The Enneagram & Teams (Replay)

Intro: Duration: (07:22)

Opening music jingle & sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

Hi everybody, I’m Jeff Hunt and as I look back on hosting the Human Capital podcast over this last year I’m reflecting on the fact that I love doing this show. I love running GoalSpan also, but I’m profoundly grateful to be able to interview so many amazing guests on a regular basis. I’m also thankful about what a difference each of these people are making in the world of work today. Looking back on this year, some of my favorites included Patrick Lencioni who masterfully showed us a better way to understand your gifts, your frustrations, and your team. Brad Rencher, the CEO of BambooHR, who completely gets the importance of culture and the people side of business. Steven Rogelberg taught us about how we can make meetings better, and Katie Burke, the CPO at Hubspot who taught us how to treat employees well even when things aren’t going well. I loved my conversation with Rasmus Hougaard who shared how to become a compassionate leader, using the tools of presence, courage, candor, and transparency.

Human Capital has gained significantly in popularity this year, and my team transformed the podcast marketing and website for which I am truly grateful. I have also found through interviewing so many leaders that common themes rise to the top. One key theme is that the best leaders are willing to do the “inner work.” What I mean by the inner work is that they are willing humbly look inside of themselves to learn about where their own roadblocks lie, what their blind-spots are, and where their greatest strengths lie. Leaders that are willing to do this can lead teams in the most effective way through any circumstances. They also happen to be the most human leaders that people actually want to follow.

Reflecting on all of this, I realized there is one episode that really helped us explore this inner work. My guest was Ginger Lapid Bogda and she helped us learn about the Enneagram. I have decided to replay this episode, and if you have already heard it, listen again and I guarantee you will pickup something new. If you haven’t heard it, stay tuned to learn some golden nuggets about yourself and the teams you work with.

As you reflect on 2022, I hope you are able to find many things to be thankful for, regardless of whether you had a challenging year or great year, or one that was mixed. As you think about 2023, close your eyes, take a deep breath and pause to focus on the things in your life and work that give you hope, joy, and fulfillment. May you focus on those with intentionality during this year ahead and also find new ways to serve others both inside and outside your work. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy this extended replay episode.

Jeff Hunt:

Hi everyone, I'm Jeff Hunt, your host of the Human Capital Podcast. This is the place where we endeavor in each episode to uncover the deeply human aspect of work. Have you ever taken a personality assessment either at home or work? My guess is that you probably have and if you have, I'm curious about what your thoughts were about your assessment.

Was this a positive or negative experience? Has it helped you in your relationships at work or at home? Today we're gonna talk about the advantages and disadvantages of these assessment tools and take the time to do a deep exploration of one tool that I think provides significant value. In fact, we're gonna take two episodes to break this all down for you.

And I don't think you'll be disappointed. Let's talk about the assessment or testing industry for a minute. According to psychology today, approximately 80% of the fortune 500 companies in the US use personality tests to assess employees and potential candidates. This enormous industry exceeds 3 billion dollars a year.

But it's also a crowded market with a lot of variabilities. Some of the more common tests you might be familiar with include Myers-Briggs, caliper, disc, and strengths finders, and some advantages of these tools include things like improved self-awareness. And from a recruiting standpoint, the ability to understand candidates better.

The opportunity to shorten the recruitment cycle and eliminate bias. And even in some cases, spot dark personality traits. And most organizations, have the goal of helping employees learn how to work better together. But however, there are some disadvantages, including the fact that many of these tools are inaccurate.

They can actually increase recruitment bias and there can be interpretation problems if you don't use a consultant. People can also make false assumptions about others based on their assessment type. And they can put people in categories or boxes. And the fact is that humans are much more nuanced than this.

And so, as I mentioned, we're gonna focus on one assessment today, which is called the Enneagram. And I personally have found tremendous value from this assessment. And I happen to know my guest believes this also. I actually don't know of a more qualified person to help me explore the Enneagram than Ginger Lapid-Bogda.

