The Notes and the Melody, Part II
A Simple and Pragmatic Approach to the Enneagram
The Strategies
By Mario Sikora
"The beginning of wisdom lies in calling things by their correct names."--Chinese Proverb
About a year ago, the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche gave a lecture in
a Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. After talking for 45 minutes or so, he opened the forum to
questions from the five hundred or so audience members.
One man approached the microphone and said, “I’ve been trying to follow the Buddha’s
teachings on compassion, but I’m struggling. I feel compassionate to others when I am sitting
on my cushion and meditating, but then I go out into the world and… well, it’s just hard.”
“What am I doing wrong?”
“You’re not doing anything wrong,” said Rinpoche, who gives off an aura combining deep
power, wisdom, and humble warmth and approachability. “Compassion on the cushion is one
thing; compassion in the world is another.
“Besides,” he continued with a chuckle, “It’s supposed to be hard, because it ain’t easy.”
In the March issue of “The Enneagram Monthly,” Jack Labanaskaus wrote an excellent article
that raised the question of why it’s so difficult to identify personality type. The short answer is
that, like compassion training, clearly seeing the habitual patterns of one’s ego is hard
because it ain’t easy.
For starters, the brain is physically constructed in such a way that the bulk of our cognitive
processing is obscured to us—we don’t see it because we can’t see it.
Another reason it is so difficult for people to identify their type or someone else’s type is
because there is often a lack of clarity on exactly what constitutes Ennea-type: What are the
criteria for being a particular type? How can Ennea-type be measured? Why do people define
the types differently? etc.
For a model of the Enneagram to be pragmatic, these questions must be addressed and
typing must become easier. Yes, the clichés are true—the journey to finding your type does
have value—but the system loses credibility if people cannot identify their type in a fairly
short time and then gain some practical application from that knowledge. Nowhere is this
more true than in a business environment.
This article, part II in an ongoing series, will discuss why typing can be so difficult, set some
criteria for defining Ennea-type, and discuss an approach to typing based on those criteria.
(Part I, in the March issue of EM,(1) discussed four concepts that must be included in a
pragmatic model of the Enneagram and future articles will cover other components of the
model I use. See sidebar below.)
When Bob Tallon and I were writing our book(2), we confronted the challenge of what
constitutes type and came up with the concept of the “strategies”—the theme of affective
tone and cognitive approach to life that seemed to be at the heart of each type. Before
addressing the strategies, however, let’s start with why it is so hard to see ourselves clearly.
At the risk of being overly simplistic, it helps to remember that the brain has evolved from
back to front. Our ancestors had smaller brains and those brains were focused on simple
survival in a far more dangerous environment than we face today. The first sections of the
brain to develop are dedicated to regulation of the physical organism, causing our lungs to
inflate and deflate, our hearts to beat, etc. Through the evolutionary process of random
mutation and natural selection, the brain continued to grow and new capacities became
possible. The fight or flight mechanism developed—the automatic responses to danger and
threat upon which survival depended. Emotions developed, chemical signals from brain to
body that allowed for rudimentary decision-making (Do I like or dislike this person? Should I
hit him with a rock or let him into the group?) Eventually, at the front of our brain, the
conscious problem-solving, deliberative, and introspective capacities of the brain developed
and we became who we are today.
Fortunately, the brain evolved in such a way that much of what goes on in our brain is
inaccessible to the conscious.
Yes—I said, “fortunately.” It is a biologically adaptive advantage for us to be able to function
on autopilot. The brain is set up to worry about the things it needs to worry about without
wasting valuable space in our consciousness—thus much of our behavior is automatic. (It is
hard enough for me to get out of the house in the morning. I would throw in the towel if I had
to be conscious of tying my shoes or analyze whether I was in the mood for oatmeal rather
than pancakes, let alone command my heart to beat or lungs to respire.) The very reason we
have personalities—consistent, habitual patterns of thought, affect, and behavior—is to help
us order and streamline our lives and our dealings with our world. Like a good gambler,
Nature knows to play the statistics. Certain behaviors have a higher probability of being
effective survival tools and they become ingrained in us. Yes, habitual, ego-based behavior
can cause us problems today, but as far as Nature is concerned they are a small price to pay
in exchange for all the survival advantages they confer.
These ingrained behaviors also allow for the development of personality typologies and those
typologies vary based on the breadth or specificity of what is being measured. From the
broadest perspective there is only one type—the human type. The automated and genetically
inspired characteristics that we all share are what we call “human nature;” characteristics
such as anger, love, fear, the urge to bond, a survival instinct, etc. At the other end of the
measurement spectrum, there is such variety of personality within the human type that the
argument can be made that there are as many “types” as there are people because
everyone’s genes and experiences are unique.
In between are numerous aspects of human nature that are suitable for classification. Your
typology rests on which of those aspects you are measuring and what degree of variation
that aspect allows for.
(I once had a co-worker, some years older than me, who said, “There are only two kinds of
people—morning people and night people. You need to know what you are and if you are a
morning person, marry a morning person.” To some degree, he was right, I guess, but it is a
pretty general typology.)
