Episode 229: Understanding Your Team’s Unique Energy with Vrindavan Rao, Illuminate NYC

Welcome to Skucast, the podcast for entrepreneurs in the promotional products industry. Skucast shines a light on our industry's best work, features maverick personalities, and discusses what's really involved in running a modern promotional products business. Skucast is the official podcast of Common Skew. Hi friends, I'm Bobby LeHew, Chief Content Officer at Common Skew. Last year, I interviewed Brian Papé, who many of you know as the founder of the design-forward, generosity-driven drinkware company, Myrrh. Through the sale of their merch, Myrrh has given over $3.4 million in grants to 26 countries around the world. Toward the end of my interview with Brian, he mentioned that he and his leadership team went through a very curious experience learning about each other through the Enneagram. Here's a snippet from that conversation.

So, you know, we do Enneagram as a company, and at first my executive coach who leads that for our team was kind of like, gosh, the whole company, like, yeah, we've never done that before. But he had, you know, he has, he's been trained in South Africa through an institute there, and it's really, really smart, really, really sharp guy. And he goes, let's give it a try. And so our team has just devoured it. I mean, they love it. You know, it provides this common language, this understanding, you know, builds. And I think the thing that's great about Enneagram is there's this belief that you have to build trust before you become vulnerable, and the science is actually showing us the opposite.

So from that conversation with Brian, fast forward to our strategy planning for speakers and topics for Skew Camp, our sold-out event held at the Ace Hotel in Brooklyn, September 19th through the 21st. I was fortunate enough to connect with Vrindavan Rao with Illuminate NYC. Vrin is an Enneagram coach and meditation teacher who helps individuals and teams. And with over 20 years of experience in meditation, she combines her knowledge of the body-mind-ego connection with the teachings of the Enneagram, which offers insight into the core motivations which fuel our ego and behavior. And just like Brian and his team discovered at MIR, The Enneagram is a great way to build a bridge to better understand and collaborate with your team. So today we're joined by Viren, who's going to help us understand what the Enneagram is and why it's an important framework for those who want to build greater awareness and understanding and stronger teams. Now, before we get to our interview with Viren, I want to share two quick announcements. One is we're hosting an interview on the subject, Is the Promo Industry Headed for a Recession? And it's about how to plan ahead in uncertain economic times. Our guests are two of the most strategic thinkers in the industry, Jonathan Isaacson, chairman and CEO of Gemline, and Jeremy Lott, president and CEO of SanMar. The webinar will be held on Thursday, July 14th from 2 to 3 PM EST. You can register at commonscue.com/webinars. And one more announcement on behalf of our friend Kirby Hasselman. Kirby, as some of you know, is the CEO of Hasselman Marketing Communications. He's an author and the founder of Better Business University. Where he's launching a new course. Here's a brief chat I had with Kirby, tell you all about it. Kirby, my friend, why did you feel it was important to create this?

You know, I think that this is something that has been missing in our industry. You know, one of the things we talk about all the time is we need new blood, right? We need more diversity of gender, of race, of all that sort of thing. But we need to indoctrinate them into the community and to know how to succeed in our world. And I think that's true regardless, right? And so I kept having people saying, look, what you're doing in Better Business University is great, but we need to be very specific to the people who are just entering the industry. And that was sort of the inspiration for this new course.

Tell us about the new course. Tell us the name of it. Tell us where we can find it. And yeah, and you just mentioned the ideal audience is for the promotional products industry. Are there certain roles inside the industry, or is it for anyone in the industry?

I would say it's anybody new to the industry. And I went so far as to how to succeed in the promotional products industry, right? So pretty general. And I went so far as to say, if you have a successful business, then you're going to do everything well. So like literally the first course is how to set up a business properly. We actually have an SBDC coach talking through that. Then we talk through about doing artwork properly and why your suppliers will like you better if you do that. I talked to Miss Katherine Graham about why order management matters and how you can scale with that. I talked to Dana Geiger about joining the industry associations and how that can enhance your business. David Schultz helped talk about search engines, and Charity Gibson came on and helped talk about how to find the ideal customer. So we really tried to go nuts to bolts to the, you know, the beginning to the end so that you could succeed regardless of where you sort of enter our industry.

