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 Anne Muree, an executive and life coach, has coached hundreds of executives and individuals throughout the United States in both large and small companies and from all walks of life.
From her decades of coaching experience, Anne Muree provides true stories from her coaching practice, ones that illuminate the breadth and depth of the results that can be achieved by using the Enneagram. These stories cover short-term, crisis, and long-term coaching engagements and allow you a glimpse into the real issues of clients of each Enneagram style, the coaching strategies and tactics used, and the resulting insights and outcomes that change people's lives.
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When Connie, a thirty year-old CPA accounting manager at a financial firm, came for coaching, she was concerned that her high anxiety was negatively affecting her work and eroding her confidence. At our first coaching session, she explained through tears of frustration that her anger, reactivity, and negativity (derailers for Ones) were primarily aimed at a newly hired Eight peer. "I have to leave my job because of this person. I don't respect her and can't work with her."
In our early coaching sessions, Connie was able to see how her life had become out of balance – all work and no play. As a result, Connie hired some additional staff members and scheduled time to relax, play, and have fun, and she then saw her anxiety recede. As a One, her discipline was so strong that she was also able to rebalance her life between work and relaxation. In fact, Connie was a coach's dream client.
Next, Connie decided to balance her thought patterns. She was able to astutely observe her One habit of paying attention only to what was wrong and began to balance it with consciously paying attention to what was right. Connie was soon strong enough to notice and confront her inner critic. At a later session she commented, "I just realized my inner critic is not telling the truth." As she came to understand her Enneagram style even more, she was able to learn to not take other people's behavior personally. This freed Connie to stop reacting so quickly and strongly to her Eight peer.
Because efficiency was a natural strength for Connie, she also began to notice how much energy she was wasting on areas that were not productive for her. As a result of this insight, she learned to do the following:
- Not waste mental energy on issues out of her control
- Focus equally on what is good verses what is wrong
- Observe her One thoughts patterns and then let them go
- Stop her inner critic before it's voice became too strong
These new habits have given Connie an abundance of useable energy and more space for joy in her life, and she is now grateful to the Eight peer who was the catalyst for her to engage in this self- development work. Connie says, "I know who I am and when I'm not so angry, I can trust my inner wisdom and intuition." She has also taken a new job as the Chief Financial Officer in a larger accounting firm.
As a coach, using the Enneagram helped me focus Connie on both her gifts and her most important development issues. For Connie, the Enneagram saved her career and greatly enhanced her quality of life.
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Susan, a 38-year-old vice president of a mid-sized service company, came to me to learn how to better motivate her group of managers and wanted to use the Enneagram. Relationships were a natural strength for Susan, and she quickly learned the styles of the dozen people who reported to her and provided each with personalized motivation and feedback. Susan was frustrated, however, when she was unable to see demonstrable change in one member of the group. "I've tried to tell her what isn't working," Susan said, "but it just doesn't seem to register."
I asked Susan to demonstrate a typical feedback session with this employee and immediately observed that Susan was sending a mixed message. When she offered criticism, she smiled, nodded her head, and softened her tone of voice. I told Susan that being indirect is an Enneagram Style Two derailer – that is, a development area that can impede a person's success. By becoming more authentic, direct, and clear, Susan solved the problem.
Susan's success with her team resulted in increased profits and productivity and convinced her of the effectiveness of the Enneagram. As a result, Susan decided to seek coaching for herself. She was having dizzy spells with no apparent underlying medical cause. When I asked Susan to tally her work hours over the past two weeks, she was shocked to find that she had worked over 120 hours. Moreover, her social schedule was completely filled. When I inquired about her sleep habits, she assured me: "I'm a person who doesn't need much sleep. I work hard and play hard. Sleep seems like a waste of time."
It was clear that Susan was on her way to burnout. I encouraged her to look at her unhealthy lifestyle patterns. In the following weeks, she set personal goals to enhance her life and took the following action steps:
- Make room for alone time every day and learn a breathing practice.
- Gradually increase sleep time to seven or eight hours a night.
- Delegate more projects to her team so she did not feel so indispensable.
- Learn to say no to social gatherings she did not want to attend.
- Plan uninterrupted work time for strategic planning, closing her "open door" for one hour each day.
- Rent an art studio and rekindle her painting hobby.
- Find a walking partner and put regular walks into her weekly schedule.
Focusing on her own needs was much harder for Susan than thinking of others. Once she gave herself some thoughtful attention, her dizzy spells went away. At our last session, she said, "I'm beginning to be as kind to myself as I am to everyone else."