One of the problems of the Enneagram is there is not a clear-cut determination of exactly
what the metrics are. Definitions of type are often vague and, as Jack pointed out, tend to be
based on a laundry list of traits.
This is a problem. Describing a particular Ennea-type on the basis of a list of traits is the
same as saying that “American(3) have a can-do attitude, they are independent, and love
democracy but they are arrogant, dress poorly, don’t travel much or speak more than one
language.” The truth is, many Americans have some or all of these traits, but what technically
makes one an American is citizenship—either you were born in the United states or you
became a naturalized citizen after moving here from somewhere else.
The Enneagram of Personality has no such definitive and mutually agreed-upon criteria. We
explain that “Eights are strong, assertive, self-confident, and abusive.” Or we give them
names such as the “leader,” “challenger,” or “boss.” Originally, the types were described in
terms of passion and fixation—Eights are the lustful type fixated on vengeance (try that
description in the corporate world). Others say that Ennea-type has to do with functioning of
centers, that each type had one of three particular relationships to each center and the
possibilities worked out to nine.
The main problem with the traits-based description is that they end up being fuzzy;(4) there
are far too few universal traits and far too many overlapping traits. If someone shows a
particular trait, does that make her a particular type? Is someone an Eight if she is angry,
lustful, and seeking revenge or could there be another explanation? (Take, for example, the
Glenn Close character in “Fatal Attraction,” who has all of these qualities but is often
described as a Two in the Enneagram literature.) Is someone a Five because they read a lot?
I know many of non-Fives who read a lot. Is the criterion for “Five-ness” that they read a book
all the way through even if it is boring? I know Fives with ADD who have never finished a book
in their lives, but are incessantly starting new ones and skimming ten at a time.
Is the criterion a dominant vice? This seems closer to the core than a list of traits, but it is still
problematic. First, the language of vices is not suitable for the business world (“Well, you see,
Mary is the lustful type and Tom is the deceitful type…”) Also, this approach can be fuzzy. For
example, many Sexual Fives combine avarice (or withholding) with lustfulness, coming up with
a mix that can look alternately like a Seven, a Five, an Eight, or a Nine.
Also, when we are talking about Ennea-type, are we talking about the cognitive conscious
(those brain activities that we can perceive through observation) or are we talking about that
which Timothy Wilson calls “the adaptive unconscious” in his excellent book, “Strangers to
Ourselves”? (Wilson contrasts the “adaptive unconscious” with the “Freudian unconscious.”
Freud referred to a collection of thoughts that were kept out of awareness because they
caused us psychic pain. Wilson posits that a better definition of the unconscious is “mental
processes that are inaccessible to consciousness but that influence judgments, feelings or
behavior… The term ‘adaptive unconscious’ is meant to convey that nonconscious thinking is
an evolutionary adaptation.”) (5)
To apply the idea of Ennea-type to only the conscious leaves the vast bulk of our cognitive
activity unaddressed; if we address only the adaptive unconscious, how can we possibly see
our type? Or are we addressing both and somehow bridging the gap between the two?
In “The Happiness Hypothesis,” Jonathan Haidt uses the metaphor of the elephant and the
rider to describe the relationship between the two parts of the divided self—the conscious
part of the brain that developed recently and the various pre-conscious modules with
powerful and often-contradicting impulses that we have little control over.(6) Haidt rejects
Plato’s analogy of the impulsive “bad” horse (the unconscious) and the heroic rider (the
reasoning conscious) whose job it is to rein in and control the horse. Instead, he explains,
such control is not possible. We are more like a rider on an elephant who can occasionally
gain some victories through with persistence and skillful means, but for the most part the best
we can do is hang on for the ride.
Rather than the rider controlling the elephant, the elephant communicates its desires to the
rider through the medium of emotion and the rider figures out how to attain the desires.
While we like to think that we make our decisions rationally, evidence shows that emotions
have a great influence on our decision making. As Antonio Damasio points out(7), people
sometimes experience brain injuries that alter their emotional functioning but not their
reasoning abilities. Their affect becomes flat and they fail to demonstrate normal emotions
such as empathy or anxiety, but their ability to solve cognitive problems—memorization, math,
etc.—remains unchanged.
Their lives become tortured, however, because they lose the ability to demonstrate
preferences and make decisions about everyday matters. For example, they might be able to
tell you everything there is to know about oatmeal or pancakes, but they can’t tell you which
they prefer for breakfast. The elephant has lost the ability to communicate to the rider.
The implication of this (again, at the risk of being overly simplistic) is that our desires stem
from the cognitive unconscious and they are conveyed affectively to the conscious, which
then creates a strategy for how to accomplish them and, after the fact, manufactures a
rationalization for why we desired them in the first place.
The divided self—this dynamic of rider and elephant—is a factor that must be addressed by a
pragmatic model of the Enneagram.
