Okay, ginger, in your book, I thought you sort of beautifully linked the Enneagram types with Bruce Tuckman's model, for those of you that aren't familiar, it's this forming, storming, morning, and performing.

Can you explain to our listeners what that model is and sort of how the Enneagram fits into this?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Every team, not a group, but a team to become a high-performing one needs to go through the four stages of team development. This was a research-based model. It totally works. It's sequential. Forming, you need to form as a team, both in terms of what's our task, can we align around our charter, our task, our deliverables, and the relationships and processes.

Are we attuned to each other? Do we know each other? Do we all wanna be part of this? Can we move forward? And then inevitably that's forming. Then you go storming. Storming is we have differences, it doesn't mean out and out conflict just means we have differences in how we are functioning.

We're operating our understanding. Maybe somebody feels abrupt to me and not to you. And that's a little tension in there, but it can be from mild to severe. I think the issue is that those need to be brought up and resolved because they will go underground if not. Now, if there's too much conflict intention in a team, why?

I'd ask why. And it usually has something to do with the dynamics of the team or the forming stage, and other factors too but okay. If there's too little or none, it means they're sitting on something and they're not sharing. It's like, it's gonna show up. So if they bring up the issues and get those resolved, then teams go to the norming stage, which means what are the new working agreements that we need to either change from older ones or add to that will help us function more effectively.

And they can be norms even as like what day of the week are we gonna have our team meetings? Maybe the day doesn’t work for people or how long they're gonna be structural things. Or it could be like, what food are we gonna have? That's in person, I'm tired of whatever we're serving for lunch.

I mean, a lot of companies can get into a rut. But it's a new norm and then we agreed to it. And then once that then moved to high performing. Now, it doesn't mean that the team is gonna stay high performing. I mean, they're there, but some different things, like they get a new leader, it can be back to form, but hopefully, the new leader is similar enough and open enough to the team.

That if that hadn't been oriented enough, they can go back to high performing pretty quickly. If the new leader is dramatically awful for them, or just dramatically different, that's gonna be a struggle cuz the team's already in a different place, but you know, change of resources, change of charter.

Can do that. But the teams that have gone high performing already, will handle those with great resilience and ability, and capability. The teams that haven't, they may be delivered, but you put a change, a major change to them.

They're gonna struggle with it because they haven't gone through the earlier stages enough and they're gonna have to go back and revisit.

And so they do so, but see, everybody wants to get to high performing back to your patient's question. You gotta put the time in, I mean, you're still functioning and accelerating into doing things together, but it's the time is so well spent and it's really important. So how do the types connect to this?

Well, we have different behaviors at each of the stages. By type, highly predictable. Some of them support moving forward. And some of them may not as much. So in my book, I describe at each stage, what's typical behavior. What would be some shifts if you were wanting to help the team move forward based on your type, what would that be, and experiment with it?

They're not asking you to be, um, dramatically different. It's just, Hey. Okay, let me try this and see if it changes things.

Jeff Hunt:

And then do teams as they're moving through these stages, really have a clear and open understanding of each other's different types. And are they able to have open communication with one another about how they can serve the team better?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

They do that. But here's my experience with teams that work with us. The Enneagram is inherently fascinating and people are really interesting and we get in curiosity. So when people know each other's types, they know their own and they're committed to their own development, that’s helpful

When you're on a team with people like that, you learn so much about all the types, at least on the team, your depth of knowledge increases and curiosity about, oh, that's why Jeff does this, right? He's like, oh yeah. Yeah. And we can have conversations about that.

Jeff Hunt:

And it’s not only, that's why Jeff does this, but it's from a nonjudgmental place. Because of the acceptance and value of every single type, rather than one typing better than another or anything.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Probably better say Jeff does this and I do that and that doesn't Jeff doesn't like that I do that. So, can we have a conversation about that? Because I'm coming from how I normally would be.

And Jeff, what's the way of having a conversation that goes beyond understanding to would be we can do things differently, a little bit. One of us.

