EP348: Building a Culture That Is Bulletproof Using the Enneagram—DON’T SLEEP ON THIS

Okay, I know you may have heard about the Enneagram or someone told you you need to know all about it. So here you are. But what the hell do you do with it? Great news. You are in the right place. Lead with the Enneagram is the show where you will actually learn how to use this incredible growth tool and apply it in all areas of your life, personally and professional. Hi, I'm Tracy. And to be honest with you, I was a skeptic of the Enneagram before I started to actually integrate it into my life. In fact, in true enneagram 8 style, I told my therapist to F off when she wanted me to dive into it well over a decade ago. Now that I have more than a decade of experience using the Enneagram and working on myself in my family with those closest to me, building my own bulletproof leadership, sales teams with one on one clients, couples, leading workshops for top Fortune 100 executives, and speaking to large audiences all across the globe about this powerful tool. I've got the proof and deep understanding of how to help you implement this into your life instead of it just being some fun thing you heard about. The Enneagram can be a complex model. But with me as your guide, I will show you how to first lead yourself in a powerful, effective and compassionate way and then help you lead others that way in your life as well. This podcast will have powerful conversations with guests, live typing sessions, and as well as solo episodes of Breaking down dynamics of the Enneagram and how they impact your life, career and relationships. So now let's dive in.

Hello. Welcome back to another episode of Lead with Viennia Graham. And I am fresh off a beautiful weekend with a company that brought me in to bring the Enneagram to their leadership team and their entire staff, honestly. And today I want to talk about the power of a strong culture. And you might be thinking this doesn't apply to you if you're not an owner of a company or whatever. And this isn't true because I'm going to talk about culture in your own home too. Like when we're talking about culture and the power of it, this is not something that is just for business and leadership. This goes for your home as well. The culture you build in your home can impact future generations. Like this is how important culture is. And it was funny because I went down to Tampa with an amazing med spa down there. Shout out my bevel up people if you're listening. And younger crowd, you know, I would say most of them late 20s, early 30s and there were only a few of us that were probably over 40. And you know, we hear the buzzword culture and culture is king and queen and all the things. And quite honestly, it gets an eye roll. Because a lot of times, and we see it online too, like we're trying to create vulnerability. It's manufactured, right? A lot of the shit we see out there, whether it's online or even in the workspace, it feels like manufactured vulnerability or manufactured culture because we understand how important it is. But if we don't necessarily want to do what it takes to have a strong culture, to have vulnerability, we try to bypass it with a bunch of fluffy ass stuff. That is not how I roll. And this is how the Enneagram can give you language and framework and compassion and empathy and empowerment, not just for yourself, but for your entire team, whether it's your home team or your workplace team. I have been so busy and I love the fact that it takes a very strong and humble leader and leadership team to bring somebody like me in. And I think that I've done work with big ass teams like Google, Amazon, John Deere, just to name a few. And then these newer companies like Bevel up, who are two years old but are growing at such a rapid pace that they're already opening up a second location like so fast. Right? And both are really great problems to have mass huge company and also creating a business that is so high value that it is growing so fast. And same thing with our families. I, I think about my family and my little family and I went from being a single 21 year old to married, a mortgage, two kids, two dogs by the time I was 25 years old. Like it happens that fast. And sometimes in business things can move so fast that you know the feeling and the, the way in which we approach things. At the very beginning, when things move so fast, we don't have time to be in the trenches with our people, whether it's in our home and in our business. And it takes a very beautiful, humble leader to bring an expert like me in that's gonna pretty much expose the cracks. But we have to. We have to expose the cracks. Now the beauty in somebody like me is I'm not gonna just crack it all open and then leave you guys to spackle it all together. No, no, no. This is the power and beauty of the Enneagram when taught and integrated properly with somebody like me, right? Like, I'm going to expose the cracks. We got to see everything that we're working with. We got to see where There are gaps we have to see where there are problems even. We have to see what we're missing. Right. And then we can start reverse engineering how to make that happen. So it was cool over the weekend. There was 16 people in this team that were present and every Enneagram type was represented except two. There were a lot of self preservation types. And the self preservation types, regardless of your Enneagram type, are focused on safety, security and comfort. There was maybe two or three, there's two or three one on one types, which is about the interpersonal experience. And then there were maybe three or four social, instinctual types of which is kind of like how this affects, you know, us all and where we fit in in the grand scheme of things. And you can imagine with a team growing as fast as it is, all things to celebrate, but things not being how they were when we first started this thing that when a self preservation type starts to feel that like they start white knuckling, they start maybe becoming more controlling or withdrawing based on their type. And this is why