Toward a Definition of Type
A useful definition of Ennea-type must meet these criteria:
• It can’t be merely a list of traits;
• It must address the affective, cognitive, and behavioral;
• It must be descriptive and easily remembered (Jack relates Oscar Ichazo’s comment that
“Enneagram type has a better chance of being demarcated if its essence can be captured in
a short sentence”); and
• It must involve both rider and elephant.
The idea of the “strategies” meets these criteria. In our book(2), Tallon and I state that what
defines each Ennea-type is which of the nine strategies they habitually rely on more than the
others (See Table). The preferred strategy is what each type is “striving to be;” Ones are
“Striving to be Perfect,” Twos are “Striving to be Connected,” etc.
Table: The Enneagram of Strategies
Enneagram Point: Strategy:
One Striving to be Perfect
Two Striving to be Connected
Three Striving to be Outstanding
Four Striving to be Unique
Five Striving to be Detached
Six Striving to be Secure
Seven Striving to be Excited
Eight Striving to be Powerful
Nine Striving to be Peaceful
On some level, the elephant is striving for an affective tone, an emotional equilibrium that
serves as a sign that all is well. It uses this affective tone to communicate its desires to the
rider and influences the behaviors that the rider chooses. That is, the conscious decision-
making strategy must effectively satisfy the survival and social-interaction needs relayed from
the adaptive unconscious. The behaviors that one chooses to execute in an effort to
accomplish the tasks of life are going to be consistent with the preferred strategy in light of
the circumstances.
For example, let’s look at Type Five who have the preferred strategy of “Striving to be
Detached.” The elephant inside the Five thinks life is OK when it feels a degree of separation
from the events that are happening in its world. Thus, Fives are going to go about meeting
their needs in a way that allows them to feel detached. They will behave in “detached” ways
and they will justify their detachment as the most appropriate approach given the
circumstances they face. The logic will seem perfectly clear to them but generally foreign to
non-Fives.
Determining Type
The tendency we all have to justify our behavior in improving our ability to capture the feeling
of our preferred strategy is what makes the strategies useful in typing.
Let’s use Jack’s example of Fives, Sevens, and books.
I often get clients who can’t decide which type they are because they see traits (such as a
love of books) that are sometimes used to describe a particular type (such as a Five) mixed
with traits (such as not finishing books) that are used to describe another type (such as a
Seven). My question to them is along the lines of “Why do you begin but not finish books?”
When they answer, I follow up with, “What does that accomplish for you?” “And what does
that accomplish for you?” Eventually, without fail, they get to one of the strategies and
respond “Because it helps me feel ‘detached’” if they are a Five or “Because it helps me feel
‘excited’” if they are a Seven.
Bingo; you’ve found your type.
The specific behavior may be the same (though it will look different in tone to an observer
who knows what to look for), but the motivation—the affective tone that is being captured, the
strategy that is being satisfied—is completely different.
I said earlier that what determined type was the “preferred” strategy, but as we all know, there
is an interrelationship between the points connected by the internal lines of the diagram. In
the strategy model, the strategies found at each of the connecting points relate to the
preferred strategy in a very specific way—one serves to “support” the preferred strategy and
one is in some degree of conflict with the preferred strategy, causing it to be “neglected.” Of
course, the dynamics are not that simple and universal, but even the exceptions and
contradictions are fairly predictable.
In the case of Ennea-type Five, the strategy found at Point Seven (Striving to be Excited) is
generally used in a way that helps the Five maintain the emotional equilibrium of detachment.
Fives tend to get excited about things or ideas (rather than people or feelings) because this
specific form of excitement helps them avoid experiencing the emotional messiness of life.
The strategy at Point Eight, Striving to be Powerful, in some ways makes it difficult for Fives to
maintain their detachment. Therefore, when life calls for the application of power, Fives do it
in a Five-ish way: focusing on influencing events intellectually rather than through force of
personality (think Bill Gates). Their bias, however, is to remain in the background and let
others handle the messy power stuff.
By way of contrast, the preferred strategy for Type Seven is “Striving to be Excited.” Sevens
are seeking to maintain a buzz and stay stimulated. While a Five might not finish something
for any variety of reasons, Sevens will stick with a task for as long as (and only as long as) it
provides a buzz. Their support strategy, “Striving to be Perfect,” is found at Point One.
Sevens become perfectionistic in ways that enable them to maintain a sense of excitement.
Generally, it takes a very specific form: “If this is not right (e.g., the house is not clean), it will
bother me and I will be thinking about the mess facing me later rather than the fun I could be
having now.” Like Fives with Power, Sevens have a conflicted relationship with detachment.
They feel guilt about not feeling excited or helping others feel excited so they need to be
engaged as long as they are in public. They save their detachment for when no one is
looking. Sevens will be the life of the party while they are there, but they can’t wait to leave so
they can go home and relax.
A tendency to voraciously start but not finish books can be an excitement-tinged way of
detaching for the Five or a cerebral way of cultivating excitement for a Seven. Only the
individual can know for sure through repetitive investigation of what affective tone is truly
being cultivated.