Jeff Hunt:

Speaking of that, can you give us an example of how the knowledge of the Ingram in somebody's number can sort of help depersonalize conversations?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Oh, it totally does.

Because seeing if you're taught the Enneagram correctly, helps you see yourself in a more objective way. Now if people hide behind their type and go, oh, I just do that because I'm a five, or I just, that's not how it's supposed to be used, but if you go and you're working on your development and again, the Enneagram is beautiful as a development system.

Cause it specifically targets. So then you're in a way observing yourself and you're not identified with your type you're working on yourself, accessing more of your versatile, more satisfying, less suffering, you know? The higher self, if you will. It's really cool that way. So if we're in a say, I mean, we're not, but I'm a two and you're a three, right? So suppose there's something between us, right? And I know, hey, Jeff's reacting this way. He's the three I get why he's reacting that way. I don't have to feel cuz as a two I'll feel like I did something wrong. It's not working. And I go, oh, it isn't that I did something wrong. Say I can help me there I go.

Thinking I didn't, no, this isn't about that. I can work on my, let me here see him that he wants that. Do I have to do what he wants? Because as a two, I might want to. Dang ginger, you don't have to do that. I mean, I'm doing a lot of inner work with that, right? Not that he's just expecting me to do that.

But let me hear this. This is about something he might prefer. Now, maybe it's something he's willing to work on or not, but then it can become a very interesting co-creating situation.

Topic 6. Book release date, and wrap-up questions (22:33)

Jeff Hunt:

Very good. So, what's the expected release date of your book for people who are interested, and also, how can they find you?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Well, the expected release date is probably, what we're looking at, there are a lot of variables, but it's looking like the end of June and they'll be able to access it on Amazon for sure. Either June or sometime in July now, how they can find me? I mean, theenneagraminbusiness.com.

And then people can write into the website, we have a really, I think, robust website, lots of Enneagram resources on it, you know, invite people to kinda see what's there.

Jeff Hunt:

Great, I wanna ask you a few questions before we wrap up. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Now, that's a hard one because what's coming to my mind is something where somebody might say something to me, that's advice, but it's swearing. And I prefer not to swear, but it's when I get too concerned about other's reactions for some reason, it's not necessarily personal, but in sort of the space of organizations and the people I respect and know, and they just will say, well, Nah, Nah, right.

You can fill in the words, like don't care about that. And that feels right now, like really good advice, but I prefer not to use the pronouns.

Jeff Hunt:

Okay, great. So, what is the most important takeaway to leave with our listeners from these last couple of episodes? If you think back on our talks?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

I can answer that better about what I might want.

Explore the Enneagram. It's got great possibilities and capabilities. It's the system that when people get into it, they are more likely to bring it home to other aspects of their life. So, it can make a huge difference. I am not a fan of personality systems, even though I know them well. So, I think in around also some are useful in different ways. The enneagram is fundamentally different and so powerful. And if it's not for you, okay. And sometimes it's not for you now, but you know, three years from now, it shows up again in your life and you go, oh, I listen to a podcast on that. Now it might be my time to explore.

Let me, I'm gonna turn the tables. What about you, Jeff? What would you want the takeaway to be?

Jeff Hunt:

I agree with you. I think curiosity was a word that came up either in the last episode or the beginning of this one. And curiosity has served me extremely well over my career. And I would say, be curious, I would say walk away with a curiosity about your team, whether you're a team member or a leader.

And be curious about what your Enneagram type is and, and how you show up, and be curious about your own self-awareness and ways that you may have tendencies you're not even aware of. So, I really loved our talk just getting a summary of each of these different nine types and how they tend to show up at work, and how human beings are so nuanced.

And let's just accept that rather than try to change people and make them different. Let's try to allow them to show up in a way that allows their gifts to really shine and add value to the team.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

And wouldn't it be boring if everybody else were just like us?

Jeff Hunt:

Absolutely! Ginger. Thank you so much for coming to the show today.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Thank you for asking.

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Outro(26:15)

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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.