Joshua Warren  0:00  
Oh there's questions you can ask yourself based on that kind of unconscious message you received in childhood that's tied to your number. So sixes, that anxiety, kind of the unconscious message is that it's not okay to trust yourself. And so when you hit this point of asking, you could say, Hey, is what I'm feeling right now is what I'm doing right now? Is it because I have this message that it's not okay to trust myself? And then a really solid follow up? Question is, who would I be? And how would I relate to the world, if I can let go of that message and the story I'm telling you?

Darin Newbold  0:43  
Good day, and welcome to commerce. Today, we're excited to have you on board. My name is Darren, and here with me, as always, host Josh to talk to us about what's happening in Commerce today. Now, our topic this time around is part of a series that that we'll have, and this one is managing ecommerce teams. And the specifics on this is personality conflicts. Now, I know that those out there listening, they never have conflicts. And you're probably going to skip this whole episode. But don't there are some really good things here. And one of the things that, that I know we found as a tool for this that Josh is going to talk about is is some on the Enneagram. And if you're not familiar with that, we'll we'll talk a little bit more about that. But Josh, kind of talking about personality conflicts. Yeah.

Joshua Warren  1:34  
I was hoping you were gonna let me talk. I know this is a subject you're very fired up about very interested in. And it's always been fun to watch, you apply this to different teams. But yeah, so the inner Enneagram, which I know it's a if you're not familiar with it, it's kind of a strange sounding name. And I will probably stumble over it a couple of times in this episode. But it is actually a sort of a 4000 year old piece of wisdom, basically, and system of how you look at personalities that divides all of humanity into one of nine different personality types. And there's a lot more to it than that there are subtypes, there are lines that are wings, we like to keep these episodes nice and short. So we're not going to necessarily go over all the details of Darren Hardy killed off my idea of giving you the entire 4000 year history of the Enneagram, thank goodness. But at its core, the Enneagram gives you a tool to look at yourself and look at the people on your team and understand what motivates them. And kind of the primary motivation breaks down into three different emotions. So there's three of the personalities that are motivated by and kind of almost chased by shame, three that are kind of chased by fear, and three that are chased by anger. And once you learn that, and you kind of start learning what type people are things kind of start to make a little bit more sense about why you might have some conflicts on your team.

Darin Newbold  3:00  
You know, they throw those into what they called triads, I believe so kind of the triads of the of the different numbers. So isn't it the eight nines and ones are in the anger, triad? And then 234 is in the shame? Yes, triad. And then five, six, sevens are in the anger? Very well, sorry, fear. Sorry, for your fear. I was thinking I was thinking of an eight. But yeah, it's in the fear one. So how does this How does this come to play in an E commerce team, so we can bring it back to really that commerce today? stuff? How does that? Yeah,

Joshua Warren  3:38  
so I've found that, you know, every team, anytime you have multiple people working on something like an E commerce project, there's going to be conflict, like things aren't always going to run perfectly. And how you navigate that conflict and how you manage it really can have almost as big or sometimes a bigger impact on the results you get from your ecommerce project than the technology are you using the UX you have that sort of thing, the people really can influence it more than anything else. And so this is the Enneagram is a tool that helps you better understand those people. And so for instance, we've worked with a team with a, so I'm gonna throw out some numbers as you learn more about the Enneagram. This will make more sense, but we've worked with a team that had an Enneagram one on it. And this is a person that is really motivated by an internal voice that tells them brilliant internal critic that directs a lot of anger inwards, about how they could do things better differently and may not be the easiest person to get to start speaking. And then another person on this team was an Enneagram four and they're really motivated by basically just by being seen they want to be seen as unique and creative. And fours have a very kind of breaking it down ones have more of an intellectual inner life and fours have more of an motional in her life. And until I understood this and understood this kind of difference between those two numbers, I just I couldn't figure out why can't these two people get along? Like why they seem to like each other, but then when we start talking about something on a project, they're never on the same page, it's so hard to get them on the same page and then realized, oh, wait, well, yeah, one of them's really kind of talking internally to themselves on the, the intellectual or logical side of it. And the other one is really talking to us about the emotional side of it. So they're not even really technically speaking the same language there.