When I type my coaching clients, I go through a very specific but unscripted process that is
probably not dissimilar to that of many Enneagram users.
Step one is a written assessment (I like Jerry Wagner’s WEPSS the best of the currently
available assessments), but I instruct the client that the assessment is only a starting point
and the results should not be held too tightly.
Step two is to interview the client in a seemingly meandering way, starting off by asking about
their work and then gradually becoming more specific and personal as they become more
comfortable. (My favorite first question is: “So, what do you do here?” Everyone is
comfortable talking about their job and it gets the interview off to a good start.)
My goal is not so much getting them to talk about anything specific, but getting them to keep
talking. The more they talk, the more a strategic theme starts to emerge—the theme will be
about power for Eights, connection for Twos, uniqueness for Fours, etc.
Traits will also show themselves—tone of voice, body language, behaviors for problem
solving, likes and dislikes, etc.—but it is important not to be fooled by the traits. For example,
the client might relay that he avoids conflict, which might lead one to think he is a Nine
because Nines don’t like conflict, right? But lots of people don’t like conflict, and different
types dislike it for different reasons: Fives because it undermines their detachment, Sevens
because it undermines their excitement, Eights because… well, this one doesn’t apply to
Eights.
Step three, once I thoroughly establish a theme, is to describe the nine Ennea-types to the
client. Using the language of the strategies supported with examples of common traits of each
type, it is generally easy for the client to see their type because they have spent the last hour
naturally and voluntarily discussing that type’s strategy theme.
It is important to not force one’s interpretation of a client’s type onto him or her, and I always
tell the client, “This is what I am seeing, but you’ve known yourself considerably longer than
the two hours I’ve known you, so try this on for size and see how it fits.” We’ll revisit the type
issue during our next session, and we look more closely at some of the other type options if
we need to do so.
Using the language of the strategies provides a core concept for identifying and working with
type. By narrowing the definition of type to a short sentence that addresses affective,
cognitive, and behavioral patterns, as well as the conscious and the adaptive unconscious,
typing becomes easier.
This language also serves as a clear cut platform for growth, providing a leverage point for
the biggest payoff. Part One of this series discussed Pareto’s 80/20 principle, that 80 percent
of our benefit usually comes from 20 percent of our efforts. The vast majority of our problems
stem from a tendency to “overdo” our preferred strategy. Eights get into trouble when they
overdo Striving to be Powerful, Sixes when they overdo Striving to be Secure, Ones when
they overdo Striving to be Perfect, etc., causing them to act in ineffective ways. If a client can
train herself to be attuned to the affective, cognitive, and behavioral ways that she overdoes
her preferred strategy and then follow the simple behavior modification process I will cover in
an upcoming article, she can start on a path of life-long growth and learn to modify behavior
when necessary.
Whether you use the language of the strategies or some other language, a pragmatic model
of the Enneagram must center on terminology that clearly and accurately defines type and
provides a simple platform for ongoing growth.
Future articles will describe other elements of my Enneagram model and at the end, show
how all of the elements weave together for each type.
Footnotes:
(1) Part I of this series is available at www.mariosikora.com.
(2) “From Awareness to Action,” which is currently out of print, has been revised and will be
published as “Awareness to Action: The Enneagram, Emotional Intelligence, and Change” by
Scranton Press in June 2006. Beyond the concept of the strategies, the opinions and views
expressed in this article are mine alone.
(3) For simplicity’s sake, let’s allow the word “American” in this case stand in for “citizen of the
United States of America.”
(4) I believe that some of this fuzziness is due to the Essentialism inherent in the tradition of
the Enneagram of Personality. That is, there seems to be a certain “such-ness” or “always-
was-and-always-will-be” quality to each point. For example, try to define a table—Does “four
legs and a top” define a table? If so, what about a table with three legs or six? An Essentialist
would say that the definition of a table is in its essential quality of “table-ness.” This
philosophy may be fine for tables, but when it comes to describing aspects of the human
condition, Platonic essentialism has not been truly relevant since the publication of Darwin’s
“Origin of Species.” I will address this issue further in a future article in this series.
(5) Wilson, Timothy, “Strangers to Ourselves, 2002, p. 23.
(6) Haidt, Jonathan, “The Happiness Hypothesis, 2006.
(7) Damasio, Anthony, “Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain,” Antonio
Damasio, 1994.
A Simple and Pragmatic Approach to the Enneagram
The Strategies
By Mario Sikora
"The beginning of wisdom lies in calling things by their correct names."--Chinese Proverb
About a year ago, the Tibetan Buddhist teacher Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche gave a lecture in
a Unitarian Church in Philadelphia. After talking for 45 minutes or so, he opened the forum to
questions from the five hundred or so audience members.
One man approached the microphone and said, “I’ve been trying to follow the Buddha’s
teachings on compassion, but I’m struggling. I feel compassionate to others when I am sitting
on my cushion and meditating, but then I go out into the world and… well, it’s just hard.”
“What am I doing wrong?”
