Tag Archives: Emotional Intelligence

Motivate your team – the Enneagram way

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(This article was first published in the Critical Path, the monthly newsletter of PMI Sydney Chapter publish in March 2023)

Projects are delivered by people, and this will continue at least until AI takes over project management.  While the Project Manager should master the tools and processes they are using to manage their project, project delivery will undoubtedly suffer if the Project Manager ignores the human factor of the project team, and the stakeholders influencing the project.  What “makes or breaks” project success is knowing what makes people “tick” and acting accordingly.  In this month’s Beyond Project Management I will introduce one of the many ways to understand and motivate your team: The Enneagram of Personality.

Taken at face value, the Enneagram is made up of nine numbers representing different personalities interconnected and woven together through human psychology, and traditional knowledge of human nature.  While the Enneagram is basically a useful tool to help individuals manage their emotions and interpret the world around them, many businesses are using it in team building and conflict resolution.  By the same token, when you know more about yourself and the people around you, you will know the ‘hot buttons’ of every personality.  Exploiting this knowledge you will increase the collaboration among the project team and the influential stakeholder, and consequently, this will increase the chances of delivering successful projects.

Caveat: I am not promoting this classification as the only way to understand yourself and the team. This is one of many other ways that can help you manoeuvre the complex landscape of human behaviours and interactions and give you some ideas that could help you in building effective relationships.  I acknowledge that not everyone agrees that this classification works.  The purpose of this article is to enrich your toolbox and give you more options and ideas to consider.  It’s up to as a Project Manager to identify and use the right tool for the right situation.

Enneagram Personalities

Type 1: The Reformer.  Also known as the Improver and the Perfectionist.  They strive to make things right or better.  They often struggle with their condemning inner voice to do better.  They need to be accurate and orderly, and they fear being incorrect or blamed.  The Reformers are motivated by being right and fair, and their focus on excellence.  Imagine their feeling about Agile principles of ‘fail fast, fail often’, or ‘MVP – just enough’. 

Type 2: The Helper.  Also known as the Giver and the Befriender.  They need to be loved and truly cared for.  They also need to be wanted, needed, and appreciated.  They fear they will be rejected for being their authentic self.  The Helper is motivated by verbal affirmation and acknowledgement.  Tell them “thank you” more often and see how they get excited and spread their positive impact across the whole project.

Type 3: The Achiever.  Also known as the Performer and the Motivator.  They need to be valued and accepted.  They adapt to the scenario to achieve success because they fear to be considered unworthy due to failure.  The Achiever is motivated when they are affirmed in their actions and the impressions they make on others.  If you don’t have an Achiever in your project, strive to get one.

Type 4: The Individualist.  Also known as the Romantic and the Artist.  Their life strategy is “I must be understood as uniquely as I am”.  They like to create different and “beautiful” things – ideas or tangibles.  They are motivated when you recognise their uniqueness and authenticity.  With the right guidance, they can help you create better project objectives or resolve your project issues in a creative way.

Type 5: The Investigator.  Also known as the Observer and the Theorist.  They like to be always knowledgeable and equipped with evidence and data.  They are motivated by being independent and undisturbed.  They hate change and get irritated by the break in routine.  With Agile’s embrace of uncertainty and continuous change, the Investigators suffer.  Nevertheless, you can rely on them in your project for validation and evidence-based arguments if and when you need it.

Type 6: The Loyalist.  Also known as the Sceptic and the Guardian.  They focus on being safe and secure all the time, and they rely on a strong support system to keep them safe.  You will lose them if they feel any mistrust or security threat.  They are motivated by reassurances of safety and job security.  Their focus on safety and security makes them good at developing contingency plans and workarounds for risks and issues.  Therefore, if you can assure them of their role on the project, they will help you in resolving the problems of the project.

Type 7: The Enthusiast.  Also known as the Optimist and the Epicurean.  They like to have fun and new experiences while working.  They find silver lining in every challenge and keep options open.  They are motivated with consistent excitement and continuous engagement and stimulation.  The combined wisdom of the Loyalist and the Enthusiast (types 6 and 7) is a blessing for any project.  If you have these types of personalities, ensure they collaborate and your project will reap the results.

