9. Discussion Questions and Prompts for an Enneagram Workshop

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Use the questions inside this episode to support an upcoming workshop or group training experience.

When you listen to this episode, you'll get additional context for these 10 questions below, plus 3 bonus conversation topics to use with your group experiences.

1. What resonates with you most about your type?
2. What doesn’t resonate? 
3. What feels most true with tendencies around that type's work preferences and pet peeves?
4. What's a work style strength of this type you see show up for you?
5. What’s a strength you see in your teammate?
6. What does it look like for you to overuse your strengths?
7. Is there a specific situation where you might need to use one of the other strategies?
8. What specific quality of another type do you see as being more difficult to understand/work with? What makes that challenging? What can you do to navigate those challenges more productively? 
9. What synergies are possible? What challenges might come up?
10. What's one specific person or situation you can use this insight to better work with?

Catch the 3 bonus questions when you listen to the full episode!

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Ready to try facilitating your first workshop? 

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:06

You're listening to another episode here on the Bringing the Enneagram to Groups podcast. I am your host, Sarah Wallace, also the host over on a show called The Enneagram at Work and a podcast in the works that I will be co-hosting called The Enneagram for Educators. I am the founder and managing director over at Enneagram MBA, a team training company where all we do is get to work with uh teams and groups inside organizations and professional industry events. This limited series podcast was specifically created for fellow Enneagram coaches who are looking for tips, tricks, ideas to make the leap from individual one-on-one coach to one-to-many group and team coaching, speaking, presenting, facilitating. And so if you're joining us for the first time, welcome. I think you will be, I think you will get value out of this one. But know that there is some foundational episodes before this, um, including kind of the differences between coaching and facilitating, the skills you want to bring with you and the skills you may need to develop to make that. We've talked about what to do before, what to do during, what to do after. We've talked about pricing, handling uh skepticism, potentially some challenging attendees in a workshop. So all of that are in some previous episodes. You're listening to episode nine where we're talking specifically about discussion questions, prompts that you can use with your groups, maybe before, maybe during andor maybe after a workshop where you assign some fun work. And so I have a list of I think 13 potential questions or topics that you can use in a variety of ways. Um, you can take as is, or these might inspire some of your own questions. Use whatever makes sense. What's the saying? Uh use what is useful and leave what is not useful. Um with this whole show, all I can share and all that I am sharing is what has worked for me, what I know, what I have firsthand experience with. Um, and I'm passing that along to you where you can take it and use it as is, or take it and make it your own. And so the same will apply for this specific episode with these questions. So um let's let's just get into it. And I will put these list of questions, at least some of them, in the show notes so that you can refer back to. Um, and you don't have to feel like you're taking notes if you are if you happen to be driving. So with that, the first question I have here is what about the type that you tested highest as, or what about the type that you're most resonating with? What what what resonates with you? Um, what are the pieces that that do resonate and what are the pieces that do not? And how I most often use this question is when we break out into groups for an introduction Enneagram workshop. And I like this one because it it allows people to, especially in the beginning, to, and especially if they're skeptics, you know, not say just because you tested this way, just because you tested highest as a type six doesn't mean maybe that there's something to your third result, which was a type one. So let's take the assessment, use that as a data point. We've gone through all nine types inside a workshop together. Now you kind of have two data points. Now you have an opportunity to go meet with a specific type or similar typed group to talk about the pieces that are resonating with you and to talk about the things that are not. And the whole intention of the Enneagram, and I will say this to my own clients and my own groups almost every time and probably multiple times, is that my job, and I believe our jobs as Enneagram coaches and facilitators, isn't to make them Enneagram experts. It is to give them opportunities to use the Enneagram as a tool to become more of an expert on themselves and each other. And so I think that this room, this qu these two questions, what resonates with you most about this top type, what doesn't resonate, um, give them that opportunity to kind of self-reflect, doesn't put them in a box to say, this is your type, you know, what does resonate, which is good to know. But I also love, you know, what well, what does what isn't resonating? Um, just for some discussion. Um, I think in those types of groups, you could also ask, you know, what what do you see, what do you see in me and what what don't you see in me based on what I said and what type is uh most resonating with me. Sometimes getting that piece of how their teammates experience them can also be helpful