Gotcha. So you kind of answered then what they can expect to learn. How can people make the most out of this experience?

I think to do the work, you know, and what I mean by that is to go through the courses. I think there's such a powerful instinct to say, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that. And the reality is, man, we always have new things to learn. Josh Robbins did the whole course on artwork, and I've been doing this a long time, Bobby, and I learned something on that course. I didn't know that. And so I think really it's about saying, look, I'm going to really dive in here and make sure that I have my business set up properly, regardless of where I am from a role perspective in the industry, and be willing to do the work.

It sounds like it would be really good for folks that are in a specific role, but they need to understand the business and how the other parts fit together in the whole as well. Just like you mentioned artwork, you might have a graphic designer on your team, but you might really need to take that class so that you can work better and collaborate with that designer.

Exactly right. And again, that's one of the reasons I didn't want it to just be me, Bobby. Like, I felt like having perspectives from other parts of the industry— I mean, really listening to Josh talk about that artwork piece and why different files mattered and didn't work, he really really went into detail, and it was like, oh man, I think I'm going to be a better partner for my supplier partners because I understand that better. And because you—

we went—

we spent the time to go all over sort of all of the roles, it allows you to really kind of understand the industry and have a better foundation.

Yeah. Is this à la carte? How do I— how does it work? Do I pick one class? Do I sign up for multiple classes? How do the mechanics of it work?

Great question. So this particular course is going to be the first one that we offer à la carte, right? So you can purchase this course for $49 $99 just this course, or as Better Business University, you can do the yearly subscription and then you'll have access to all the courses, including this one.

I see. So I can just do this course or I can sign up for everything. Where can we register?

The easiest place to go is to betterbusinessu.com. Up at the top, there's new to promo at the very top page on the right. Or again, you could sign up for the whole thing.

And we'll link to the show notes as well. Kirby, my friend, so proud of you and all the work that you do, man. Thanks. Thank you so much for the investments you make in this industry. You make us better.

Thank you, buddy. Appreciate you.

And now on to our episode. This episode is brought to you by CommonsQ, the work-from-anywhere platform that powers your connected workflow, enabling you to process more orders and dramatically grow your sales. To learn more, visit commonsq.com. Now here's my conversation with Vrin Rao. Vrin, I'm so happy you are here. What in the world is the Enneagram? Can you give us just a basic definition?

Absolutely. Such a pleasure to be here with you, first and foremost. So the Enneagram, just taking it from the big picture perspective, speaks to Ennea, 9, and Gram, a figure. So a 9-pointed figure. So that's literally what Enneagram stands for. And from that, what these 9 points, you could say, or 9 energies speak to are 9 different orientations by which we interact and see the world. And so what the Enneagram is helping us with is to really diversify how we interact with people, as well as how we even learn to accept ourselves.

As I mentioned in the intro, you know, we're seeing the Enneagram now being embraced by businesses, um, like, like the recording we had with Brian Pappe. Why are businesses and leadership teams now turning to this as a framework? And is it safe to call this a framework for understanding your, each other?

Absolutely. It really is a framework. And one of the amazing things about this framework is that it's extremely nuanced. And I think that's one of the big reasons why businesses are really starting to incorporate it within their leadership teams and really trickling it down. It's a framework that not only allows an explanation of how we each interact with the world, but it also provides a language by which we can talk about it. And I think that language piece is just so important because when we have language, it also helps us with something that we hear about all the time, which is building self-awareness. And so when we start to become aware of ourselves, which is what the Enneagram in a very— and I'll reiterate this— in a very nuanced way and in a very specific way speaks to, then it becomes easier as we start to learn about the other 8 different types that are there to have that kind of language to interact with one another. And that language, I think, is just so important in building these fundamental pillars of trust and empathy, which is really what starts to solidify and build a strong culture in any team or organization.