Type 8: The Challenger.  Also known as the Protector and Advocate.  They never like to be controlled by anyone.  If you micromanage them, you lose them.  They are motivated by letting them dominate their own environment, and giving them the responsibility to ensure that everyone in their environment is protected.  For Challengers on your project, clarify what and when you want things, and leave it to them to deliver – they will.

Type 9: The Peacemaker.  Also known as the Mediator and the Reconciler.  They strive to maintain peace and calm and create harmony in their environment.  They focus on peace-making so that they might miss their main role.  They are motivated by solving people’s problems and managing conflict.  They bring harmony and serenity to your challenging project.

These are the general characteristics of the Enneagram Personalities.  People usually have a dominant type and few characteristics from other types.  Also, people change over time from one type to the other.  It would be useful to observe your project team and the influential stakeholders to understand the dominant type of each person.  With the right understanding of the needs, fears, and motivations of everyone in your project, you can decide when and how to press their “hot buttons” to align everyone towards the project purpose and objectives.

References

What’s your Enneatype? By Liz Carver and Josh Green (Link).

Taking care of Business with the Enneagram by R. Karl Hebenstreit (Link)

The Complete Guide to the ENNEAGRAM by Sierra Mackenzie  (Link)

Oblivious Self Awareness

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A participant in one of my project management training courses said something that was an eye-opener for me.  The training course was a preparation course for the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification.  In this course, I use a lot of sample questions to ‘train’ participants on the structure and content of PMP exam questions.  I usually display a question with four possible answers, give the participants a couple of minutes to think about it and to select an answer, and then I highlight the best answer with an explanation and justification of why it is the best answer and the others are not.  In that particular session, an active and experienced participant said firmly that the answer to a particular question is B.  When I said that the best answer is C and not B, he said to me: “I am sure that the answer is B.  However, I am also sure that you, as you always do, will convince me and all of us with your clear argument that the best answer is C.”  He complemented his statement with giving me the posture of an attentive and focused listener, waiting anxiously to hear what I was going to say.

I remembered this when I was recently listening to one of my friends who I enjoy listening to.  Tarek is a quite knowledgeable conversation partner and posseses an excellent way to describe things.  Tarek paints a clear picture, supported with facts and readings to present his point of view, which forces you to respect his point of view even if you don’t agree with it.  In a recent conversation with Tarek I told him that he is a perfect example of someone who “knows more than he thinks he knows, and can do more than he thinks he can do.”  I urged him to put his thoughts on paper and start blogging (ironically, Tarek is the one who told me sometime ago that I should start blogging and he is the one who introduced me to WordPress).

The point I want to make here is that, most probably, we know more than we think we know; all of us can do more than we think we can do.  The reason behind not knowing what we really know is what I would like to call is our “oblivious self-awareness”.  I don’t think we do this on purpose; well it is oblivious after all.  I can attribute this to our normal practice of acquiring knowledge and experiences.

As we move on in our life, we slowly accumulate knowledge and skills: we change.  We unknowingly treat the accumulated work and personal experiences as ‘common sense’ and we convince ourselves that everyone is aware of.  We believe that our actions and knowledge are nothing but spontaneous and instinctive ‘facts of life’ which everyone do and know.  However, with some observation you will find out that some or even most of your spontaneous actions and instinctive knowledge are not as spontaneous and instinctive to others.  This is nothing but a positive implication of the ‘boiling frog syndrome’, where you are not fully aware of the changes that happened to your behaviour and intellect as a result of the experiences you are continually collecting.

Therefore, you should have more confidence in yourself, your knowledge and your experience.  Continually test your knowledge and skills and increase your self-awareness.  Wherever you are in the journey of life, chances are that you know more than what you think you know, and you can do more than what you think you can do.  You just need to be more self-aware, get into the habit of attuning to what others are telling you, and attract your luck by surrounding you with people who would give you a little nudge.