in the beginning when they're trying to narrow down your type. So also in our workshops, we will usually for our half day and above workshops or our programming, um, we will do a fun section around workplace pet peeves and tendencies, um, where we talk about preferences, pet peeves, and then we'll have an opportunity to do a mixed type group where people get together, a variety of different types, and they talk about okay, based on the types that are most resonating, these are the things that I I really felt like were true for my pet peeves. These are the things that I really appreciate. And again, we are not boxing anybody into a type, even if somebody doesn't know, if they're still stuck between am I a six or am I a one? They can still talk about their workplace pet peeves and preferences, they can still talk about their common tendencies and kind of have some fun discussion around that to get to be able to share and reflect about themselves and then to be able to um share and learn about their teammates. In our presentations, in all of them, so this is whether it is an hour or a day, we will just have to squeeze it and talk faster, and there won't be as much opportunity for discussion, obviously, in a shorter one. But regardless, we when we introduce the types, we talk about each of the um strengths in each of the types working style and tendencies. And so I always like the question when we're when we're in our um type specific or similar type specific groups to talk about the strengths too. So, you know, the presentation went through some possible strengths for each type, some some common strengths that might show up. What do you see in yourself that you use in your role? And so everybody will have a chance to kind of say, say, this is what I see in myself. And sometimes that is not as comfortable, but I do think that it's important to not people for people not to feel like beat up on, for them not to feel like, oh, here's all the things that are wrong with me. So we very much um try to keep it positive. And I think this is one of those questions that allows people to to lean into that themselves, to recognize these strengths in others and digits to kind of have a discussion around it. Um now we're talking about workplace, but you could also tweak this to the specific niche or industry or the people that are in your your particular workshops. So, you know, workplace pet peeves and preferences. We talked about workplace strengths, tendencies with strengths. Um, you could change it to leaders. What are your leadership work, uh, your leadership preferences and pet peeves? What are your leadership strengths? What are your parenting preferences and pet peeves? What are your parenting strengths? Um, what are your relationship preferences and pet peeves? What are your relationship strengths? What do you bring to your romantic relationships? Maybe friendships. Um, you could talk about if this is more of like a wellness type of workshop that you're collaborating with someone on or you're hosting yourself. You know, what are the ways that, you know, what are some of your wellness preferences? How do you tend to prefer to care for yourself? What do you need? What helps you stick to a routine? You might have to change that wording a little bit. What are the strengths that you bring when you're taking care of yourself? And then, regardless of the industry, I we also ask, what are some of the strengths that you see in your teammates or the people in this room or strengths that you admire in the other types? And again, I think this is a nice question to kind of bridge the differences. So, you know, I know sometimes you sixes, I'll just pick on you for a moment. Uh, they get a reputation for being, you know, having a lot of questions, maybe being the devil's advocate, maybe having a little bit of a Debbie Downer, pessimistic outlook. Um, but when we learn about the types, we talk about their strengths and risk assessment. We talk about their strengths and wanting to take care of the group. Group cohesion is very important. We talk about the bravery that a six has to be willing to ask the important questions that maybe others aren't thinking of or maybe don't want to bring up. And so they have the the thoughtfulness and the bravery to be able to do that. And so I think that also can feel good to receive that, those compliments. Um, and then it can also be a nice um kind of perspective shift, be like, oh yeah, Sally does ask a lot of questions, but when we put it in the terms of her strengths, I I can absolutely see how that is beneficial for the team. And this is specifically how. So you could do this in a couple ways. Um, you could add this question in your in a breakout activity. Um, you could assign this question maybe along with a couple of the others that we've talked about so far, and have people meet with one or two peop others where they're talking about some of these questions. They're going through their results. Um, here's the strengths that I see in myself. Here's the strengths that I see in you based on your results and what you're saying. So that can be a nice pre-workshop discussion activity inside the workshop activity. Um, it could also be a nice post-workshop activity that a manager could absolutely run on their own. They don't have to teach anything about the Enneagram. They don't have to remember the types necessarily if they couldn't, but maybe a week after, or maybe the next day, or maybe over dinner. Um, you know, you can you they could you could give them some some prompting for how to kind of frame this. But, you know, I'd like for us all to at each of our tables to talk about the strengths that we saw in each other, we see in each other, what we appreciate based on some of the insights we learned in our Enneagram training and then what