Something I noticed, you're avoiding the use of the word type, which I applaud. And the reason is because it seems like we are too quick to stereotype or to categorize. And when you say nuanced, this is the reason why I use the word framework is because we are all individuals. And so I think for years we've been categorized into groups, right? You got introverts and extroverts, you got all these different things. And we see what kind of trouble categorization can get us into as a society. Um, and I just applaud the fact that you're trying to avoid this really hardline bucketed list of types with, but at the same time, giving folks room because really it opens up the conversation about who you are and who I am and how we choose to interact and, and interact with the world and each other.

Well, thank you so much. It's It's so true because there is a way in which we kind of like to cookie cutter and kind of put everything and everybody into boxes, even though we don't like that being done to ourselves. It just, it's kind of the function of the mind. That's what the mind does. It's very dualistic, right? It's black or it's white. It's soft or it's hard. And so similarly with any type of framework, and when we use the word types, there is more of a tendency to go towards that. But I'll speak to one thing to make it very tangible as to how nuanced the Enneagram is, even within a particular type or point. That's another way in which we could say that there are 9 points on this, on this figure. There is another dimension of levels of consciousness which often gets forgotten.. And so even within one bucket we can speak about, you have an entire range. So it's very common that people can mistype or identify with a number thinking this is who they are without recognizing— or who I want to be— or who I want to be, not recognizing that perhaps I'm at a lower level of consciousness, at an average level, of consciousness, at a very high level of consciousness, and that can resemble something else. And so along with the actual motivations, needs, and fears each of these 9 points come with, there's also this, this, you can say, this, um, other dimension of the levels of consciousness which really bring a lot more color and a lot more realism. It, it it doesn't make it a meme anymore. It's not a stereotype. This is living and breathing, right? And this is the crazy thing, as I'm sure we've all experienced, that even within a day, we can fluctuate in our levels of consciousness.

Yeah. And when you use the word consciousness, I think as a term that has become one of those words that have become so esoteric that we, in a very pragmatic, practical business world, have a hard time bringing into a real world, but really what you're talking about when you say consciousness in our own awareness, our own awareness of each other, our own awareness of ourselves, and that can fluctuate is what you're saying.

Absolutely. Our awareness of ourselves, our awareness of how our energy and our behaviors impact other people.

Yeah. On that point then, let's, let's address the, the doubters in the room before we lose listeners like crazy, because, you know, this is a very fast-paced business and you're used to talking to folks in business and entrepreneurs. You've done classes and Creative Mornings and the doubters in the room might say, okay, how can knowing, like, I hear these words, consciousness, Enneagram, and honestly, my mind wants to explode. My head wants to explode because I, this is so much for me to process, but there's sort of this inherent, almost promise or, or brand promise, if you will, in the, in understanding the Enneagram, in that when you spend the time to understand how people are wired, that's really what it's about at its simplest. And when you do that, that can lead to better teamwork. That can lead to a much stronger teams and understanding. How would you answer the doubters in the room?

I would say that we hear the word, and we spoke about this previously, when we talk about self-awareness, Right? And that's really what the Enneagram provides. It's an incredible tool to build self-awareness. Self-awareness, like consciousness, has also taken on this very esoteric term. What does that mean? Right? Does that mean I meditate for 5 minutes a day? Does that mean, you know, I go and, you know, I take a yoga class? Like, there's just all of these different facets. But what self-awareness really means is It's having tools that help you look inside and see those shadows that we often aren't able to see for ourselves, along with being able to see the very specific gifts that we come with. And then being able to really kind of take a look, and, and this is really where a coach can be so helpful, especially with the framework of the Enneagram, to have somebody really kind of point out and say, how do you overuse your strengths? And how do your shadows actually come about in your day-to-day life? How does that play out? That's what self-awareness looks like. It means I'm very cognizant of both my gifts and my shadows and how I work with both of them.