“You’re not doing anything wrong,” said Rinpoche, who gives off an aura combining deep
power, wisdom, and humble warmth and approachability. “Compassion on the cushion is one
thing; compassion in the world is another.
“Besides,” he continued with a chuckle, “It’s supposed to be hard, because it ain’t easy.”
In the March issue of “The Enneagram Monthly,” Jack Labanaskaus wrote an excellent article
that raised the question of why it’s so difficult to identify personality type. The short answer is
that, like compassion training, clearly seeing the habitual patterns of one’s ego is hard
because it ain’t easy.
For starters, the brain is physically constructed in such a way that the bulk of our cognitive
processing is obscured to us—we don’t see it because we can’t see it.
Another reason it is so difficult for people to identify their type or someone else’s type is
because there is often a lack of clarity on exactly what constitutes Ennea-type: What are the
criteria for being a particular type? How can Ennea-type be measured? Why do people define
the types differently? etc.
For a model of the Enneagram to be pragmatic, these questions must be addressed and
typing must become easier. Yes, the clichés are true—the journey to finding your type does
have value—but the system loses credibility if people cannot identify their type in a fairly
short time and then gain some practical application from that knowledge. Nowhere is this
more true than in a business environment.
This article, part II in an ongoing series, will discuss why typing can be so difficult, set some
criteria for defining Ennea-type, and discuss an approach to typing based on those criteria.
(Part I, in the March issue of EM,(1) discussed four concepts that must be included in a
pragmatic model of the Enneagram and future articles will cover other components of the
model I use. See sidebar below.)
When Bob Tallon and I were writing our book(2), we confronted the challenge of what
constitutes type and came up with the concept of the “strategies”—the theme of affective
tone and cognitive approach to life that seemed to be at the heart of each type. Before
addressing the strategies, however, let’s start with why it is so hard to see ourselves clearly.
At the risk of being overly simplistic, it helps to remember that the brain has evolved from
back to front. Our ancestors had smaller brains and those brains were focused on simple
survival in a far more dangerous environment than we face today. The first sections of the
brain to develop are dedicated to regulation of the physical organism, causing our lungs to
inflate and deflate, our hearts to beat, etc. Through the evolutionary process of random
mutation and natural selection, the brain continued to grow and new capacities became
possible. The fight or flight mechanism developed—the automatic responses to danger and
threat upon which survival depended. Emotions developed, chemical signals from brain to
body that allowed for rudimentary decision-making (Do I like or dislike this person? Should I
hit him with a rock or let him into the group?) Eventually, at the front of our brain, the
conscious problem-solving, deliberative, and introspective capacities of the brain developed
and we became who we are today.
Fortunately, the brain evolved in such a way that much of what goes on in our brain is
inaccessible to the conscious.
Yes—I said, “fortunately.” It is a biologically adaptive advantage for us to be able to function
on autopilot. The brain is set up to worry about the things it needs to worry about without
wasting valuable space in our consciousness—thus much of our behavior is automatic. (It is
hard enough for me to get out of the house in the morning. I would throw in the towel if I had
to be conscious of tying my shoes or analyze whether I was in the mood for oatmeal rather
than pancakes, let alone command my heart to beat or lungs to respire.) The very reason we
have personalities—consistent, habitual patterns of thought, affect, and behavior—is to help
us order and streamline our lives and our dealings with our world. Like a good gambler,
Nature knows to play the statistics. Certain behaviors have a higher probability of being
effective survival tools and they become ingrained in us. Yes, habitual, ego-based behavior
can cause us problems today, but as far as Nature is concerned they are a small price to pay
in exchange for all the survival advantages they confer.
These ingrained behaviors also allow for the development of personality typologies and those
typologies vary based on the breadth or specificity of what is being measured. From the
broadest perspective there is only one type—the human type. The automated and genetically
inspired characteristics that we all share are what we call “human nature;” characteristics
such as anger, love, fear, the urge to bond, a survival instinct, etc. At the other end of the
measurement spectrum, there is such variety of personality within the human type that the
argument can be made that there are as many “types” as there are people because
everyone’s genes and experiences are unique.
In between are numerous aspects of human nature that are suitable for classification. Your
typology rests on which of those aspects you are measuring and what degree of variation
that aspect allows for.
(I once had a co-worker, some years older than me, who said, “There are only two kinds of
people—morning people and night people. You need to know what you are and if you are a
morning person, marry a morning person.” To some degree, he was right, I guess, but it is a
pretty general typology.)
One of the problems of the Enneagram is there is not a clear-cut determination of exactly
what the metrics are. Definitions of type are often vague and, as Jack pointed out, tend to be
based on a laundry list of traits.
This is a problem. Describing a particular Ennea-type on the basis of a list of traits is the
same as saying that “American(3) have a can-do attitude, they are independent, and love
democracy but they are arrogant, dress poorly, don’t travel much or speak more than one
language.” The truth is, many Americans have some or all of these traits, but what technically
makes one an American is citizenship—either you were born in the United states or you
became a naturalized citizen after moving here from somewhere else.