it was so cool for them to understand like how everybody instinctually responds and then putting a face with it and some behaviors based on their Enneagram type. What this did for this team and the hundreds of teams I've worked with so far is that all of a sudden I could see their wheels turning where things might piss them off. And that's not necessarily going to change. There are going to be certain things that frustrate you. You may not always like, get it, but having the framework and understanding of the system and the power of the Enneagram, you can recognize that maybe it isn't as personal as we're taking it. And this goes for in our homes too. I gotta tell you something like understanding this beautiful framework that is the Enneagram and now it's my life work when it comes to being a mom, when it comes to being a partner with someone, there are a lot of things that all three of them, both my kids and my partner do that really frustrate me sometimes. And I don't understand because they're all wired very differently from me and each other. But understanding this and, and recognizing, ah, this is what happens when they go here. And instead of me responding to my own triggers, right, because they're going to happen because we're humans, right? This goes for the workplace too. Right. Instead of responding because we're triggered and protecting all of our fears and trying to motivate people the way that we're motivated, which never works, we can instead Pause for a moment. This is the other gift of the Enneagram, the power of the pause. It really helps me pause, but it also allows me to recognize maybe where they're coming from, from their motive, from their fears, what's happening and when we can do that for each other. They feel seen, heard, understood and valued. And when that happens within a business, we know it happens in personal relationships and maybe even as a parent, like, holy shit, is it powerful in that and we don't have to sift through a bunch of the garbage and the shit that the fights aren't about in order to get to the root of things and with compassion and better understanding of each other, even if it isn't how we're motivated or how we fear. What this does in the workplace is groundbreaking because it creates better communication, stronger retention, higher rates of growth in their career path as well as the bottom line. This is the hard part about this is, you know when we are looking for an roi, right? Thankfully, people and word of mouth have, have happened with me that companies and families and partners, business and romantic partners are understanding the value in the ROI on this. Because while we believe culture can be measured, it is actually only experienced. And I'm sorry, but you can say you've checked the boxes and brought an expert like me in, but if you aren't integrating or you don't have somebody with you that can help you integrate this, you just check the box. Because that energy of a strong, beautiful culture in the home and in the workplace does not lie ever. Ever. A lot of times, you know, companies, and maybe even you in your business and, and maybe in your own personal growth, you want so badly to just have the strategy around it. Tell me what to do, Tell me what to do, Tell me what to do. And I get it. I love a good strategy. I'm a hell of a strategist. The cool thing is, is I can help you with strategy. We can't bypass getting to the root of who we are and who we're working with, whether it's in our homes or in our businesses, without understanding this level. Otherwise the strategy culture will eat strategy for breakfast all day long. The thing is, culture is like the wind. It is invisible, but its effects can be seen, it can be felt, and it can knock you on your ass if it's not good. Right? So I wanted to kind of give you an example. So with this beautiful group over the weekend, the owner and operator of this business is a self preservation three and she's got tons of twos and Fours. And like she had twos and fours. 5. She had a couple fives, which was pretty awesome in an industry like this. 1 7, 182 nines. So a lot of great people that are good for client and patient care, which they do a really, really great job. It's why they have the reputation they do. However, what they are missing very strongly is people that are more integrators and system builders, right. And they're wanting to open more than another location. Like, they're growing so fast. It's happening. It's beautiful. God, it's so beautiful what they're doing. But until they have somebody that can implement and design systems in their team, they're going to grow too fast and the cracks are going to be exposed and it's not going to go well. Right. But you can't understand that. And instead of everybody pointing the finger, what everyone realized with this beautiful presentation and then also the integration and the tools that I gave them is they understand where people might have some strengths and systems, but looking, keeping their eyes on the lookout for somebody with those kind of traits and with the character and the attitude that go with it, right? And, you know, bringing somebody like me in to do this work, it was such a gift. It is such a gift for your people, right? Giving them a platform where they can speak up, where they don't have to hide, where they don't have to be afraid, where they will be seen, heard, understood and valued for who they are and also empowered because of it. When you treat your employees like they make a difference, they freaking will every single time. We can't just hire on potential. We can't just hire for what we like. We just can't. Right? But character, attitude, a willingness to grow, a willingness to learn, a willingness to care and serve at the deepest level. When it's happening from the top down, there isn't anything a team and a company can't do. Now, having that little bit of strategy, once you have opened up and cracked open kind of what the mission is and the heart in this business or in this home look like, then we can start adding strategy. We can start adding strategy. The really