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When Barbara, a 47-year-old director of a large nonprofit arts organization, came to me, she had two goals:
- To free up more time to spend with her new husband
- To stop being so impatient with her key staff
For over 15 years, Barbara had built her agency from nothing to a nationally recognized award-winning agency. "Our agency would not be at this level of success if it wasn't for me," she confided.
When Barbara started coaching she was doing the work of at least three people. She realized that meeting her goal to spend more time with her husband would involve a key challenge to her typical Three style in which "down" time was not a priority. Deciding to work less was difficult for Barbara because her work life had become such a big part of her identity. After weeks of coaching, she committed to the following plan of action to reduce her workload:
- Hire a new employee to take over some of her responsibilities.
- Restructure her management team with an intention to delegate.
- Schedule "down" time daily so she could consciously work on finding out who she really was and to be able to separate her image from her true self.
As her management team took on more work, she found her new understanding of their Enneagram styles invaluable. "When I stop, breathe, and remember that each of their styles are different from mine but equally valuable, I can interrupt my impatience." To better work with her team, she replaced impatience with the following steps toward development:
- Initiate weekly team meetings.
- Meet weekly with each team member for individual coaching, mentoring, and accountability.
- Develop understanding and empathy for each team member with the help of the Enneagram.
- Take more time to pay attention to feelings, both her own and those of her team members.
- Monitor her own competitiveness.
Barbara's workload lessened as did her impatience. Little by little, she made open space in her life for alone time and time with her husband. She started making more decisions from her heart and at one of our last sessions she said, "I know now that my image is not my true self, and success is not my source of love."
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Alicia, a 34-year-old educator, came for coaching because of her deep disappointment with her new job. "I had such high hopes for this job being fulfilling," she said with a sigh. "Instead, I am in tears almost every day." Alicia was the head of the creative learning department of a cutting edge private school. She loved her students and provided excellent, innovative learning opportunities for them. Her daily stress was a result of feedback from her boss that Alicia perceived as critical.
Alicia recognized that she had a pattern of job dissatisfaction and desperately wanted to work on herself in an effort to be more self-aware. As Alicia learned the Enneagram, she identified her boss as a Style One. After several coaching sessions, she created the following action plan:
- Focus on what is positive at her work.
- Stop taking her boss's type One behavior personally.
- Continue to act and fulfill commitments, even when intense feelings are present.
- Start a breath practice to help moderate intense feelings.
- Notice when thoughts go to longing for what is ideal and let them go.
- Notice and stop any self-criticism.
She created a visual symbol and placed it in various places in her work and home environment to remind her to delight in and cultivate the happiness of others. Alicia soon realized the benefits of her action steps and was able to focus daily on her students' success. As a result, she noticed how much more satisfaction she felt at work, but as important was the sense of well-being she felt inside.
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When David, a 42-year-old engineer in a large software company, came to me, he wanted help motivating his team to meet their yearly goals. He was particularly interested in being more assertive, or "tough" as he called it, when someone didn't follow through with his or her deliverables.
David learned the Enneagram quickly, identified the Enneagram styles of his team members, and began practicing feedback and coaching specific to each person. After each interaction, he would analyze and evaluate how it went, honing his new leadership skills. At our third session, we talked about the line connecting Enneagram styles Five and Eight. "We are the opposite in how we keep control," he observed. He expressed a desire to learn how to move toward Eight when appropriate. By the end of our session, David agreed to practice the following new skills:
- Learn to support his team by giving both nurturing support and strong, direct feedback when needed.
- Allow time to observe and think through a situation before taking appropriate action.
- Listen fully to his team and let them know what he is thinking and feeling by connecting with them and showing compassion.
- Stay present and engaged longer than is comfortable for him, and notice his desire to disengage.
- Practice breathing, focusing on the inhale, to keep energy up and stay present in each moment.
At our last session, David reported improvement in his team's productivity. He also told me, "Going to Eight at the right time is giving me more energy and the toughness I was looking for."
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Lee, a 50-year-old sales and operations manager of a successful small family business, came for coaching because he was making a difficult career decision, one that was causing him a great deal of stress. He asked, "Should I stay at my current job? And if I stay, how can I assure my future in the business?"
In our first coaching session, Lee explained that he had a good working relationship with John, the Eight owner of the company, and was grateful for the mentoring and financial rewards he had received. When John traveled for extended periods of time, he always left Lee in charge. However, when John returned, he was unpredictable, often showing a volatile anger and changing his mind about previously agreed upon decisions. This caused Lee an enormous amount of stress.