The Enneagram of Personality has no such definitive and mutually agreed-upon criteria. We
explain that “Eights are strong, assertive, self-confident, and abusive.” Or we give them
names such as the “leader,” “challenger,” or “boss.” Originally, the types were described in
terms of passion and fixation—Eights are the lustful type fixated on vengeance (try that
description in the corporate world). Others say that Ennea-type has to do with functioning of
centers, that each type had one of three particular relationships to each center and the
possibilities worked out to nine.
The main problem with the traits-based description is that they end up being fuzzy;(4) there
are far too few universal traits and far too many overlapping traits. If someone shows a
particular trait, does that make her a particular type? Is someone an Eight if she is angry,
lustful, and seeking revenge or could there be another explanation? (Take, for example, the
Glenn Close character in “Fatal Attraction,” who has all of these qualities but is often
described as a Two in the Enneagram literature.) Is someone a Five because they read a lot?
I know many of non-Fives who read a lot. Is the criterion for “Five-ness” that they read a book
all the way through even if it is boring? I know Fives with ADD who have never finished a book
in their lives, but are incessantly starting new ones and skimming ten at a time.
Is the criterion a dominant vice? This seems closer to the core than a list of traits, but it is still
problematic. First, the language of vices is not suitable for the business world (“Well, you see,
Mary is the lustful type and Tom is the deceitful type…”) Also, this approach can be fuzzy. For
example, many Sexual Fives combine avarice (or withholding) with lustfulness, coming up with
a mix that can look alternately like a Seven, a Five, an Eight, or a Nine.
Also, when we are talking about Ennea-type, are we talking about the cognitive conscious
(those brain activities that we can perceive through observation) or are we talking about that
which Timothy Wilson calls “the adaptive unconscious” in his excellent book, “Strangers to
Ourselves”? (Wilson contrasts the “adaptive unconscious” with the “Freudian unconscious.”
Freud referred to a collection of thoughts that were kept out of awareness because they
caused us psychic pain. Wilson posits that a better definition of the unconscious is “mental
processes that are inaccessible to consciousness but that influence judgments, feelings or
behavior… The term ‘adaptive unconscious’ is meant to convey that nonconscious thinking is
an evolutionary adaptation.”) (5)
To apply the idea of Ennea-type to only the conscious leaves the vast bulk of our cognitive
activity unaddressed; if we address only the adaptive unconscious, how can we possibly see
our type? Or are we addressing both and somehow bridging the gap between the two?
In “The Happiness Hypothesis,” Jonathan Haidt uses the metaphor of the elephant and the
rider to describe the relationship between the two parts of the divided self—the conscious
part of the brain that developed recently and the various pre-conscious modules with
powerful and often-contradicting impulses that we have little control over.(6) Haidt rejects
Plato’s analogy of the impulsive “bad” horse (the unconscious) and the heroic rider (the
reasoning conscious) whose job it is to rein in and control the horse. Instead, he explains,
such control is not possible. We are more like a rider on an elephant who can occasionally
gain some victories through with persistence and skillful means, but for the most part the best
we can do is hang on for the ride.
Rather than the rider controlling the elephant, the elephant communicates its desires to the
rider through the medium of emotion and the rider figures out how to attain the desires.
While we like to think that we make our decisions rationally, evidence shows that emotions
have a great influence on our decision making. As Antonio Damasio points out(7), people
sometimes experience brain injuries that alter their emotional functioning but not their
reasoning abilities. Their affect becomes flat and they fail to demonstrate normal emotions
such as empathy or anxiety, but their ability to solve cognitive problems—memorization, math,
etc.—remains unchanged.
Their lives become tortured, however, because they lose the ability to demonstrate
preferences and make decisions about everyday matters. For example, they might be able to
tell you everything there is to know about oatmeal or pancakes, but they can’t tell you which
they prefer for breakfast. The elephant has lost the ability to communicate to the rider.
The implication of this (again, at the risk of being overly simplistic) is that our desires stem
from the cognitive unconscious and they are conveyed affectively to the conscious, which
then creates a strategy for how to accomplish them and, after the fact, manufactures a
rationalization for why we desired them in the first place.
The divided self—this dynamic of rider and elephant—is a factor that must be addressed by a
pragmatic model of the Enneagram.
Toward a Definition of Type
A useful definition of Ennea-type must meet these criteria:
• It can’t be merely a list of traits;
• It must address the affective, cognitive, and behavioral;
• It must be descriptive and easily remembered (Jack relates Oscar Ichazo’s comment that
“Enneagram type has a better chance of being demarcated if its essence can be captured in
a short sentence”); and
• It must involve both rider and elephant.
The idea of the “strategies” meets these criteria. In our book(2), Tallon and I state that what
defines each Ennea-type is which of the nine strategies they habitually rely on more than the
others (See Table). The preferred strategy is what each type is “striving to be;” Ones are
“Striving to be Perfect,” Twos are “Striving to be Connected,” etc.