Yeah. One of the reasons I love exploring the Enneagram, and as I mentioned in the intro, you'll be joining us at Skew Camp to talk about this a little more. One of the reasons I love it now is because many of us are learning how to manage virtual teams. And in a fast-paced business environment where everything is about proficiency and efficiency, when it comes to human relations, things have to slow down in order for us to understand each other. And virtually what this does, it actually gives us that framework, gives us something we put our hands around where we can go, okay, this I can utilize as a way for me to open up the conversations in my team, to open up collaboration in my team, and to actually start the conversation. Because I don't, you know, as a, as a business owner, I don't even know where to begin. I got 30 people on my team, we're working so fast, we want to understand each other. Um, so I, I see it as a very practical tool in the virtual age, almost more than any time before.

You bring up an excellent point. It's so true that at least when you're in the office and you're all working together, you have, you have an idea of the energy somebody brings about, you know. You know if they're one of those who are like, "Let's move faster. Let's move faster." Or if there is somebody who needs a little bit more time or whatever in between. But now, with everything being done practically over Zoom, it becomes very difficult to do that. I would dare I say it becomes more transactional and that the human dynamic actually kind of gets lost in that. Our personalism, our individuality gets lost and then, it becomes so much about output And it can be easy to forget output is also dependent on embracing somebody as a whole being.

Absolutely. Um, so let's use, let's sort of simplify this because we've been talking about these, this, you know, from a 10,000, 20,000-foot view, but let's talk about you and I as, and I hate to use the word type, but let's talk about the Enneagram points that you and I possess or are comprised of, so to speak. I, and I'm going to use all the wrong words because I'm the interviewer and I have, you know, I have about an inch deep of knowledge in this and you've been waiting in this for a long time. I'm a Type 4 and 5, which, how would you describe? So knowing that about me, how would you understand who I am and how I'm wired? Okay.

So with that, so full transparency, my, my own type is I'm a, I'm a primarily a 3 with a 4 wing, which means that— give— using English words instead of numbers, that's the Achiever with an Individualist wing. And so when you said 4 with a 5, that means an Individualist with the Investigator wing. And so a few things come about just from, just from hearing that. So one of the first things that comes up is that for the 4, the core motivation is individuality. Everything that I do, everything that I touch, everything that I see, I process it as a way of understanding myself better. Yeah. And so because I'm trying to find my identity or really get a good grasp on my identity, that means that I'm very sensitive. And because I'm sensitive to things, I also take in a lot and it can be overwhelming.. And with that overwhelm, it means I may need more time. In, in business speak, okay, here's a project, I want you to get this done. All right, well, first of all, there's a huge creative streak just because I am sensitive to everything around me. And with sensitivity comes an ability to see in ways that other people can't see, which is a huge gift, but that takes time in order to process that, in order to craft that into something tangible, that takes time. Now, as a 3, the core motivation for me is this need to feel valuable, to feel successful.

That's the achiever inside.

That's the achiever. And so, so much of my self-worth becomes placed on what I do and how much I do and how much people see me in that way as being competent, right? And that can, can sometimes come at, at odds because along with that sense of wanting to do, there's a sense of efficiency. Let's not waste any time. Let's move it along.

Right.

And so here you have the 3 that's like, we're already, we're already late. You know, this should have been done yesterday. And the 4 is like, hang on a second. Like, there are other people we need to think about. They're, you know, like, have we figured out, like, is this, is this the best possible way? Like, is this unique? Is this truly an offering we can put out to the world? And that can come at odds. Yeah. Now, but the beautiful thing is that the 3 and the 4 can work incredibly together if both can honor each other's strengths.

Yes. So. So go ahead, keep going.

So that could mean in a really practical way. Okay. So I know that for the fours, there is, they're not trying to be slow. Let me first put that out there.

Thanks for saying that, by the way, I needed that.