During the past year, two of Lee's most trusted friends begged him to join them in a new business venture. Lee's anxiety was visible when he talked about leaving the safety of his known position for the risk of the unknown. "I am frozen with fear," he commented during one of our sessions.
In four coaching sessions lasting over a period of two and a half months, Lee learned to use his breathing and to engage in regular exercise as a way to stay with his fear when it came arose rather than to avoid it. As we worked together, Lee was able to do the following:
- Notice and stop his worst-case scenario thinking.
- Focus on his strengths and success.
- Reclaim his faith in himself.
When Lee looked honestly at his current work situation, he realized he could never fully trust that his future in this company was assured. What had seemed safe because it was known was anything but secure. He connected with his courage and decided to leave his job in the small family business, realizing that loyalty to his boss and fear of the unknown were not valid reasons to stay. Lee accepted the new job opportunity with his friends, but not until he came to the situation with his full power, from which he negotiated a salary and benefits package that assured him that he and his family would be well taken care of.
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Michael, 45, co-owned an extremely successful marketing franchise along with his wife. He came to me for coaching about how to hire an excellent administrative assistant. "My office has been a revolving door. I have gone through ten administrative people in the past three years. Either they quit or I fire them." He also wanted help with his high stress level as it was causing him physical problems.
When I asked him why he thought his administrative turnover was so high, he replied, "Those who can do the work always seem so negative and I don't like them. Others can't work fast enough or keep track of the details."
Michael's current administrative assistant, an Enneagram One, was efficient, detail oriented, and fast and smart enough to do the work, but Michael felt she criticized him constantly, and he was ready to fire her. Her main complaint was that Michael did not follow through with what she perceived to be routine agreements between them. Furthermore, his lack of focus and his tendency to speak rapidly and change directions so quickly made it hard for her to understand his real priorities.
Michael had a different view of their relationship: "I'm the most positive, creative, and upbeat boss anyone could want, and I don't understand her complaining." Using the Enneagram lens, he discovered two important areas. First, he learned that his beliefs about his leadership strengths were true. Just as important, he began to see how his Seven leadership derailers were causing the problems: dislike of routine, reactivity to negative feedback, and loss of focus under stress.
Michael became willing to find the truth in her negative feedback and to stop taking it so personally. Because he understood how the strengths of his Enneagram One assistant actually complimented his Seven leadership style, he decided to try to work it out. Even though Michael disliked routine, he made a concerted effort to stick to agreements he made with her, placing additional emphasis and effort to adhere to specific time schedules. Feedback became a regular part of their weekly meetings and as a result, the revolving door of assistants stopped.
When we started working on his second concern, stress, Michael described his 60- to 80-hour workweek and fun-filled weekends as the norm in his busy life without recognizing that his need to keep active and stimulated was a major cause of his stress. In the following weeks, Michael began to do the following:
- Cut back on his busy lifestyle and work schedule.
- Live more in the here and now using his breath to steady himself.
- Give himself more down time to allow real feelings to arise.
- Notice how he used planning, excitement, and options to avoid pain, fear, or boredom.
As a result, he reduced his stress level and his physical symptoms disappeared. At our final session Michael remarked, "I feel better than I have in ten years!" Michael thinks the Enneagram is "magic."
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Paul, 56, was a hospital chaplain who came for coaching as he was considering making a career move. At our first session, he angrily stated, "My new boss, Amy, has appointed our least capable team member as lead chaplain. She is totally incompetent! The sooner I leave the better." Paul also talked about how he loved his work and was well respected by both staff and patients. As he talked, Paul began to realize that he did not actually want to be lead chaplain. He was simply angry that he had not been considered for the job; he felt unseen and unacknowledged by his boss.
When he realized that his Nine style of self-forgetting and lack of self-assertion contributed to his dilemma and was, in fact, both a psychological and a spiritual issue, he decided to make himself more visible to his boss and stay at the hospital until he knew what he wanted to do next. Paul made a concrete plan of action to make himself more visible. Paul accomplished the following:
- Assertively asked his boss for what he wanted, including regular team meetings with her.
- Learned to communicate his ideas concisely both to his boss and his team.
- Documented weekly what he accomplished and gave this to his boss, including all the special hospital committees he was on and special requests for his services.
- Included his Doctor of Divinity title on his cards and all correspondence.
The results in Paul's workplace were so positive that he began using his new skills in his personal life as well, regularly asking himself what he really wanted. Paul not only became more successful at work, he also took full responsibility for his own well-being in all aspects of his life. He continues his work at the hospital while he builds a consulting and training business. Further, he is writing a book on a topic of his greatest interest and expertise and has full confidence that it will be published and of great benefit to those who read it.
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