How the Enneagram helps build team trust.
A few months ago, I came across an article in Fast Company (Jan 18, 2024) that I found very interesting because it provided facts and figures for something that has been clear to me for a long time: trust in organizations and teams is a baseline for many success metrics: increased employee engagement, increased productivity, stress reduction and increase in creativity and innovation, among others (Question Eleanor: How do I list the source best in my blog?).
Also in the research project ‘Project Aristotle’ by Google, which asked the question: What makes successful teams? - ‘Trust and psychological safety’ as a baseline and foundation.
Why do we often find it difficult to really build and maintain this basis of trust in teams? I think it's because we as humans have very different needs in terms of how we build trust, what triggers trust in us (or fuels mistrust) and how we generate trust in ourselves.
Of course, there are the generally known aspects of how a manager can generate a space of trust in the team, which are always fundamentally correct and important: (1) Show respect and goodwill and appreciation (2) Be sincere, transparent and honest (3) Really listen and listen (4) Formulate clear expectations (5) Keep your promises and communicate changes immediately (6) Stand behind your team.
However, despite these wonderful and important aspects, a real basis of trust and the associated psychological security is not easy to generate and maintain in the often changing structure of organizations.
In my own leadership work as an HR director, and now as a coach and organizational consultant, I learn every day that trust is a very personal and not always constant thing. It has a lot to do with the awareness of people and teams. With the awareness of themselves and others in the team. The more people and teams are aware of what they need in order to have and develop trust, the more clearly they can generate this trust.
For me, the Enneagram of Personalities is one of the best tools to give managers, teams and employees awareness, transparency and clarity about what it means for them to have trust, to give trust and to further develop trust.
The Enneagram for individuals and teams is a comprehensive map for the development of one's own personality and opens up a path to self-discovery. The Enneagram uncovers the behavioral patterns that unconsciously drive us and motivate us to take certain actions. When we are aware of these patterns and motivations, we can transform them and thereby develop richer, self-determined ways of behaving and thinking. With a better understanding of 'why I do what I do', the Enneagram empowers individuals to take responsibility for their behaviors and also for their own growth.
The Integrative Enneagram helps my clients with:
Emotional, psychological and interpersonal effectiveness
Leadership maturity, effectiveness and efficiency
Personal transformation and development
Productivity loss due to team conflict
Effective communication and influence
Resistance to change, resilience and willingness to change
Interpersonal stress and conflicts at work and at home
Stress and stress symptoms
Career development and change
Decision-making
The iEQ9 from Integrative Enneagram is currently the most accurate and reliable Enneagram assessment. There are many other Enneagram assessments, questionnaires and tests on the internet that may be cheaper, or even free, but contain much less accurate, comprehensive knowledge. (See also my blog on 'Comparing Enneagram Assessments - good, better best, and where you should steer clear!)
The approximately 30-minute dynamic-adaptive questionnaire identifies your client's Enneagram profile, 27 subtypes, 3 centers, 6 stress dimensions, integration levels, interaction styles, conflict styles, resilience and more! (on 42 pages).' If you want to read more about the integrative Enneagram, follow this link.
What is the relationship between trust and the Enneagram?
How trust develops in individual people, how and through what people feel psychological security, is very individual, or rather, a type-dependent pattern. For example, there are people who gain trust through lively, open exchange, who want to learn a lot about the other person before they gain trust. For other people, on the other hand, this is more an example of how they lose trust, because they would rather have it confirmed through joint work and joint success.
An example: You are a manager in a team of 10 people. You are an Enneagram type 8 - the 'active challenger'. You like it when things are addressed directly and openly and brought to the table. The quicker, the better. This is how you are in your dealings with others and you also like it when others tell you what they think openly and directly. This creates a An environment of trust. You don't like it at all when people are pushing around and not saying where the shoe pinches. If you find out about problems too late, you lose trust in your employees and wonder what else they are holding back from you or question their competence.
Maria is also on your team. She is an Enneagram Type 6 - The 'Loyal Skeptic'. She is very reserved until she has all the facts together before she makes a statement, but then she has an eye for what can go wrong. She doesn't like it at all when people in a team just run off without having a very well thought-out plan that also takes certain risks into account. So she doesn't come to you immediately to express her concerns, but only when she has a clear view of the entire project. When she then comes to you and expresses her concerns precisely and possibly also somewhat critically and negatively, you become annoyed. You want to know why you are only now hearing about these concerns. The trust situation is disturbed on both sides, although both people have only acted 'according to their type' out of an unconsciously controlled motivation.
That’s why my credo for my clients is always: psychological security and trust require (self-)awareness.
It is most likely to be created by the leader and team members being more 'aware' of themselves, then communicating authentically and openly, and then having an awareness and understanding of what makes their teammates tick, what increases or decreases trust in them, and how they can strengthen each other.
The Enneagram is a fabulous tool for such work with the team.