And I think that that's often what gets lost, especially in the business world, that sometimes you just label somebody as you're, you're too slow. Or you're not smart enough, you know, like those things kind of get like conflated with each other, but that isn't true. It's just that there's so much that's being taken in and nothing is being missed. Yeah, that's the other thing. There's this, there's a perfectionism streak in there, whereas the 3 would love for everything to be perfect, but it's kind of like, let's build it as we move along, you know, because that's, that's also the pace of of the business world. So you can, so even in this, you can kind of see that a lot of threes can gravitate. I mean, they can become expert at anything, but they can easily gravitate to the business world because it offers them everything that they're kind of looking for. Right. Whereas for the fours, they may want to be in that world, but they also struggle with that world feeling misunderstood very often. Yeah. That my slowness isn't because I'm deficient in a certain way. It's that I'm be— I'm able to see things in a way that other people can't see. And when that isn't communicated and when there isn't that language to truly understand one another, then that interplay doesn't get a chance to really meet its full potential.

Yeah, I've seen this work really well on our team. So you can, as you're just talking, most of us can probably do a breakdown of some of our team members and who they might possibly be wired this way. And even on our our marketing team. I can tell you who the Achievers are. They're the ones that have the clear deadlines, that have, you know, mapped out the projections and where we're going to be done and how we're going to achieve this by such-and-such date. But I really can appreciate, though, Sarah White said to me once, and she runs a very successful distributorship here called FairWear in the industry. And she said, "We're not looking for cultural fit; we're looking for cultural contribution." And I always I love that because cultural fit means we want to hire people who look like us, think like us, and act like us. Whereas cultural contribution says, maybe if we attract different people to our organization, we're going to build a more beautiful and effective— key on the word effective— mosaic, because we have those different perspectives. And I've seen that play out in our team fairly well, because I'm fortunate to be on a team that's rather patient with each other. There are those rubs. Right. We do have that tension around deadlines and creativity, and it's always going to exist. But just knowing who is wired that way on your team, how they think, um, how can I understand better the Achiever in you?

Right. So there's a need to really move. And so with that, one of the things that the 4s can do is give updates. And say, okay, everything may not have been done according to this timeline, but I'm telling you why. I'm bringing in the context and bringing in how you're adding value, right? Because that value is this word that 3s are unconsciously throwing around all the time. It's a great way to know if you're a 3, whether it's conscious or you're actually saying it out loud. There's this, um, obsession around value. So that's when, if you're speaking that language, ah, okay, that, that helps me to put things into perspective. And then the 3 on your team might be like, okay, so you're saying you need like, what, 12 hours more? And the 4 might be like, whoa, hang on a second, I think I need 2 days more. But let me tell you how this is going to add value in a way that perhaps you haven't considered before, right?

Right. And something too, and this is just in the creative journey that I've been in, is that when you're working in a fast-paced organization, the creatives or the individualists, or however you want to qualify that, they have to learn how to work more efficiently, like meeting someone without, without sacrificing who they are or what they bring to the table. And there seems to be not so much a world of compromise as there is an understanding. And like you said, I love the context, right? Just knowing those little little nuanced things, to go back to your word, that we can understand how to work better together. I have learned to give up more information to my colleagues. You're exactly right, almost without knowing what you just said, as a way to work better together. Hey, here's just an update of what we're doing and where we're going with this. Or to ask for deadlines that I'm not sure of. You know, in that case, like, hey, it's all in your head. But I, you know, when are we actually going to knock this out? The other thing that that learning in creative work is also actually tabulating that time because creatives can get really lost in their work and you can learn more efficiently. So I've spent a lot of time on, on just those and just the way you and I are wired. How does going through this process of understanding each other lead to actionable diversity decisions? I hinted at it, I think, a little bit, but I want to hear— you're the expert.