Ginger runs a consulting firm called The Enneagram in Business and is a consultant, and trainer, she's a coach and she has over 35 years of OD experience. Ginger has worked with fortune 500 companies, nonprofits, service organizations, and has literally written the book on the engram in business. No, actually she's written four books.

With her fifth book coming out shortly. Ginger has trained over 500 professionals worldwide on how to use the Enneagram in their professional work. And she has her bachelor's degree from UC Berkeley, a master's from UPenn, and her Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara. Welcome, Ginger!

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Thank you very much, Jeff.

Jeff Hunt:

It is a great honor to welcome you to the show today, and I'm very excited to unpack the Enneagram with you over these two episodes.

And as I mentioned in today's episode, we're gonna focus on the background of the engram as an assessment tool. And then next episode, I am super excited to unpack your new book team transformations, right?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Well, the new title is: "Transform your team with the Enneagram, build trust, decrease stress, and increase productivity."

Topic 1. Who inspired you the most in your career? (07:23)

Jeff Hunt:

Fantastic. So I had the opportunity, Ginger gave me an advanced reading of this book before it comes out and I am highly recommending it, we have a lot to jump into today. I would love it, Ginger, if you could actually just start us out by giving us a thumbnail of your career journey and take us back.

Through that journey and share also who inspired you the most along the way?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

So, the short version of the long story, because I'm old enough to have a long story is I started out as a teacher and realized the importance of both learning cognitively and learning emotionally or interpersonally in being an effective learner and an effective teacher.

And so, I parlayed that I've worked in organizations for decades as a trainer, as a consultant, an OD consultant, as a coach, and about 25 years ago. I actually now have about 45 years on me in consulting. It's like really seriously long, but, about 25 years ago, I pat crossed paths with the Enneagram.

I didn't create it. It's actually 3,000 to 4,000 years old. We're not sure how old it is, but it's been evolving over centuries and it has had a modern rebirth. My sort of mission or passion is to bring it out into the organizational world so that organizations can be more effective. People can be more productive and happier at work and more satisfied.

And in the process, the second is that they really get to know themselves and others better. I think at this point, I probably, stopped counting, but maybe 2, 3000 professionals worldwide. I've trained. I don't know I work directly with organizations, and I write these books to help kind of foster that.

So, I wanna say something that you said, and I think it's really important. It's the downside and upside. So the Enneagram or really, any assessment really should not be used for hiring, but the Enneagram types themselves, and there are nine of them, will tell you a lot about a person's patterns of thinking, feeling behaving.

Do you know that Jeff? And it will tell you a lot about their worldview. And so there is a great value to these nine perspectives, but hiring should be based on skills for the job, and experience, although, experience is a tricky thing because you know, you take a person who's had 20 years of experience, but they've been doing that the same thing over and over.

And somebody who's had eight years of experience, but they learn from it. So I say, which person would you hire? The other is that what really is relevant to hiring because it makes a more effective employee besides skills and experience is their level of self-mastery. Their ability to, as you know, understand themselves, work with themselves, not be reactive, but be more conscious, and choiceful.

And the ability to work with all kinds of other people effectively. Now the underground helps people develop self-mastery, but type itself, you can get a low self-mastery person of any type and they can destroy a team or they're at the top. Takes about three months to destroy a thought.

If you have a thought leader who's highly dysfunctional, no matter what their type. And I'd say three years to rebuild it after finally, they leave.

Topic 2. Why is personality assessment used in the workplace? (10:38)

Jeff Hunt:

Wow. I want to go a little deeper into the assessment space. Can you render your opinion about why so many personality assessments are actually used in the workplace today?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

There is a big market financially and a lot of financial gain for people who provide that. So, there are lots of offers from the point of view of employers. How do we know how to hire well? Because the cost of a bad hire is huge and it's getting more so, and the higher the level you're hiring for the more significant the role.

The worst a bad hire is. So, people are like, how do I know how to hire people? And people can fake interviews and people are not telling the truth necessarily on resumes. I've had that experience myself with people I've hired and it's time-consuming to hire people. So I think for some hiring managers, or recruiters, it's a shortcut.