Darin Newbold  5:31  
Yeah, that can definitely create areas where there's where there's those challenges, the places where I see it come up, are really in leading those teams and trying to manage those teams from a from a place of helping them get the most out of what, what they can do and what they can bring forward. And that's where you and I were talking about the areas of the virtue as well as passions that each of the numbers have and, and finding that there are areas that by the very nature of them create blockages. And in some of the study that I had done on the on the INIA gram, really under learning kind of as it goes back is that that these personality traits are formed when we're when we're kids as a protector as our protection mechanism to protect us. And once we're no longer kids, and we're adults, we don't need these protections anymore, however, they stay with us. And they then now are not helpful to us in the ways that they needed to be when we were kids. And so I know you wanted to discuss kind of the virtue and passions here on the numbers and how that shows up. What what do you see there, Josh? Yeah,

Joshua Warren  6:45  
I don't think we can go through the whole thing today. There's some great resources online that we're going to mention later. But basically, I just think it's, it's interesting to see, you know, each of these numbers has a passion, which is really where you go by default, when you're not healthy. So for instance, I mentioned Enneagram, one earlier, their passion is anger. And that can definitely show up in some some destructive ways, again, with ones lots of times, it's usually internally, but still not good. But there's a corresponding virtue when you look through Enneagram that you can, if you work through that passion, and you do some kind of some inner work and some personal development work for ones, they can turn that anger into serenity, and that can become their virtue of they can really bring a level of serenity to meetings and projects and teams. And when you see a one that is very healthy, and is leaning into that, it's amazing, because they're going to tell you exactly what challenges you might face in the future on that project, they're going to see it, they're going to put it in black and white, but they're going to do it in a calm, you know, very effective manner, once they hit that virtue of serenity.

Darin Newbold  7:54  
Well, and then also, that also speaks to the the triad that we're talking about the five, six sevens that are in fear and, and sixes by their very nature, their passion, is is anxiety, which fundamentally is fear. So their biggest fear or biggest passion is fear. And how do you get them away from that, and sixes are commonly referred to as the skeptics, they're the ones that every team needs one, because they're the one that's going to basically say, Wow, you guys want to do this crazy, wild idea? Well, here are all the reasons it's probably or could fail. And so they're the ones that you need to work through or work with, so that every team and every project becomes better by having that person on there. But helping that person, get past that fear, and get past that anxiety brings in the virtue of courage. And with that, then suddenly, you have this person that can bring so much to a team. And when they can do it from a place of courage as opposed to fear, you really unlocked some of the some of the potential of that team and that person for sure.

Joshua Warren  9:04  
Definitely. And, and Unlocking Potential is just a really solid use for the Enneagram. Even if you're not a manager, you're a member of a team, you can help unlock the potential of other members of your team, but also of yourself, but then especially if you're in a management role, you have people reporting you and you can understand their their Enneagram number and personality. So each of those numbers I mentioned has, you know that that drive of fear or shame or anger, but when they're able to move past that not only do you move into that virtue that each number has, but then another detail of the Enneagram is each number has an indifferent number they go to when they feel secure and safe. And that number basically allows them to it almost looks like like if you've worked with someone that when they're really engaged and they're really happy and they're healthy, it's almost like they're a different person, a different member of your team. That's probably them going to that that level of safety and security. And so it allows you to tap into strengths that you otherwise wouldn't be able to. And so I've just noticed even in myself that as I've done this work that I can think of times in my life where I was more successful and getting more done and kind of just more effective. And now that I've researched and learn more about the Enneagram, and my numbers in particular, I realize it's those times I was going to the security numbers.

Darin Newbold  10:26  
And that's key. And it's, it's helping, it's helping your team be able to, to find that, and to even even recognize it. And I think in some of the things we were talking about, there's a there's kind of an acronym that help help kind of find that or help a person help help yourself as you're examining kind of behaviors and how that goes. It's an acronym called Snap. And, Josh, I don't know how much you remember on some of the things that you listened to on that. You're trying to stump me again, not at all, not at all, it's it's kind of a, this is a pretty standard psychological methodology of how you approach any behavioral change. But basically, it's the snap stands for stop, notice, ask and pivot. And the simplicity is, is in that moment, being able to stop recognize that you're having a moment or you're having this behavior and, and then notice, you're noticing that you're having this behavior, and really kind of recognize and kind of say I am, I am having this type of behavior. And then the next level is that ask, and that's where it really starts to starts to have have some effect of being able to ask why. And what's causing this. Where's this coming from?