Table: The Enneagram of Strategies
Enneagram Point: Strategy:
One Striving to be Perfect
Two Striving to be Connected
Three Striving to be Outstanding
Four Striving to be Unique
Five Striving to be Detached
Six Striving to be Secure
Seven Striving to be Excited
Eight Striving to be Powerful
Nine Striving to be Peaceful
On some level, the elephant is striving for an affective tone, an emotional equilibrium that
serves as a sign that all is well. It uses this affective tone to communicate its desires to the
rider and influences the behaviors that the rider chooses. That is, the conscious decision-
making strategy must effectively satisfy the survival and social-interaction needs relayed from
the adaptive unconscious. The behaviors that one chooses to execute in an effort to
accomplish the tasks of life are going to be consistent with the preferred strategy in light of
the circumstances.
For example, let’s look at Type Five who have the preferred strategy of “Striving to be
Detached.” The elephant inside the Five thinks life is OK when it feels a degree of separation
from the events that are happening in its world. Thus, Fives are going to go about meeting
their needs in a way that allows them to feel detached. They will behave in “detached” ways
and they will justify their detachment as the most appropriate approach given the
circumstances they face. The logic will seem perfectly clear to them but generally foreign to
non-Fives.
Determining Type
The tendency we all have to justify our behavior in improving our ability to capture the feeling
of our preferred strategy is what makes the strategies useful in typing.
Let’s use Jack’s example of Fives, Sevens, and books.
I often get clients who can’t decide which type they are because they see traits (such as a
love of books) that are sometimes used to describe a particular type (such as a Five) mixed
with traits (such as not finishing books) that are used to describe another type (such as a
Seven). My question to them is along the lines of “Why do you begin but not finish books?”
When they answer, I follow up with, “What does that accomplish for you?” “And what does
that accomplish for you?” Eventually, without fail, they get to one of the strategies and
respond “Because it helps me feel ‘detached’” if they are a Five or “Because it helps me feel
‘excited’” if they are a Seven.
Bingo; you’ve found your type.
The specific behavior may be the same (though it will look different in tone to an observer
who knows what to look for), but the motivation—the affective tone that is being captured, the
strategy that is being satisfied—is completely different.
I said earlier that what determined type was the “preferred” strategy, but as we all know, there
is an interrelationship between the points connected by the internal lines of the diagram. In
the strategy model, the strategies found at each of the connecting points relate to the
preferred strategy in a very specific way—one serves to “support” the preferred strategy and
one is in some degree of conflict with the preferred strategy, causing it to be “neglected.” Of
course, the dynamics are not that simple and universal, but even the exceptions and
contradictions are fairly predictable.
In the case of Ennea-type Five, the strategy found at Point Seven (Striving to be Excited) is
generally used in a way that helps the Five maintain the emotional equilibrium of detachment.
Fives tend to get excited about things or ideas (rather than people or feelings) because this
specific form of excitement helps them avoid experiencing the emotional messiness of life.
The strategy at Point Eight, Striving to be Powerful, in some ways makes it difficult for Fives to
maintain their detachment. Therefore, when life calls for the application of power, Fives do it
in a Five-ish way: focusing on influencing events intellectually rather than through force of
personality (think Bill Gates). Their bias, however, is to remain in the background and let
others handle the messy power stuff.
By way of contrast, the preferred strategy for Type Seven is “Striving to be Excited.” Sevens
are seeking to maintain a buzz and stay stimulated. While a Five might not finish something
for any variety of reasons, Sevens will stick with a task for as long as (and only as long as) it
provides a buzz. Their support strategy, “Striving to be Perfect,” is found at Point One.
Sevens become perfectionistic in ways that enable them to maintain a sense of excitement.
Generally, it takes a very specific form: “If this is not right (e.g., the house is not clean), it will
bother me and I will be thinking about the mess facing me later rather than the fun I could be
having now.” Like Fives with Power, Sevens have a conflicted relationship with detachment.
They feel guilt about not feeling excited or helping others feel excited so they need to be
engaged as long as they are in public. They save their detachment for when no one is
looking. Sevens will be the life of the party while they are there, but they can’t wait to leave so
they can go home and relax.
A tendency to voraciously start but not finish books can be an excitement-tinged way of
detaching for the Five or a cerebral way of cultivating excitement for a Seven. Only the
individual can know for sure through repetitive investigation of what affective tone is truly
being cultivated.
When I type my coaching clients, I go through a very specific but unscripted process that is
probably not dissimilar to that of many Enneagram users.
Step one is a written assessment (I like Jerry Wagner’s WEPSS the best of the currently
available assessments), but I instruct the client that the assessment is only a starting point
and the results should not be held too tightly.
Step two is to interview the client in a seemingly meandering way, starting off by asking about
their work and then gradually becoming more specific and personal as they become more
comfortable. (My favorite first question is: “So, what do you do here?” Everyone is
comfortable talking about their job and it gets the interview off to a good start.)