But is it sometimes shortcuts don't get you where you wanna go? So, this is an issue, I think because sometimes like with the Meers Briggs, for example, I know it's been used in a lot of hiring processes and I know the MBTI pretty well say you have a group and you got their MBTI scores and you go, this is a pretty high functioning group, right?

Or people are talented. Let me hire like that based on score. Okay, but are you getting the most variety of perspectives? Are you cloning again? If you get so many people that are so much similar to one another by virtue of something about them, the M B T I score, whatever, then you're going eventually in the short run, maybe it's easier to function together, but in the medium and long run, and there's a lot of research to prove this you're gonna be in trouble.

You don't get effectiveness longer-term effectiveness by cloning on any basis.

Jeff Hunt:

So really what you're saying is that by using some of these assessment tools, as part of the recruiting process, we could have a counter effect on our diversity inclusion initiatives. We could end up further solidifying our lack of diversity, cuz we're always going for the same type of person.

Because they have proven to be an effective team member or they're contributing to the culture, but they're not helping us make better decisions or things like that. Is that correct?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Right. And then the other issue is maybe they were good for the as-is state. But if you look at creating the organization, the culture you want in the future, is that gonna get you where you wanna go?

A lot of times there's a default to trying to use Enneagram tests, just for example, And the Enneagram, as I said, cannot really be used for hiring, but you can make a lot of errors that way, but the tests are only about 65 to 70% accurate anyway.

Topic 3. The Enneagram (13:33)

Jeff Hunt:

Sure, that makes sense. Share a little bit more about the Enneagram. You mentioned it's three or 4,000 years old. That's just ridiculously old so, I assume it was sort of passed down orally traditionally.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Yeah. Originally, and then things were added to the system and etcetera. So that's exactly right.

Jeff Hunt:

So give us an overview of what it is for those people that are not familiar with it.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

So, there are nine types each with a distinct pattern of thinking.

A pattern of emotional response pattern habitual, and a tendency to act in certain ways, no type is better than any other type. Although sometimes people wanna think so, it's not the truth. They're just different. The thing about the Enneagram that's really, I think, astounding, is it shows you a mirror of who you actually are.

And also it's a development system, so it's not about, okay, this is how you are. You can understand yourself better and you can accept yourself more, which is fantastic. But the second thing is, so it shows you how you can develop if you want to with specific, development paths based on each type, which is super helpful.

So I'll go through the nine types. Okay. In terms of leadership style, I'll reference the type in general and then I'll give you, I hope a story that will be short.

Topic 4. Personality type 1 (14:43)

Jeff Hunt:

Okay, perfect. And before you jump in real quick, it sounds like what you're saying is actually it's very pragmatic. Because when you know your type, there are these very obvious sorts of areas that you can work on. On a regular basis to really move and live into your higher self. Is that correct?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

So, the thing, you know, I'm gonna do it to leadership, but you could lead it to parent, teachings. It's about how to communicate more effectively. It's about how to deal with conflict, cuz there are royal patterns by type. Well, how do we deal with conflict, and how do we respond to it? Are we helping ourselves?

What are some additional ways it's around more choicefulness? So let me start with, I'll start with, I'll go one through nine. Okay. So we'll start with type one. There are books and people that will give them labels for each of the types. I tend not to do that because I don't like labeling anyway.

And I think Enneagram is about showing you who you are and helping you move beyond a label. So I won't do that, but in type one, they're really seeking perfection. Although they know they won't be perfect and they're not, it's constant wanting to be, and they're avoiding making mistakes. They really don't like that.

So they're trying to get everything right. So one leader. Their leadership style tends to be this they see a leader's job is to set clear objectives. And inspire others to achieve the highest quality, super high standards. Often leading by example, very clear and precise. They tend to be very pragmatic, but developmentally need to relax control, cuz they like to control everything.

That's how you get it as perfect as possible. And delegating is difficult because nobody can do it quite as well to the standard. So, one of my clients, who's a one was in a group of peers and this person said, I can delegate. I can delegate to this person who had a span of 45 employees who worked in that space.

