The Framework
The Enneagram
Three centres of intelligence, nine ways of being.
Feeling Centre: Patterns 2, 3 & 4
The heart. Attention goes to how people feel — whether others are happy, and whether you are satisfied yourself.
2. Giver
Attuned to what others feel and need, and glad to help. They move easily between people’s various demands, and can seem almost angelic in their attentiveness.
3. Achiever
Highly self-motivated, with efficiency and goals to the fore. They will do whatever it takes to reach a target, and usually come across as driven and capable.
4. Individualism
Emotionally rich and finely tuned, drawn to meaning and beauty in people and things. Like artists, they can be distinctive and difficult to predict.
Thinking Centre: Patterns 5, 6 & 7
The head. Problems are approached through thought — analysing a situation, or working out whether something is really true.
5. Investigator
Eager to learn and to understand things at their deepest level. They can become absorbed in knowledge and keep their distance from people, which others may read as unapproachable.
6. Supporter
Loyal, careful and responsible, with a talent for weighing up strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. They watch the power and the risk around them, moving between compliance and resistance.
7. Enthusiasm
Cheerful, energetic and quick to see the upside. Like explorers, they keep finding something surprising in ordinary life.
Instinctive Centre: Patterns 8, 9 & 1
The body. Experience is taken in physically, and action is used to take charge — of oneself, or of the whole.
8. Empowerer
Bold, decisive and strongly principled, with a powerful desire for autonomy. Their presence and determination make them easy to follow.
9. Peacemaker
Warm and easy-going, good at listening and finding common ground, and willing to make room for views that differ from their own. Like peacemakers, they work to keep things settled around them.
1. Reformer
Attentive to detail, principled, and holding themselves to a high internal standard. They can come across as clear-cut about right and wrong.
Every pattern has its challenges
All of us have better days and worse ones.
The same pattern can look entirely different depending on the pressure it is under.
Safe, and under little pressure
Above the line
- Reflects on their own part in things
- Listens to others
- Makes room for difference
- Attends to what the team needs
Under real pressure, and challenged
Below the line
- Blames other people
- Becomes defensive
- Focuses on their own interests
- Poor company alone, and poor company with others
Knowing both ends of your range is how you work out where you are standing right now.