Interpersonal Communication with the Enneagram

The Enneagram is one of the many personality profiling systems in the world today. However, its origins remain relatively unclear. There are groups of people who believe that the Enneagram first originated in the 10th or 11th century among the Sufi, which is a mystical sect of Islam. There are also others who believe that the Enneagram existed much earlier, back in 2500 B.C. in Babylon, the middle east of today.

Regardless of when the Enneagram was created, it still remains a very accurate tool to profile people today, simply because human nature has not really changed all these years.

The Enneagram is also one of the few dynamic profiling systems around. Instead of boxing people up, it describes how a person will behave when feeling good or under stress, and shows the way a person should grow in order to achieve his or her potential in life.

In total, there are nine basic personality types, and these personalities are described using numbers, instead of words. The reason for using numbers is to keep things neutral. Words have a tendency to create meaning in our minds, and we might unknowingly become biased towards certain types because of cultural or societal influence.

Thus, the nine types are denoted by numbers ranging from one to nine, and the numbers bear similar weights, which means that having a bigger personality number does not translate to being better or worse.

You will come across different Eneagram teachings that use different words to describe the types. Do remember that the descriptions are really for illustration and are meant to help you understand the type better. Different sources will use different words to describe each type, so you need not get confused over that.

Each personality type has got nine levels of health, starting from the healthiest at level one, to the unhealthiest at level nine. So if you compute all possible combinations using the wings and lines, along with levels of health, you are looking at potentially four hundred and eight six variations of personality types.

With so many possible combinations, how do you accurately profile somebody? Unlike many other personality profiling that requires the use of surveys or questionnaires, you can actually profile somebody with the Enneagram simply through observation.

Of course, the length of time for your observation will definitely affect the accuracy of your profiling. Though we will effectively be of only one basic type, every one of us will react according to different situations and environments that we are in. Therefore, it is no surprise that we will display characteristics of all nine personality types throughout our lives. So the best time to observe someone is during their down-time, or most natural state.

You can still use a questionnaire to profile somebody, or to confirm your observations. However, with time and practice, you will realise that you can make do without a questionnaire. That would give you a huge boost in improving your interpersonal communication skills, and will definitely add greater value to you as an effective communicator.