Home | Blog | Benchmark Report: The Enneagram in Business Comes of Age

Benchmark Report: The Enneagram in Business Comes of Age

In July 2001, a 9-person team of Enneagram in Business Network (EIBN) members published a Benchmark to find the answers to these questions: What success have organizations experienced using the Enneagram in their companies; how did they achieve this; and what lessons were learned along the way?

Our self-made scope was daunting to access data from every country possible, using the experiences of companies that had been using the Enneagram for at least 18+ months with sustainable results. Would we find them? Would people talk with us candidly? Could we do this in a 2-month period, given we were a virtual team ranging form California to Australia with many countries in between. And yes we did!

39 in-depth interviews for 1-2 hours via phone, 20 countries spanning 5 continents later – and all within two months – we had our data, assessed patterns and themes, wrote our concise and very illuminating summary report, and published it.

Here are some highlights:

*  75 companies (at least) are using the Enneagram in rigorous and productive ways
*  21 companies gave us permission to use their names
*  The 3 most important critical success factors for success are these:
-Focusing on the real business and personal needs
-Strong leadership and organizational commitment
-How the Enneagram is taught (balanced, accurate, and through self-discovery)
*  The most commonly used applications of the Enneagram (in this order; communication, leadership, teams, EQ, Coaching, conflict, and feedback)

We also learned some delightful surprises (things we thought but didn’t know for sure) and a great deal about future trends. If our data is right (and we are 99.9% sure it is), the Enneagram’s use in organizations is in “launch mode.” In other words, it is moving past use by “innovators” (people who are willing to try new things without looking to see who else is doing it) to “early adopters,” who do look around to see who is doing what and with what results. This is what we heard from our interviews. But we also realized that this Benchmark Report is actually an “early adopter” technology; we even thought to do it because clients were asking for it!

The Benchmark Team was amazing: Lindy Amos (Australia), Matt Ahrens (US), Val Atkin (US), Gema de la Rosa (Spain), Neil Harper (South Africa), Martin Hawkes (Ireland), Gloria Hung (China), Bo Zoffman (Denmark), and me (US). They were smart, committed, timely, and fun.  Gema has translated the report into Spanish, and a Portuguese and Chinese version will be available soon.

I’ve never worked so hard, so fast or with such great results as I did with this team! Not the books, App, website, or anything!

If you want the Benchmark Report in English (pdf or print), contact ebr@theenneagraminbusiness.com. In Spanish (pdf only), please contact Gema: gema@maybeinternational.com.

Please feel free to send it to others and even post it on your websites! If you do, just say this: 2011 Benchmark Report from the Enneagram in Business Network.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
1 Comment
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Anthonette
12 years ago

Really like your web sites particulars! Undoubtedly a beautiful provide of data that is extraordinarily helpful.

X