I want to hear your thoughts on that. Yeah, we're— that's a, that's a word that's really popular these days. And when we think about diversity, I think a lot of that speaks to external diversity. And absolutely, we really need to be taking that into much more account than we ever have given this present day and age and everything that we're facing in society in general. However, the other type of diversity that I would offer listeners to consider is diversity based on how we're wired, that internal diversity, right? So, and to break it down in, in another way, the— so we have the 9, the 9 points on the Enneagram, and these 9 can be broken up into different sets of 3s or different triads. And so one of the ways in which we can break this up is you can say that 3 of the types are more assertive, 3 of the types are more withdrawn, and 3 of the types are more dutiful. And just based on those 3 things, you know, I would, you know, I would prompt listeners to take, to think about, just think of your team. Where is the bias on your team?

Is it bias, meaning we have a heavier concentration of folks in one of the— name the, name the 3 one more time. That was a really good clarification.

The assertives, the withdrawn, right? And the dutiful types.

So I'm gonna, I want you to keep asking that question. Entrepreneurs and owners listening to this immediately categorize their team, right? If their team is small enough, some folks are in very large teams, but your question is so valid. It is, again, ask where you're maybe over. That's right.

Are you Are you over-indexed on one? Are you under-indexed on one? Do you just not have one of any of these? You know, that could also be possible, and, and it is very common, you know. And to just be able to just start off with that one question can already start to offer so much information in terms of how much diversity is actually on your team.

Yeah, that's a great question. And I'm seeing this through the lens of now a SaaS company who has many developers who, not all, but there is a larger percentage that are more withdrawn and quiet. And I'm sure where that puts them, but those are absolutely essential people, right? If we were all the assertives, we would all just be arguing with each other all the time about deadlines, about deadlines, right? But so running a marketing company, I can see where you would easily be over-indexed in certain areas, particularly as we emerge from, I think, a culture that said hire people who think and act just like you. And that's a, that's almost an innate reflex that we have. As I mentioned, Sarah said, you know, looking for cultural contribution, perhaps knowing your team will also help you understand, you know, these areas where you're lacking. What's an objective task you can help us unpack with knowing this kind of information?

If you know, for example, that primarily your, your team is filled with assertives, right? Then you already start to get a glimpse of, okay, well, the assertives in general tend to have a lot of vision and are forward-thinking. You have a lot of future thinkers. But how many people on your team do you have that are thinking about the past as well, where we're coming from, incorporating perhaps those learnings, incorporating those skills into, into the future? And if you don't have— so that's in terms of the withdrawns. The dutifuls are able to like really think about what's needed in the present moment, right? You also— so in a, in a tangible way, you can kind of think of this as even with these three buckets of types or points that you have future, past, and present. And for any organization to succeed, you need to have an understanding of all three at any given time. And if you're only future-focused, that will handicap you. If you're only focused on the past, that will also handicap you. And so, that's just a simple way in which you can kind of like take this concept and just see, wow, do we really look towards the past or do we, do we spend a lot of time in the present moment? No, we're always thinking about the future. All right. What are we missing?

That's the question. So good. And, and, and some of those phrases, some of those, we might think to ourselves, well, we don't live in the past. We're all about growing in the future. But how many times does the phrase, this is just not the way we do it, or this is the way we've always done things, tends to find its way in our business, or, and it really does keep us from growing. Something fascinating you mentioned to me is to understand your team's unique energy. Is this kind of what you're unpacking here a little bit? Because I'm really fascinated by understanding unique value propositions when it comes to our customers and their businesses, and that I'm always convinced that everyone has a very unique business. And because based on the clients they serve, how do you, how can you use this to understand your team's unique energy?

Was that a part of it? It's definitely a part of it. I think it's an essential part of it. And the group and the dynamics of your team comes forth by just with the types, of course, where it becomes even more nuanced. But in this case, in terms of these triads of, yeah, are the assertives always leading the team or do the withdrawns get a chance to speak up? Are they invited to speak up? All of that plays into energy. And it— and, you know, an experience I've had is, you know, sitting in a boardroom and kind of seeing the subtle energy that comes off. There's an assertive who is on their laptop, you know, doing emails while somebody is speaking. And that person, you know, who isn't necessarily an assertive, you can see on their face they're starting— like, their face is kind of like going down and down and down, and they're feeling like, hey, isn't this a little bit rude? Like, I'm not even gonna speak up, you know, right? But they're also like, but I, I don't feel comfortable to speak up. So all of these like subtle dynamics are kind of playing out. And so when we start to really look at things based off of like the energy different people give off, we become more sensitive to one another. And that again not only builds our own self-awareness, but it brings forth greater empathy and greater trust. And I can't emphasize the trust piece enough because if there isn't trust within a team, how can you really move forward? Yeah.

