Combining Enneagram & Doshas to Build a Composite View for Change Management
Roger Mitchell
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As we continue this series about using personality assessments while navigating change, it's time to see how we can combine Enneagram and Ayurvedic Doshas to create a composite view.
- Part 1: proposes why personality assessments matter for change management
- Part 2: dives into the Enneagram and how it relates to motivations, communication, and conflict
- Part 3: explores how Ayurvedic Doshas relate to energy and stress
- Part 4 (you are here now): explores how those assessments complement one another in practice
- Part 5: injects generative AI into the mix to see how it can improve how you and your team interact with stakeholders based on the assessments
For a quick refresher, we discussed how:
- Enneagram ties into an individual's motivations, communication style, and triggers for conflict
- Ayurvedic Doshas influences an individual's energy and stress levels
By looking at these separately, we are missing the "other half" of the picture for how a person experiences and contributes during times of change.
Consider these trivial examples:
- Even with high motivation, work that drains a person's energy will fail to progress efficiently, which will likely later result in stress or conflict for at least one person involved
- Communicating in a way that does not resonate can cause stress, which can in turn result in lack of motivation or conflict
However, when we combine these assessments, we're able to understand:
- Why an individual acts the way they do from their Enneagram
- How they expend energy or respond to stress from their Dosha
By knowing more about the psychological and physiological elements, we're able to plan proactively for how to support an individual and a team through a change initiative.
To keep things simple, I suggest using a format that lists the Enneagram (and optionally its wing) followed by the Dosha:
- Type 5 Vata
- Type 1w2 Pitta/Kapha (that happens to be my composite)
Let's consider an example where we're staffing a team for a fast-paced initiative and we have two team members available:
- An individual that is a Type 3 Pitta tends to be focused, driven, and bring high energy
- An individual that is a Type 6 Kapha tends to be steady and thoughtful with a risk-oriented mindset
Which seems like a better fit?
Regardless of how you answer that question, the knowledge about the initiative plus the individuals' composites allows us to proactively manage potential issues:
- The Type 3 Pitta might burnout if the fast-paced initiative sees its timeline extend or they are overburdened by their work
- The Type 6 Kapha might struggle with the pace of the initiative or feel like there has been insufficient attention to the overall process and its risks
While you may be responsible for allocating people to projects, there are a multitude of ways that this can be used within your organization.
Tomorrow, we're going to conclude this series by looking at a prompt template to use with generative AI along with a few examples so you're able to put this into action.
TLDR: Creating a composite from Enneagram and Ayurvedic Doshas helps understand how an individual's motivation, communication, and triggers are influenced by the energy they have and how stress impacts them.