Over the past five years, I have gained fun and insight using a tool called the Enneagram.  It is from the Greek for 9 (“ennea”), where the “gram” is for it forming a nine-pointed symbol.  It’s actually a very old symbol, seen in ancient Greece , and then later amongst Sufis (Persian mystics), and then about 80 years ago it was brought to the surface in the Ukraine by G. I. Gurdjieff.

In the 1960s, two psychologists from South America , Ichazo and Naranjo, got a hold of it, and brought it into the modern world.  Now, it is a widely used tool in modern psychology and business management, as it helps us to understand what we know about ourselves and each other.  Today, there are very large databases of Enneagram type data.  Sites worth checking out include:

http://www.enneagraminstitute.com  (RHETI test is here)

http://www.enneagramworldwide.com  (in-depth self-development)

A personal friend, Mike Kiever, who presided over Nortel , US some years ago, used the Enneagram faithfully, since his entire career revolved around his 17 vice presidents.  He tested his V.P.s in every sort of way, since insight and understanding into those 17 people represented the whole of his career so directly.

At the trait level, every individual tested has a root Enneagram type.  (Did you know that if you know me, I know your Enneagram type?)  What this root type tells you, for the most part, regards your personal angle on matters, but in a very profound sort of way.  It is a “reality reaction framework”, and as such, it doesn’t really give you data about yourself, so much as it gives you the ability to make sense out of the data that you do have.  It helps you to orient what you know about yourself (or someone you know).  It gives you a clear framework on otherwise un-differentiable bits of data, and it gives your knowledge cohesion.  If you try it, you might find yourself - or the people that you know – easier to understand.

One’s root type is formed at about the time of one’s birth, and represents the first time that one has established an initial “reality reaction”.  This is where one goes from a sense of wholeness and completeness to some personal sense of direction.  With it, there is its sense of direction, and on its back-side, there is its sense of loss.  Where the 1 is driven to be righteous, there is a profound feeling of not being so; where the 2 is a helper, of not being helpful; for the 3 as an achiever, of not being of value; for the 4 as an individualist, of not being unique; for the 5 as a knower, of being blind; for the 6 as loyal, of not being faithful; for the 7 as joyful, of running from pain; for the 8 as invincible, of being vulnerable; and for the 9 as the love-glue, as not having love.  Altogether, then, there is righteousness, helpfulness, worthiness, uniqueness, understanding, loyalty, joy, power and love.

This tool in modern times has also been used disastrously on occasion (by managers) by their trying to use it in ways it simply isn’t designed, such as to rearrange their departments by Enneagram type.  Think of this, in why we all do the same things and experience the same universe, as 9 profoundly unique frameworks, or sets of pros and cons.

Cheers -

Mark G. Meyers