So difficult. Something that's kind of fascinating to me is that we are emerging, learning how to hire in different ways now too. And as we recruit people, often we would look at roles in terms of tasks. As opposed to the way people are wired or how their energy is. So, for example, you could have somebody that's incredibly assertive in a role where you need someone who's far more dutiful, to be over— to oversimplify it. But I wonder if by ignoring the personality types, if you will, or the, the specific energy of someone, are we overlooking a really incredible opportunity for retention, for helping people grow, knowing that we're just recruiting not only the right person that can do the tasks, but the right person that the team's energy needs at that moment.

I think you bring up something so valid. It's something that I think about a lot. And I think in, in a very simplistic manner, and it's not simple, but yes, we should be looking at that, that type of energy. And in an interview situation, the Even if somebody doesn't know the Enneagram, we understand when it comes to a particular role what kind of energy is required. If you can kind of, you know, and there are some companies that are really good at this, right, where they ask questions and they're not yes or no questions. They're really like, in a situation like this, what would you do?

Right?

And they glean certain things from the candidate and from the— and they're very straightforward, which I really appreciate. And they say that I don't know if this is the best best fit for you. I feel like this might actually be much more what you're looking for based off of what you're saying. And I think those kinds of back and forth conversations are just so necessary. And, and for companies in general, I'm sure this is something that hiring managers feel all the time. The person in front of them very rarely thinks of the process as a two-way interview. They're thinking about, how can I get this job? Right. They're not necessarily thinking, am I the best fit for this job? Right. Right. And so in some ways, although it may feel a little bit unfair, the responsibility tends to go on the hiring manager then to be like, really, are you the best fit taking into account, you know, the energy I know we have on this team to really bring somebody in?

Yeah, I love that too, because I have been in a position where I have been trying to recruit salespeople. And yet that gets stuck under a very broad term, salespeople. And yet in some roles that might needed more a dutiful salesperson who is taking care of clients and, and just staying on top of projects. But I may have at some points in my team's history needed more assertive salespeople because we need more sales leaders. So they may have even had the same role or the same title, so to speak, but then they had different energies that they brought to the business and what they needed was very distinct.

Absolutely, absolutely. And, you know, with the dutifuls, because we spent a little time on the assertives and the withdrawns, one of the things I would say for the dutifuls is that often these are the people who will work so hard for you and they need protection. You know, I can't emphasize that they need protection from, like, the assertives, that they're not being taken advantage of or they're not doing the work of other people, right? And that again will impact team dynamics and energy. And so being— and this is really, I think, the beauty of the Enneagram and how it can offer so much value to businesses, because it's bringing forth these small little pieces that we can very easily forget but actually have a huge impact on, you know, the retention of incredible employees and also just their, their own enthusiasm to, to show up and serve.

Yeah, we serve a wide audience of listeners. Some folks are running a small business with under 10 people in it. Some folks are running, um, some folks, there may be a small percentage that are solopreneurs. There may be those that are running a business with several hundred people in their organization. How do you get started beginning to take the next step in understanding this? Say that someone's listening and they say, you know what, this sounds fascinating to me, I want to learn more.