Unknown Speaker  11:48  
Yeah, and on asking, I've actually I've heard of Enneagram teacher that really ties it into each number. And there's specific questions you can ask yourself based on your number. And it's really about Darren mentioned earlier that your Enneagram number is driven largely by childhood experiences, some call it childhood trauma, but I think it's really childhood experiences. And so there's questions you can ask yourself based on that kind of unconscious message you received in childhood, that's tied to your number. And if this sounds really out there, it's not I'll give you a couple of examples. So six, is that that anxiety, the kind of the unconscious message is that it's not okay to trust yourself. And so when you hit this point of asking, you can say, hey, is what I'm feeling right now is what I'm doing right now? Is it because I have this message that it's not okay to trust myself? And is that where this behavior is coming from? And then a really solid follow up. Question is, who would I be? And how would I relate to the world if I could let go of that message and the story I'm telling myself,

Darin Newbold  12:53  
excellent. And that's part of then going into that pivot, which is the last piece is pivoting and adjusting, adjusting behaviors. So you got to get it since you have that pulled up there. Josh, I got to ask you, what's the questions for a seven.

Unknown Speaker  13:06  
So for a seven, this is a good one. So it is the message that sevens have received in childhood is it's not okay to depend on anyone for anything. And then even looking at the pivot step. A really good pivot for sevens, which is challenging for them, because sevens. They don't like this idea. But it's to delay gratification, except that your life will be limited and painful and boring at times, and stop negating the feelings that make you uncomfortable.

Darin Newbold  13:36  
Yeah, I get you. Anyway, the reason I asked that, folks is I am an Enneagram. Seven, there's a whole long story here. And I get a lot of a lot of fun here for that. And fun is really all that sevens are all about. Anyway, with that back to managing our teams, what else can people do as their managing teams utilizing the Enneagram and recognizing where there's conflict, whether it's a conflict, and this is the part that I brought up, as we started this is whether it's the conflict internally with a person and being able to unlock their potential as well as a conflict between two people. And not that companies necessarily have an Enneagram. But leaders of those companies do. And you can see conflicts between companies, possibly or between the leaders of those companies. What do you see there, Josh, as far as being able to work through Potter personality conflicts?

Joshua Warren  14:29  
Yeah, so I would say really, you start with knowing the Enneagram number of the people involved. And there are some tools and books and things that will try to teach you how to basically get someone's number or determine someone's number. I just recommend there's a assessment called the IQ nine and we'll put a link in the shownotes it's IQ nine.com And it's $60. The base test 120 For a more comprehensive tests, but in either test, it's going to give you your number or that person's number. I would start there And then honestly, a little cheat that Darren and I sometimes use in meetings don't don't tell the teams we work with is, there's an app called the INIA. App. And again, we'll put that in the show notes, you can actually go into this app, and you can say, Okay, I am a, I'm dealing with a team with an Enneagram, five, show me their interactions with an Enneagram. Seven, and what sort of connection or friction they might have between them. And just having that knowledge and that ability. And again, this is this is something that's trying to take very complex human beings and reduce them down to a single number. So it's not going to tell you exactly exactly what to say, to each person. But it's going to give you some really solid guidelines. So I actually pulled up that five, seven, interaction. And so for friction, it says that between fives and sevens, fives, introversion and need for alone time feels very limiting to sevens who keep saying there's a whole world out there. And so you might, if you're dealing with a team like that, you might realize that you need to support and find ways to minimize that conflict between the fives desire to really spend some time alone and the sevens desire to push forward with all the great fun things there are to do in the world. Which

Darin Newbold  16:17  
can happen even right here in this room sometimes. All right, well, Josh, as we close this up, what's kind of the last message or what's the, what's some key piece that we want to want to make sure that everyone walks away with on personality conflicts, obviously, we don't want them. We want to move through them. And we want to encourage and break through barriers. Hopefully in

Joshua Warren  16:38  
this episode, we we've shown you why and how the Enneagram can be a useful resource and a really helpful thing to learn to manage these personality conflicts. There's a couple of authors that also happened to each have podcasts that we'll link to in the show notes. Suzanne's to Beal and Ian Morgan cron, that are great resources to kind of learn more and educate yourself more about the Enneagram so that you can apply this so hopefully, we've, we've kind of inspired you. I know from my experience, and from what Darren shared about his experience that applying the INIA Graham to your team and to how you manage an ecommerce team can really help you deliver not only have a healthier team and more fun delivering your projects, but you can also deliver better results.

Darin Newbold  17:23  
Excellent. And we're all about delivering better results. And that is that is all we have for commerce today. We thank you for joining us, as always, please rate the podcast. We really appreciate that and as always, we look forward to catching you on the next episode. Take care

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