Enneagrams

One of my recent classes had me cranking out a lengthy paper on a management topic. While management isn’t my strong suit I did manage to find an interesting topic: personality testing. I’m normally pretty skeptical about these things. There are so many variables to a person that a simple assessment can’t pin them down. At my place of business we did one assessment a few years ago and, despite my skepticism, it seemed to do a pretty good job of describing me. But I still and a bit leery when it comes to them.

For my paper I did a survey of some of the standard ones. One that stuck out was more a system than a specific test. Enneagrams seem to be a mess of astrology, philosophy, mysticism, geometry and a lot of other hooha. But after taking a simple version of the test myself and asking others to do so, it seems to be able to describe people’s major tendencies.

One caution however, the first time I took it I was classed as an 8. About 2 weeks later I retook it and was a 5 and I scored another 5 just now. I feel that 5 reflects me pretty well (at least until they add “10-The Jerk”) particularly the diagram. These diagrams sum up each category in three ways (this one is for 5’s):

• World View: The world is invasive and confusing. I need privacy to think.
• Basic Desire: to understand the world
• Basic Fear: of being overwhelmed by the world

Hmm. I’d say that this pretty much sums up what underlies most of the actions I take.

The Cat took it and a few people at work did. I’d say that all the assessments were pretty right on. So give it a whirl yourself here and read about the types at www.9types.com. If you could post your result and if you agree with it, I am curious to see what other people think.

Now I am not going to start to consume all the media associated with this stuff. I still doubt that a person’s personality and be reduced to a single number and apply for all instances over time. But so far Enneagrams seem to be pretty accurate and at the very least they provide one with the opportunity to step back and look at how they behave and react.