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Every organization faces these challenges:
- Recognizing behaviors that drive and prevent top performance in individuals and organizations.
- Discovering and capitalizing on strengths of individuals, teams and organizations.
- Understanding how to break out of ineffective, nonproductive behaviors.
- Developing and implementing effective action plans.
The EQ Tool – the Enneagram – is the most accurate and practical approach available for
understanding personality types. It explains the strengths and limitations of nine specific
strategies people use to interact with each other and the world. It describes how those
strategies look when people are functioning in a normal manner and how they function
under stress.
People using the Enneagram develop unparalleled self-awareness (personal competence)
and deeper understanding of the people they work with (social competence) and are able
to translate that knowledge into effective action.
Make the workplace more productive and profitable.
Give workers the freedom, self-knowledge and confidence to reach organizational goals on their own.
Understand and influence customers better.
Determine the best approach for meeting customer needs and retaining their loyalty.
Recruit and keep the best employees.
Find the right people for the positions you o.er to ensure long-term career growth and fulfillment.
Enhance teamwork and reach goals sooner.
Identify ways to build a more effective, balanced teams.
Increase tolerance and improve communications.
Benefit from diversity and different points of view. Identify and eliminate barriers.
Build positive organizational climate. Reduce stress.
Understand which work situations motivate or frustrate the nine personality types.
Maximize individual skills and talents.
Discover which of the nine personality types are at their best in certain situations and manage them accordingly.
The Enneagram (pronounced ANY-a-gram) is a typology which helps people recognize and understand overall patterns of human behaviour.
The Enneagram does not rigidly categorize people, but is a dynamic, open-ended system that enables us to gain profound insight into ourselves and others. As such, it is an excellent tool to develop social and emotional intelligence.
(The following article (or material), except where otherwise noted, is directly taken from the first chapter of Discovering Your Personality Type with the permission of the authors. We highly recommend this book for all of our visitors).
The Enneagram is an extraordinary system for understanding ourselves and others that can be used in all aspects of life and work.
Leading experts in the field Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson have set the standard for working with the Enneagram. Their developments to this approach to self-understanding and their application of it to psychology, spirituality and personal growth are relied on around the world.
In their latest book, Discovering Your Personality Type: The Essential Introduction to the Enneagram, Riso and Hudson say that "people from diverse cultures all over the world are responding to the Enneagram because they see their experience accurately reflected in it".
The Enneagram, as developed and taught by Riso and Hudson, is "one of the most important discoveries in their lives, something that has helped them make sense" of their own motivations, attitudes and behaviours as well as that of others. What was once confusing and chaotic becomes clear and understandable.
The Enneagram is the key to all interpersonal relationships in the workplace. This knowledge is essential to excellent communications.
The first rule of good communications is: know your audience. Until we understand the nine personality types of the Enneagram, we tend to believe that everyone has the same motivations, values, etc., that we do.
Once we understand that there are nine ways of doing things and that each is essential to a well-balanced workplace, we can enhance our communications, management and people skills, team building and conflict resolution.
This has a profound affect on job satisfaction and productivity.
The following major organizations are reported to use the Enneagram: Adobe, Amoco, AT&T, Avon Products, Boeing Corporation, The DuPont Company, e-Bay, Prudential Insurance (Japan), General Mills Corporation, General Motors, Alitalia Airlines, KLM Airlines, The Coalition of 100 Black Women, Kodak, Hewlett-Packard, Toyota, Proctor & Gamble, International Weight Watchers, Reebok Health Clubs, Motorola, and Sony.
The Enneagram brings amazing clarity and insight to intimate relationships. Suddenly, what we thought were our partner's delibrate behaviours and attitudes are seen for what they are: part of their personality type.
By Definition, personality is not conscious; not within our awareness. The Enneagram shows us what we need to know to understand our intimate relationships and the direction which leads to well-being.
The Enneagram gives parents a clear understanding of their child's personality. With this knowledge, parents can guide their children with wisdom and confidence towards well-being and fulfillment.
The Enneagram gives therapists and their clients a fuller understanding of their client's childhood development and their current motivations.
Now therapist and client can have fuller insight and work more cooperatively towards what is most life-giving for the client.
The Enneagram is a valuable tool for all who are on a spiritual path. The Enneagram is not a religion or a spirituality, but it supports the first and essential step in the spiritual life: know yourself.
Without this self-knowledge, we do not get far.
The Enneagram provides wise guidance to all individuals who want to achieve their full potential as a human being.
As Riso and Hudson point out, simply finding your Enneagram type without developing an awareness of your type in action can actually be "an obstacle to growth". So discovering your Enneagram type is merely the first stepping stone on the journey.
Knowing your Enneagram type is extremely valuable, as it brings to awareness our motivations, or our ego agenda. Once we are clear about our own motivations and the resulting attitudes and behaviours, we use our knowledge to observe our personality in the present moment.
In the present moment, between the stimulus and the response, we have an opportunity to choose our response rather than unconsciously falling into our habitual patterns.
The more awareness we bring to the present moment; the more we see ourselves objectively; the more our personality begins to "loosen its grip on us". The result is an increase in our essential nature:
"acceptance, love, authenticity, forgiveness, compassion, courage, joy, strength, and presence... as well as gratitude, vitality and boundlessness - and all of the other manifestations of the human spirit".
In order to use the Enneagram, the first step is to discover your dominant personality type. In order to facilitate this, Riso and Hudson have developed the RHETI, "the most revealing and useful way to determine type, now scientifically validated".
Learn about the Riso-Hudson personality types >>
Call us at 902.446.3262 or e-mail elizabeth@columbabay.com to find out more about what Columba Bay can do for your business success.
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