Avoid Talking About Spirituality Unless the Client Brings It Up
By Mario Sikora
Yes, the Enneagram of personality is rooted in “psychospiritual” practices and, yes, it has of late been spreading like wildfire in churches across the US.
However, the Enneagram of personality need not be framed as a “spiritual practice,” and when it comes to working in organizations, it shouldn’t be.
Here’s why:
Federal agencies are prohibited from using taxpayer dollars to fund religious training for their workforce. This occurs for two primary reasons—one legal and one ethical:
- The non-establishment clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution prohibits federal advocacy of a particular religious point of view, and
- It is not ethical to compel employees to attend religion-based training that may violate their own personal religious beliefs (or non-beliefs).
Publicly traded companies (i.e., those you and I can buy stock in) tend to follow the same policies and avoid religion-based training.
Now, I know you are probably thinking that “spiritual” and “religious” are different. Though I’m not so sure, even if they are different, the line separating them is fuzzy and subjective. What might seem “spiritual but not religious” to one person may smack of religion to another, and when an employee feels that they have been made to sit through “religious” training, they have every right to complain to the human resources department.
You will make life easy for your client’s HR staff and legal counsel by simply staying away from talk of spirituality.
Some people, of course, would assert that if you are not talking about the “spiritual aspects” of the Enneagram, you are not talking about the “real Enneagram.” There are too many problems with this assertion to fully address here, so I’ll just say this: The Enneagram of personality is not a fixed and bound body of knowledge. It is more akin to a social science, and social sciences grow, expand, and evolve all the time. There are ways to teach the Enneagram without invoking the supernatural that, I would argue, actually improve upon the system.
You’ll notice that I inserted the word “supernatural” here, rather than “spiritual.” I do so because “spirituality” is such a vague word that everyone has their own definition of it, some of which include the supernatural and some of which do not.
“Supernatural” means “that which is attributed to some force beyond scientific understanding or the laws of nature.” Any conversation of the supernatural veers into the territory of religion and, for reasons already stated, should be avoided in organizations.
If your personal definition of “spiritual” does not involve the supernatural but instead simply refers to things like cultivating wisdom, compassion, and a sense of wonder, avoid confusion by simply using those terms rather than referring to “spirituality.”
I’ve focused on group training to (U.S.) federal agencies and publicly traded companies up to this point. There may be times when a privately held (owned by an individual or small group) company wants a training that is religiously oriented or “spiritual.” That is a different situation and it is up to the client and trainer to decide what approach is the best for the group. Also, as an executive coach who has many one-on-one conversations with clients, the topic of spirituality or religion comes up on occasion. My rules of thumb in this situation are that 1) I never initiate the conversation and 2) I take a non-judgmental and non-advocating position.
I feel it’s important to emphasize that this post is not a critique of spirituality in general; outside of the workplace, one should feel free to teach whatever one wishes to teach.
However, if you plan to teach the Enneagram in organizations, I strongly encourage you to avoid introducing the idea of spirituality.