you see in the day-to-day. So that's a nice way to bring Enneagram theory to the real world. Um, we will also sometimes do a specific strength call out where um at the end of a workshop, this is usually um when we are doing some programming and we have time to do more activities. Uh, this is one of the crowd favorites. It's one of my favorites where uh people will break out at the end of a workshop experience. Uh, maybe it's a part two, a part three that we've done. And, you know, I'll kind of frame it like we have had um, you know, this amount of time to be able to learn about ourselves and each other. And now I'd like for us to take some time and call out the strengths that we are seeing in one another. We have the language and the insight of the Enneagram, but you also have your own day-to-day experience with this person. Put those together and each person um kind of gets to be in the hot seat at the uh, you know, at the particular table or that row or however you want people to break out. And that is such a feel-good way to end a workshop. So I really like that one. Um, I also like the question we were when we are in type specific groups, like, yes, what what's a strength that you see in yourself? But also what does it look like when you overuse your strengths? Um, so we talk the way that we teach the Enneagram is that there are no weaknesses necessarily. You could maybe call them blind spots. But at the end of the day, it's the same energy that is fueling the strengths. Um, it's just are we using it with intention? Are we using this in an adaptive way or a maladaptive way? And so an example that I'm always using is direct communication. So somebody might say, you know, type 8 have a reputation for direct, clear, concise communication. What a gift, what a skill. How do you use that strength in your role to benefit this team is a great discussion question. And then the flip side to consider how might you overuse that strength. And sometimes that can be a really meaningful and important kind of self-reflection on a potential blind spot. Maybe it's something that everybody is else is kind of seeing or has experienced and it and it feels really good to have that person kind of see it in themselves. And it's every single type will have this, not just calling out eights or sixes, but um every every type will have some ways and at moments where they might overuse that, in this case, direct communication. What does it look like to overuse that strength? And what you know, what what's the impact of that? Um and having them think about it, reflect on it, share about it, um, can be really helpful for that, especially for that self-awareness piece. Um the other question that we will sometimes ask uh during a workshop, and this will just kind of vary. Are we talking about you could use this in group setting, type specific group, mixed type group, depending on the size of the group? This could be the whole group, where somebody after they feel pretty good about what type they are, is there a specific situation where you might need to use one of the other strategies? Um, and I always recommend people look at their uh resource points with their arrows based on that type. So for uh, you know, uh stereotypically ones struggle with celebrating uh hard work and meeting goals because that just kind of like that that is that is just what is expected of us. Why would we celebrate um what what is expected of us and just on to the next thing and just feels like well, our work should speak for itself. We don't need to toot our own horn necessarily. And so, what other strategy might you need to pull in at times to be able to be a better leader, be a better teammate? And so sometimes for the type one, um, they'll come up with things like slowing down to celebrate more, um, sharing our success with others, making sure the rest of the organization knows. So pulling some of those strengths of a seven into this. So um I think and what I like about this is you're um encouraging them to start to um kind of get out of the type box and look for real ways to use this and those resource points, arrows, um neglected strategy, supporting strategy, whatever terminology you use. Um I think there's some really good discussion uh within those points as well. Um, and that's a version of a question to kind of get that going. Um, question eight is what specific quality of another type might be more difficult to understand or work with? Some other follow-up questions here. What makes that challenging? And what can you do to navigate those challenges more productively? And so what I like about these questions is that it is calling out why you might be frustrated with your teammate. Um, it's it's encouraging you to kind of offer some understanding, potentially and ideally, some understanding about yourself. Okay, the reason why I find this challenging is because I'm seeing the world through this lens. They're kind of taking the world in this direction and this lens, and that makes sense that we might have some challenges. And here's something that I can say, I can do, I can have a conversation about. Um, probably not to completely avoid, but to better navigate um when those challenges do come up. And again, I like this because now we're getting into real world use, real world uh application. And again, you can use this in the workplace, you could use it with the church group, you could use it um inside of a group for couples, you could use it inside a wellness group, a more spiritual retreat, just maybe tweak the wording a little bit more. But um, I I do like that for bridging the gap between theory and application. Um, I also like the question when you are looking at a group map or team map or pairings. So again, if this is like a couple um, or maybe there is a school group that you're working