cool thing when I was, you know, talking about them as a team and you as a team and my home team, like my three, in my home, well, we'll just say four. My four home team people, the four of us could not be more different. Now, strength lies in differences, not in similarities. And that polarity can also, without understanding and without a willingness and an openness to see other differences that is also the thing that will take you out. It is the thing that will take you out. But it is in understanding all the differences and celebrating them and like having compassion. Even like I'm telling you, I don't always understand how my home team or you know, out in the real world, how people operate. But I have an open mind. I have a willingness to learn from the people that are different than me. And that's why I have an accelerated growth pattern. What's why we can accelerate transformation when you bring somebody like me and to do this work with your home team, with your business and with your professional team. Because once you understand that that strength comes in our differences and then we actually know what to do with it and we care that they're different than us, that changes everything. Culture doesn't change because you want it to change. Culture changes when the organization as a whole is transformed. This is your organization, this is your business organization. The culture reflects the realities of the people working together every day. And I'm telling you that can't be faked. Nope, can't. And it was cool because in this team that we had over the weekend, there were four enneagram threes and they were all self preservation Enneagram threes and Enneagram threes, although they can move the needle really, really fast and produce, they don't always like to slow down to feel the feelings. Right? They don't. And the four of them specifically, and they're, they're in higher level positions in the, in the company, they had a big aha. That actually if they slow down in it, they can move the needle faster in a way that is sustainable. That feels really freaking good at the end of really, really was eye opening. And the others that maybe aren't wired like that, instead of feeling like they can't live up to that, they understood kind of where that came from and how they can support them better. And it created this synergistic kind of understanding. The real competitive advantage in any business, any home team is one word and it is the people in it. And when you nurture who they are, when you honor who they are, when you allow them to be safe, seen for who they are, anything can be done. When you understand your people, you understand everything. You really, really do. And then you can start building a kind of culture, communication, business, home team that you desire. Because culture, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to leave it at this as a short and sweet because this is how important this shit is. This is why the Enneagram is one of the greatest tools of all time in building stronger communication. Building a bulletproof culture. Culture is king. And I am the queen of building culture. If you want this more information on what this looks like for you personally, because it all starts with you as the leader. If you're the leader in your home, in your business, then it starts from the top down. So you understanding yourself, you leading yourself allows you to be a better leader. And then we can kind of start working with the rest. Go to my website, tracyomalley.com, the work with Me section. You can get your blueprint just so you can understand yourself. If you want a guide taking you through that, do the 90 minute session. You'll get both. Then you'll get the blueprint as well as integration tools. 90 minutes with me. If you have a business partner or a best friend, a a romantic partner, I can do partner sessions or I can do small teams or big teams. Does not matter. Go to Tracey O' Malley.com the work with me section for all the things to help you start learning how to be a better communicator and also create a bulletproof culture that changes the name of the game. Because culture isn't just one aspect of the game, y'. All, it is the freaking game. It is. So I love you. I appreciate you. You know, from somebody who could always make shit happen, I always have been able to, but I always, I didn't always have the greatest culture around me. And that was because I set the tone right. And when I started to not only learn about the Enneagram, but integrate it first in my home, then in my businesses, now with millions of people across the world. It's a beautiful thing to be able to create movements and visions within families and organizations that not only do beautiful, beautiful work in the world and make an impact out there, but also feel really, really great about it and also make a shit ton of money while they're at it. I love all of it. I love all of you. Wishing you so much love and transformation. If you love this episode, go share it with somebody today. Or if you're part of a company or organization and you think that they could benefit from the work that I do, I can come and do in person. That is the holy grail. Holy crap, is it amazing to have me immersed in a team? I can also do online workshops as well within a team and organization. Share it with the people in charge at your business or if you are the person that makes these decisions or brings in specialists for, for retreats or off sites, anything like that, please send them my way. I would be honored to serve to help integrate and build you a culture that stands the test of time. Until next time you guys. We'll see you in a few days.

I'm so happy you enjoyed the lead with the Enneagram podcast. Please help us spread the word about this show and the Enneagram by sharing it with a friend and leaving a written Apple podcast review. If you have any follow up questions to this episode, you can DM me on Instagram @tracee_o'. Malley. You can also find additional resources on my website@tracyomalley.com I'm so excited to lead you into the next level of your life.