Enneagram Self-Reflection:Reflect upon one specific situation or circumstance in your life and explore if/how having knowledge of the Type you identify with provides you with new insight and self-awareness. Will you respond differently with this knowledge?

Reflect upon one specific situation or circumstance in your life and explore if/how having knowledge of the Type you identify with provides you with new insight and self-awareness.  Will you respond differently with this knowledge?

Having rich knowledge of my type provides me with new insight and self-awareness a lot, especially about working with others more smoothly and effectively.  Actually, when I was in the business field for two years, I realized how difficult it is to work with different types of people.  In those days, I didn’t have typological knowledge at all, so it was laborious for me to understand and respect others’ types and differences. 

However, if I work with someone now, I will be able to recognize his or her type correctly and to respect his or her unique characteristics by utilizing the knowledge of the Enneagram.  The examples of my new insight as for working with each type are below.  If I work with type one, I may be careful of my behavioral patterns like chops and changes.  In other words, I can notice that I tend to act flexibly and accept new ideas without thinking deeply.  Type one people whose characteristics are right-wrong thinkers may not follow me, because they may regard my behavior as capricious and ambiguous.   As a result, I need to consider the above characteristic when I work with type one. 

Regarding the relationship with type two, if I work with a type two, I need to pay attention to the following points.  As described above, sevens are likely to work on a number of things simultaneously.  If I were a manager and my subordinate were a type two, the following situation would happen.  The important characteristics of a type two are to be very dedicated to others and to work for others very hard.  In that sense, if I ask the subordinate to work on a job, he or she will tackle it devotedly. 

However, what will happen if my direction is scattered, and I ask him or her to do one job after another?  I suppose that he or she will work hard for me because his or her positive trait is dedication to helping people.  In that situation, he or she may be bewildered by a ton of jobs like rain falling from the sky.  The above examples demonstrated only the relationship between me and a type one and two, but I’ll be careful of the other types when I work with someone. 

 Therefore, I think that I’ll be able to build a good relationship with others and work with others very well by virtue of the Enneagram, as Riso and Hudson (2003) point out that “when personality type is properly understood, communication becomes exponentially more effective because people begin to recognize and make the most of human diversity” (p. 6).  Needless to say, the Enneagram enriches my relationship with others and my life itself.