And so that person said, well, I can delegate. Well, how many people PI says, well, two people. Well, why only too, because I only delegate to people who can do it better than me and somebody else in the group said, Hey, your job as a leader is to develop people as well. What it would be like if you could do it with people, delegate people who could do it, as well as you, that would be five people.

They said, well, you need to expand it. Who can do it 80% as well. And then you develop them. So that's type one.

Topic 5. Personality type 2 (17:04)

Jeff Hunt:

Okay, so let's hear about type two

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Well, this is a type, which is my type, that's very focused on how other people and helping them do something more effectively-being, finding out tuning into what their needs.

They're very intuitive. They tend to focus on others, much less on themselves. So they think the leader's job is to assess the strengths and weaknesses of team members. And they're really good at it and then motivate their team members towards the achievement of what the organization's wanting to accomplish.

Now, these are all different, but they're all really effective. But then you get into a narrow view, like effective in certain circumstances and maybe not so much in others, right? So, the strengths tend to be being empathic and motivating other people and development areas, setting boundaries saying, no, no, you can't do this.

No, that wasn't okay. And setting boundaries so people hear them and delivering difficult information. Usually good at giving feedback, but when what's emotional and you care about the person or you think they're gonna have a strong negative reaction, very difficult. They're also sensitive to the environment.

I know several twos who are in leadership and they really tried to change the culture of the organization to be more people-oriented and positive and they couldn't do it. And so what did they end up doing? They got very frustrated. They kept trying and they left precipitously. And that's a big loss to the organization because they weren't able to influence the way they wanted to.

In the world of two, if it's painful and people are suffering, I can't bear to be in this.

Jeff Hunt:

It sounds like twos care deeply about others and they care deeply about improving the situation.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

But less self-care. So the leaving it's really got to the person and they weren't taking care of themselves.

Trying so hard to take care of others that they ended up leaving the organization. And possibly regretting it.

Jeff Hunt:

So, the tendency of the two could be to sacrifice themselves for the gain of the organization or whatever they’re dealing with.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Exactly, but then you sacrifice and then you gave away so much. And don't take care of yourself.

Jeff Hunt:

The other thing that's helpful as you're explaining these is for people to listen to them in terms of which type they think they might be. So, if listeners can kind of have an open ear to that, and I would say that a key takeaway there too, at least for myself, was when I listened to my type.

In some ways it described me and it's like, oh yeah, that's me. But then it also made me cringe a little bit. So, if those are what you're experiencing, then that could be your type.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

So now we're gonna get to your cringe. Although I know you've been working on yourself, so I hope that the more you work on yourself and that's true for me, I cringe less on my type and work more on the development.

Topic 6. Personality type 3 (19:57)

Jeff Hunt:

Yes. So type three, my type. Let's hear it.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

All right. So this is the type that's results, results, results. Ready in fire wanting results, wanting to perceive oneself as successful or competent. Do they define success by their own term? They do but avoiding failure, that's like at all costs.

So, what happens, their style of leadership is they like to set goals and create plans automatically and then deliver on them. So, they create an environment that achieves results and they think that happens when people understand the organization's goals and structure. So, their strength getting results and staying focused, staying really focused on the deliverables and the results, but the development can be very impatient when things are not moving fast enough and afraid to take risks that where they might fail.

And that's a really, even in one's personal life, my son who's a three. He never would swim because he didn't feel like he could be successful with his feet off the ground. So he's fabulous with any sport. Except not his feet off the ground that made him anxious, now he's starting to take the risk and swim and it's okay.

And he's even enjoying the process, you know, though, they can be super-competent, but when they feel like they're risking failure or they can overwork themselves because they don't wanna fail, then they can get interpersonally abrupt. The way I say it is the person who could teach charm school needs to go to it.

We like that, that you wanna give a story about yourself, Jeff?

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah. Well, I appreciate that description and I'm reflecting on sometimes as a three. What happens for me is I am so goal oriented and focused that I will lose sight of the important connections that I need to be maintaining and keeping with my team.

It's very interesting too, because obviously I run a software company and our software is, the name of my company is GoalSpan. So that's sort of right into the three dom, but I will also add ginger that it's pretty incredible when you look across this country because it's filled with threes and many business leaders and CEOs or executives, people in the C suit.