My goal is not so much getting them to talk about anything specific, but getting them to keep
talking. The more they talk, the more a strategic theme starts to emerge—the theme will be
about power for Eights, connection for Twos, uniqueness for Fours, etc.
Traits will also show themselves—tone of voice, body language, behaviors for problem
solving, likes and dislikes, etc.—but it is important not to be fooled by the traits. For example,
the client might relay that he avoids conflict, which might lead one to think he is a Nine
because Nines don’t like conflict, right? But lots of people don’t like conflict, and different
types dislike it for different reasons: Fives because it undermines their detachment, Sevens
because it undermines their excitement, Eights because… well, this one doesn’t apply to
Eights.
Step three, once I thoroughly establish a theme, is to describe the nine Ennea-types to the
client. Using the language of the strategies supported with examples of common traits of each
type, it is generally easy for the client to see their type because they have spent the last hour
naturally and voluntarily discussing that type’s strategy theme.
It is important to not force one’s interpretation of a client’s type onto him or her, and I always
tell the client, “This is what I am seeing, but you’ve known yourself considerably longer than
the two hours I’ve known you, so try this on for size and see how it fits.” We’ll revisit the type
issue during our next session, and we look more closely at some of the other type options if
we need to do so.
Using the language of the strategies provides a core concept for identifying and working with
type. By narrowing the definition of type to a short sentence that addresses affective,
cognitive, and behavioral patterns, as well as the conscious and the adaptive unconscious,
typing becomes easier.
This language also serves as a clear cut platform for growth, providing a leverage point for
the biggest payoff. Part One of this series discussed Pareto’s 80/20 principle, that 80 percent
of our benefit usually comes from 20 percent of our efforts. The vast majority of our problems
stem from a tendency to “overdo” our preferred strategy. Eights get into trouble when they
overdo Striving to be Powerful, Sixes when they overdo Striving to be Secure, Ones when
they overdo Striving to be Perfect, etc., causing them to act in ineffective ways. If a client can
train herself to be attuned to the affective, cognitive, and behavioral ways that she overdoes
her preferred strategy and then follow the simple behavior modification process I will cover in
an upcoming article, she can start on a path of life-long growth and learn to modify behavior
when necessary.
Whether you use the language of the strategies or some other language, a pragmatic model
of the Enneagram must center on terminology that clearly and accurately defines type and
provides a simple platform for ongoing growth.
Future articles will describe other elements of my Enneagram model and at the end, show
how all of the elements weave together for each type.
Footnotes:
(1) Part I of this series is available at www.mariosikora.com.
(2) “From Awareness to Action,” which is currently out of print, has been revised and will be
published as “Awareness to Action: The Enneagram, Emotional Intelligence, and Change” by
Scranton Press in June 2006. Beyond the concept of the strategies, the opinions and views
expressed in this article are mine alone.
(3) For simplicity’s sake, let’s allow the word “American” in this case stand in for “citizen of the
United States of America.”
(4) I believe that some of this fuzziness is due to the Essentialism inherent in the tradition of
the Enneagram of Personality. That is, there seems to be a certain “such-ness” or “always-
was-and-always-will-be” quality to each point. For example, try to define a table—Does “four
legs and a top” define a table? If so, what about a table with three legs or six? An Essentialist
would say that the definition of a table is in its essential quality of “table-ness.” This
philosophy may be fine for tables, but when it comes to describing aspects of the human
condition, Platonic essentialism has not been truly relevant since the publication of Darwin’s
“Origin of Species.” I will address this issue further in a future article in this series.
(5) Wilson, Timothy, “Strangers to Ourselves, 2002, p. 23.
(6) Haidt, Jonathan, “The Happiness Hypothesis, 2006.
(7) Damasio, Anthony, “Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain,” Antonio
Damasio, 1994.
A Pragmatic Model of the Enneagram Future articles will address the model of the Enneagram that I teach to my corporate clients and the people who attend my public workshops. The components of the model are: The Instincts—These are the three fundamental instinctive drives—self-preservation, social, and sexual (or intimacy)—often discussed in Enneagram literature as either the “subtypes” or the “instinctual variants.” The instincts are at the root of our values and therefore affect everything we do. The Inner Triangle—The inner triangle of the Enneagram (which connects points Three, Six, and Nine) is used to represent both: • The process by which ineffective behavior becomes conditioned in us (I call this “Creating the Story”) and • The process by which we can modify those behaviors (the “Awareness to Action” process). The Strategies—The core of personality type. The strategies are the cognitive, affective, and behavioral themes that underlie each type’s approach to their world. The Basic Qualities—The nine Basic Qualities are inherent aspects of human nature. They are part of “who we are” from the beginning, but in an immature form. Their development and nurturance become stunted through the socialization process. Nurturing the maturation of the Basic Qualities is fundamental to growth. The Accelerators—The nine Accelerators are practices that help to nurture the maturation of the Basic Qualities. Note: I generally cover only the Inner Triangle and the Strategies when presenting the Enneagram to a business group, because of time constraints and complexity. When coaching a corporate client, I teach the other elements of the model as they are appropriate. |
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