with that has um uh oh my gosh, I'm blinking on the name, but where they have they co-teach together. You could have, you know, what how do you feel about your co-teachers? So you could do this one-to-one, one and one person or like a group of people, but looking at our two different types or looking at our team map, looking at our department map, looking at our organization map. Um, what what synergies are possible? In what ways do we really complement and support each other? Why does this dynamic work? Whatever the dynamic is, what are the synergies, what are the strengths of these relationships between these different types, between us? And then what sort of challenges might come up? Again, just to give them some things to better understand, better anticipate, um, maybe to be just a little bit more prepared for when it inevitably happens, when that conflict or challenges do happen, um, you can kind of talk about that. Now, as a facilitator, I will say you you want to be kind of careful, you want to have an understanding of what is going on with this group before bringing, especially these two last questions in. Um, if there is a really kind of tender situation, something recently has happened, um, and you only have two hours, it may not make sense to for you to be the one to lead this specific conversation. So you could pass these questions on to the manager as a follow-up to bridge the gap between that challenging situation and the content that they learned today. Um, so and and it or because they are going through something like that, these questions might make even more sense to make sure that you make time for. Um, that will be up to you. That will be up to um your host and the conversation that you have beforehand to know exactly how, if at all, to use these questions. Um, another question that I really like, and again, is bridging the gap between theory and application is what is one specific person? Who is one specific person, I guess, or one specific situation that you can use this insight with to better communicate with, work next to, um, be in a relationship with, whatever, whatever again, the group that you're working with. But what is one specific person or situation that you can use what you have learned today to better that relationship, better that situation? Um, you could position it as a career opportunity. What's one specific way that you can use what you learned today in your current role to go to the next level, to grow? Um, so there's different versions of that, but I I like that because it's a really simple, okay, what am I gonna do with this? So what I how I will sometimes use this question is I will put it in one of the very beginning um slides for the presentation and say, at the end of this, I'm going to ask everybody to watch. Walk away with one idea for a specific person or a specific situation where they can use what they learned today to improve that situation or relationship. So as we go through this, kind of keep that in mind. Um be thinking, making notes so that at the end, when I ask this question, um, you're ready, you have an answer, or you have you're walking out of here with something written down, depending on if you want them to share just to write it down. Um, some other discussion questions that we will ask is um their recognition preferences. Um this really comes up in our workplace workshops, but I think some version of it probably comes up in your relationship groups, uh, where there's some romantic relationships. Um, it probably comes up with teachers and students, um all kinds of different groups. Uh, but some version of how do you prefer to be recognized? And I think there are some similarities and there are some tendencies between the nine types. Um, but but also that person is a unique human being, and not every single three wants to be called on stage, wants to be in the spotlight, wants their name in the newsletter. I, you know, many of them are comfortable with it and okay with it and would like it, uh, but some don't. And just like all nines, you know, and many nines are like, I want you to tell me that I'm doing a good job, but please don't call me out in a meeting if you don't have to. Please don't put my picture in the company newsletter if you don't have to. Please don't call me on stage. But I do really appreciate private recognition. Like, I do want to know that I'm doing a good job. Um, I hear that from a lot of nines, but maybe some nines out there, maybe there is a person who is a type nine that is like, no, please call me on stage. I'm ready to be called on stage. Maybe that's that we got some transmitting uh nines out there that that might feel that way. Um, again, we don't have to box people in. You don't have to box people in, uh having them label themselves with a type, but it's, hey, now we have some new insight. Now we have some new language. How would you describe your recognition preferences? Um, you could turn this into a standalone workshop as well. Um, and this could be the guiding conversation for that. That could be the the breakout discussion at the end. Um, it could be, you know, just a little lunch and learn type of session, or you could expand it to something longer, uh, like 90 minutes or two hours. Uh, because this is, especially in the workplace, a topic that um does come up. You could talk about feedback preferences when something isn't going well. If I need to have a difficult conversation, how do you prefer me to bring that up? This could be a round table during the group discussions during a workshop. Uh, this could be some post-workshop fun work. Hey, get with your manager and talk about your recognition and feedback preferences. And then another topic during a workshop could be around starting a project specifically. So, as a team, when we have something new