Where can they go? So very often with any kind of framework, especially anything that relates to a typology, and very often the Enneagram is categorized as that, we tend to go to online tests. We've spoken about this, um, before. Personally, I, I discourage going to the online test, and the main reason for that is because motivation cannot be figured out by a true or false or multiple choice. Motivation has to be unpacked and like peeled. It's like layers of an onion. Because what you think might be your deep core motivation, when you're asked questions and like perhaps even like challenged in a very gentle way of like, is that really it or is this something else? And offered options. Sometimes people start to realize that, oh, what I thought motivates me actually doesn't. It's something else. Right? And so what these tests, these tests preclude is that you're already incredibly self-aware. Now I'll say this, when I first came to the Enneagram, I said I was self-aware. Now more than ever, I realize how much work I still have to do on my own self-awareness. Right. Because that's, that's what, you know, self-awareness is like. The more you start to realize and understand yourself, The less you start to truly know because you don't know what you don't know.

Right. Right. I will say this too. Sorry to interrupt, but I will say this. You have been intractable on this point. I have tried to pigeonhole you. I've tried to get you to talk you into simplifying this and going back to our conversation in the earlier part is that we all want the test the quick answer to actually a very complex question. I mean, we are all learning how to work. I mean, just look at our society and look at the challenges we have in our society. We are all trying to learn how to work together because we're all complex people. And the reason why I love your answer is because I love stressing this point to entrepreneurs who are listening to this, who want an easy packaged way to unpack this, whereas relationships are more complex and they require your investment.

They really do. And so to, to, to offer an answer for teams, I would say of like 3 or more, a great place to start would be either doing an Enneagram consultation. So what that means is having a one-on-one conversation. This is something I do quite regularly to figure out your type. And in these conversations, it's not that somebody leaves feeling like, oh, I've been labeled this. Rather, it's an exploration. It's the beginning of really that self-awareness journey. So that, that is a great place. The other thing is to have an Enneagram workshop. And I can't tell you how this brings teams together, whether they're large or small, because there's a way in which as you go through these 9 points, these 9 energies, people in the room start to kind of like look at each other, like kind of nudge somebody and be like, hey, isn't that you? You know? And then, and the person might say yes or no, but then there's this collective learning that takes place and a language that starts to develop immediately. So those are the two first places that I would suggest. Now, if somebody is just mildly curious, there are definitely fantastic books out there. A very comprehensive one is called The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Richard Riso and Russ Hudson. And, and there, there are other ones out there as well. You can check out theenneagraminstitute.com. It goes briefly over the, it goes actually not briefly, it goes quite in depth over the types. So those are starting places if somebody is curious, but if somebody wants to do more, it really takes that personalism.

Yeah, I love that. And we'll link to your website in the show notes and, um, tell us your website again real quick, Brynn. Sure. It's www.illuminate.nyc. Okay. We'll link to that in the show notes, but also I will link to those resources that Bren mentioned too. And I really love the idea of a workshop, partially because people love understanding more about themselves. And when they do that, they sort of become open to understanding each other better. And what it does is it gives you a chance, it almost gives you a neutral territory to talk about diversity and taking it from diversity, the big D and the scary topic for a lot of folks, to diversity as just a way to understand each other and how complex we can be and understand each other to evoke empathy. And I think it really gives business owners a place to have that dialogue almost in a safe space, if you will.

Absolutely. It also gives an opportunity to bring up examples of, you know, what might feel very serious and like a big concern and to bring some levity to it. Because as you start to learn about these 9 different points, you start to realize, oh, something that I was taking so personally is just, you know, the way in which somebody sees the world. And now that I understand their motivation, oh, this, this was never actually about me, and I thought it was about me, right? So it brings forth that context as well.

Yeah, that's great. Vryn, thank you so much for joining us today. I am so excited that you're joining us at Skew Camp to talk to entrepreneurs there about this topic, and we're going to unpack even a little bit more. But we'll link to your website, as I mentioned, in the show notes. And I can't tell you how thankful I am that you and I have gotten not just once, but 2 or 3 times to chat here. Same here.

It's been, it's been such a pleasure. And yeah, really looking forward to coming out to SKU Camp.

Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of SKU Camp. SkewCast. Be sure to keep up with our latest content by subscribing to SkewCast on iTunes or to our blog at community.commskew.com. Until next time, friends, thanks so much for listening.