Enneagram into systems

“The Enneagram is a symbol of unity and diversity, a typology of human personality, and a process model of transformation,” writes Don Riso, pioneer in bringing the ancient Enneagram into popular application today. Used by individuals to orientate their personal development, now there is new work happening into the whole area of the collective.

In collaboration with Don Riso, 9 Domains are extending the types of the Enneagram into the elements or ingredients needed for a whole and balanced system – be that a group or an organisation. In this they started a dialogue with Albert Kamphuis a veteran Enneagram practitioner from the corporate world of the Netherlands.

Kamphuis has developed an understanding or process of innovation tested in a range of business settings which requires the gift or contribution of each type to bring to fruition. He calls it the innovation circle and it has nine creative forces corresponding to the nine types of the Enneagram.

I attended a very special retreat which was the first face to face conversation between Monika Adelfang and Barry Coltham of the 9 Domains and Albert Kamphuis of the Innovation Circle. They called the retreat Ways of Flow and it was held at the Blue Butterfly Retreat center. The retreat itself was a creative process or an innovation process beginning like great broad swirls of specific ingredients in a mixing bowl still to be blended and baked.

The Enneagram can show the path to wholeness on an individual level and here is a movement to develop a path to wholeness on both a process and systemic level. Can’t wait to see what comes out of the oven!

Coaching with backbone

As coaches we talk about coaching with “heart and backbone” (Whitworth). Backbone is the ability to hold someone’s “feet to the fire,” to hold them accountable to what they care about and what they say they will do. As coaches, backbone is being willing to hold up a mirror for our client showing them where the incongruence lies, even when this may be hard to hear. This is a big part of our service to clients.

Bikram and backbone

All of us need “backbone” to take real leadership in our own lives. This is our ability to set goals and stick to them, to set boundaries and hold them clear. There are many ways to develop and sustain a healthy backbone. Yesterday doing Bikram at Yoyoga our instructor Jen said that the 26 sequence of yoga postures put together by Bikram are primarily a spine-strengthening sequence. Suddenly I understood how strong the pull of this sequence is for me. It is building my backbone on the level of the somatic. With my clients, so often I have seen how a regular somatic practice, however small, can be the doorway to developing the self.

Collaborate or shut down thinking

In this clip, Sir Ken Robinson, advisor on education in the arts, asks questions about the way we go about educating children. Robinson maintains that our education system is based on an old model where there is only one right answer and divergent thinking is shut down. At the end of this extraordinarily illustrated eleven-minute clip, he maintains that humans do their best thinking collaboratively — in groups.

The place of greatest potential

In manifesting what we want in our lives, Otto Scharmer writes about putting ourselves in the place of greatest potential for that to happen.

For a river flowing downward to the sea, a waterfall is the place of greatest potential. The river reaches far below for that next pool.

Tugela falls at Mont-aux-sources in the Drakensberg is a dramatic drop toward the sea – still many many miles away. Where is your place of greatest potential?

What’s your type?

“The Enneagram doesn’t put you in a box – you are already in a box. The Enneagram makes you aware of the box you are in.”

This is how Pam Roux, transpersonal psychologist, started the Enneagram workshop I attended over the weekend. The Enneagram describes nine different personality types clustered in threes around head, heart and gut.

The heart types are the helper (2), the achiever (3), and the individualist (4). The head types are the researcher (5), the loyalist (6), and the enthusiast (7). The gut types are the leader (8), the peacemaker (9) and the reformer (1). The typology is a dynamic in that each type “integrates” (or becomes more healthy) toward a second type and “disintegrates” toward a third.

I found understanding my own type number 4 in relation to that of my family and colleagues opened up new possibilities of relating with them and enormously helpful in creating flow within our relationships.

I made a mistake

Such is the daring required to truly make a mistake that improvisation artists practice applauding when one of their group makes a mistake.

The mistake-maker bows deeply and declares with utmost dignity: “I made a mistake.”

The group then applaud the mistake-maker heartily in genuine recognition of the willingness to try.

I got to practice this with a community of coaches under the guidance of Petro Janse van Vuuren, an Applied Improvisation Specialist. I found that since mistakes were so well rewarded, I was prepared to really go for it and take a risk.

On being vulnerable

In this talk Brené Brown inspires us to be authentic and wholehearted by embracing our vulnerabilities and cultivating compassion.

 

Why rivers make you happy

If you cut through the rambling and rhetoric, nearly every religion, new-age spiritual guru, or latest self-help best-seller touts the same message: stop dwelling on the past and the future and be in the present. Truly, everyone agrees, fully experiencing every moment is the way to fulfillment and health.  The trouble is, while it sounds dead easy, being in the present is incredibly difficult. Ah yes here I am in the present moment and….. I wonder what’s for lunch. You see? Being here right now is difficult. Unless of course, you get in a boat onto a fast-flowing river.

Over New Year I quite literally found myself steering a croc (small two-person inflatable) down the mighty Orange River. I felt strong and alert and there was not a thought in my mind -just my body’s pressure on the paddle so that the boat would enter the wave train dead straight. “Paddle hard,” I yelled above the roar of water to my partner in the front of the boat because unless you’re travelling faster than the river, you cannot steer the boat. Pretty soon we were soaking wet and whooping wild whoops as the boat bounced over a series of standing waves. When last did I shout out aloud to the sparkling universe in sheer exhilaration?

The sense of immediacy continued in the evenings as under the flashes of lightening and a dark sky we collected firewood to cook supper, dug holes for our ablutions, lugged water from the river and put up a shelter using our boats and a tarpaulin. Most of the 19 people on the trip were total strangers and since it rained every night we slept under our shelter like sardines, on thin mats on the sand and such sweet solid sleeps do not visit me in my own queen-size bed at home.

The books and the gurus, the priests and the yogis are all right: after three days of this kind of living in the moment we were all glowing and in good spirits.  Be here right now – or if that’s too hard, get yourself on a river.

Experiencing ubuntu

An action learning course awakened me to the spirit of ubuntu. It is deeply satisfying as a human being to experience a group process where the group is so closely aware of each other that some knowledge is created that truly transcends the thinking of any individual in the group, and that is truly owned by the group as a whole. This requires each group member to listen closely to their own thoughts and feelings as well as to genuinely hear and value those being expressed by the others. The experience is of a magic flow which builds through the process and culminates in something that makes us individually and together richer as a people. Isn’t this what is meant by ubuntu?

The World Institute for Action Learning (WIAL) model developed by Michael Marquardt can deliver this experience and more. I completed part of the training to use this WIAL model from 26 – 28 May 2009. Simply put, action learning “is a process that involves a small group working on real problems, taking action, and learning while doing so.” The action learning process actively values diverse perspectives within a group and teaches sensitivity and awareness toward every individual in the group.