to work on, we're going in a new direction, we're planning something, um, let's look at our team map and let's talk about what that might look like and what different people are going to need. Um, let's look at the leadership style of the person managing this project potentially. And let's have some conversation around strengths, the ways that we're going to absolutely crush this project in the best way possible, and some potential points of friction that might come up during this project, looking at where everybody currently is with their type. So, an example might be, you know, you have the type eight manager or maybe the type three manager. And they're putting the goal out there. They're saying, let's go ahead and get started, let's jump into this. And then you might have somebody on the team, maybe a five, maybe a six, maybe a one. It's like, wait a minute. Um, like what what are all the steps? Like, what can we expect along the way? Or should we go ahead and outline those? Um, there might be some people on the team wanting to know the why behind why why are we doing this? Um, there might be somebody bringing up the things that are wrong with this idea. There might be somebody bringing up all the things that are right with this idea. Uh, there might be people that are suggesting they bring in everybody to the table and let everybody share their opinion and have their voice heard. There might be others that say, you know, we just need to follow the leader, let them make the decision, all get on board. So there's gonna be lots of different philosophies and takes and preferences on this. So you want to be careful not to use this as a way to kind of stir the pot by any means. Um, but I do think that it can be a wonderful planning tool. Um, and it can be a wonderful self-reflection opportunity too. Like, okay, I know that as a type eight leader, I have these tendencies. And then looking at my team map, I have the majority of my team is uh type six who want some more details, the backstory might have some more questions. So I'm gonna make sure when I present this new idea that we have an extra 15, 20 minutes to talk about those sort of things. Um, or it could be a vice versa scenario. Um, again, it's just another, another real world scenario or situation where the insight from the Enneagram, both about themselves and others, can be applied. So those are 13 questions or topics. By no means is this an exhaustive list of all the types of discussion and questions you can have. Maybe something in here inspires a couple new questions for your own niche or industry or a new take on something I haven't even thought of. Um, if there are specific questions that you want to share with other coaches, I'm happy to share those on a future podcast episode. Um, you can send those to enneagrammba.com forward slash contact. Um, happy to credit you if you want to leave your name. Um, also happy to make it anonymous if you'd rather not be called out, but just want to share that information. Um, I'm sure that uh there are so many other good ideas that other coaches and facilitators have applied. Um, these are just a handful of ones that might inspire some ideas. Um these questions are part of just one small part of the DIY facilitator kit that we have for Enneagram coaches, facilitators specifically. Um, it comes with a commercial license, so you can use it in your business to make money with, um, add an additional revis revenue stream. It is priced in such a way that one workshop, ideally the next workshop that you do, covers the cost of the kit plus some. Um it has a slide deck, it has talking points for the slide deck, it has an example virtual presentation that I've done just to give a feel of my style to inspire your own. There are um a there's a field guide in there that you can edit along with the slide deck to make it your own. Um, it'll have links that are editable that you can edit um with your own logo and fonts and colors, swap out photos, swap out your own Enneagram framework, your own photo, your own bio slide. So all of that. There's um additional questions, activities, and exercise ideas in there, in addition to the questions we talked about today. There's questions that you can ask before a workshop, after a workshop. Um, there are additional resources to send your um workshop attendees to or to offer them. So you can see all the things that are inside that workshop kit over at EnneagramMBA.com. Um, there is a link at the very bottom of the page that will say Enneagram Kosha's commercial license kit, um, or you can just click on the link in the show notes here. Um, with that, thank you for being here. I appreciate it. Um, it it's this has been a fun series. I hope to hear from um some of you on your own best practices. And I always love to get questions. So again, that uh you can share those at Enneagram MBA.com forward slash contact. We are in episode nine, and uh I keep forgetting to also mention if you are enjoying the show, um, it would mean the world and be so incredibly helpful if you left a review. And if you are willing to leave a review, email me at customersuccess at enneagramba.com. It is also in the show notes that you did. Just let me know, send me a screenshot, um, whatever works best for you. And then I will send you our manager prompt pack, which is a $47 value where there's different prompts for each type of manager, each type of employee. Um, we've gotten some really good feedback about this from other coaches who have used it to share with um their Enneagram groups and the leadership teams inside their groups. So um that will be our thank you gift to you if you are willing to um make time to share a review on this podcast. Um, with that, thank you for being here. And I think we have one more left. So I hope to see you back in that one.