Are threes now, not always the case, but they get fueled and encouraged and motivated by societal norms and encouragement for this achievement orientation, which oftentimes for people that achievement orientation can be at the expense of a more fulfilling life. So that's a bigger picture discussion that we could probably take offline somewhere else, but.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

I'd also add countries. Many countries have a type culture and the US is a type three, although different regions are not. And in corporate America, it tends to be a little bit three-ish, but doesn't mean all the leaders are threes. So sometimes, and it's for your audience. People might mistake themselves for threes when they're not because the culture of the organization has sort of required them to be very three-like.

Jeff Hunt:

One more thing on the three before we move on, I'm sort of thinking about how threes can be leaders, but this is goes back to your original point of being careful to value every single type on the Enneagram. Because if we can fill our leadership teams with a diversity of types, we're gonna end up making better decisions.

If I fill my leadership team with a group of threes. Then we're gonna be a little bit more narrow minded than we would be otherwise, even though we're achievement oriented, but it's also gonna probably have a negative effect on our overall culture. Wouldn't you agree with that?

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Well, hypothetically, I think it varies whether they're filled with three, right.

But I think it depends on the company, but let's hypothetically say that the most corporations run by a lot of threes, right? What are you gonna get? You're gonna get results. You're gonna get measurable objectives, but what might you not get? Enough attention to people, enough attention to development, enough attention to risk taking, because right now, you know, we're in a, a place where 10 or 15 years ago, there wasn't such a need to take risks, right?

There was more stability. Now we're an unknown territory. There is a need to take risks. So, if the fear of failure is looming and that's your failure avoidant type that could impact your willingness to take risks.

Topic 7. Personality type 4 (24:24)

Jeff Hunt:

Yes, that makes sense.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

So, but anyway, type four fours like to think of themselves as different, unique, and special, and they tend to be the most internally oriented of all the nine types.

So, they're looking at meaning and purpose and vision and real and deep inspiration. That's really cool because they sit right next numerically to threes that are focused on the external drive for results and plans. Here you have a type let's find purpose and meaning in the work we do, which is really, really important, so we can do excellent work.

So, the strengths are creating a deep vision and connecting with others emotionally. I mean, they will hang in there, whereas the threes can be impatient and other types can be more impatient, not the four so much. But what are the development areas? Well, not taking things personally that happen.

And being able to regulate their feelings internally, cuz they're very feeling responsive. So I had a client who I was tasked to give feedback to this person, as well as several others and to collect feedback and use the underground typing to help them understand how they were processing, what the feedback might be.

Now, the interesting thing, this person was a four. Was so anxious about getting the feedback from me. And the question I asked was why, because in a prior job, they had gotten some feedback and it had been very negative. Now the feedback I had on this person was hugely positive. That person didn't know it yet, but the pain of having gotten negative feedback 20 years earlier, 15 years earlier, was so deeply in this person that the fear and the pain, I mean, it was awful. So, then I knew I had all this positive to say, but we got through that. And when I gave this person positive feedback, seriously, they slept across their desk. The person was almost twice as tall as me. To hug me. The relief was huge.

Jeff Hunt:

I love that story. And I'll just say that one of the things that seems important if you truly understand the nine types, if I'm gonna go provide feedback to a four, and I understand what their tendency would be in terms of how they receive that feedback, I might tweak my approach a little bit.

So that we can end up with a better and more valuable conversation. And then the second thing I would say is, it sounds like what you're saying is we should really lean on fours when it comes to things like vision casting within our strategic planning process, we should make sure that they have a big seat at the table to help us guide the organizational direction.

Ginger Lapid-Bogda:

Okay. So I have a different take, I say yes and. If you have a very skilled for the job and experienced for and they're at the table, which is great. Let them influence you to get more visionary yourself, let them really find that inspiration in you. So like we don't rely on the threes to kind of set objectives and results.

Right? We can find that in us, we don't rely on the twos to try to motivate, to figure out what people need and want. They can help us bring that out in ourselves. That's maybe my message.