The ATA Enneagram in the Workplace
Awareness to Action International provides programs at the individual, team, and enterprise levels to help organizations move from Awareness to Action. All our core programs can be customized to meet your organization’s specific needs–rather than simply offering one-size-fits-all programs, we can meet with you to conduct a needs assessment and design something specifically for you.
Enhancing Performance and Collaboration in the Workplace
The ATA Enneagram offers profound insights into nine distinct personality types, each with its own unique strengths and blind spots. At Awareness to Action International, we seamlessly integrate the ATA Enneagram into workplace dynamics to elevate both individual and organizational performance. By applying this model, we help individuals identify their strengths while addressing challenges that may impede their professional growth. While the Enneagram is often understood as a system of nine “types,” the ATA Enneagram also incorporates a critical dimension—the three Instinctual Biases. Our approach works with these two dimensions, combining an understanding of the instinctual biases and the nine Ennea-types, to create a comprehensive framework that promotes personal development and enhances team collaboration.
Our approach, the ATA Enneagram, is designed for business environments as well as general personal transformation. We understand that successful leadership and team dynamics rely on recognizing and leveraging individual differences. The ATA Enneagram serves as a practical tool to improve self-awareness, enhance communication, and cultivate a collaborative workplace culture. Through our variety of programs, we empower leaders and teams to navigate challenges, capitalize on diverse strengths, and achieve long-term success.
Enneagram Types in the Workplace
Understanding Enneagram types in the workplace goes beyond simple personality assessments; it offers a roadmap for personal and professional growth. Understanding each type reveals key motivations, behaviors, and interpersonal dynamics, providing valuable insights into how individuals function within teams. By using the ATA Enneagram, individuals can enhance emotional intelligence, resolve conflicts, and improve team performance. Our workshops, training programs, and consulting and coaching services leverage these insights to create a deeper understanding of workplace dynamics, helping both individuals and organizations thrive.
How to Use the ATA Enneagram in the Workplace
The ATA Enneagram provides a unique and powerful framework for understanding and improving workplace dynamics. By integrating this system into your organization, you can foster an environment of collaboration and professional growth. Here are several ways to use the Enneagram in the workplace:
1. Enhance Self-Awareness
The ATA Enneagram helps individuals understand their inherent motivations, behaviors, and reactions to various workplace situations. By identifying their type and instinctual bias, employees gain valuable insights into their strengths and areas for growth. For example, a Type 1 may recognize how their perfectionism can sometimes hinder progress, while a Type 7 can learn to focus their energy and avoid distractions. Encouraging team members to explore their type and instinctual bias through the ATA Enneagram fosters professional growth and development.
2. Improve Communication
The ATA Enneagram helps teams communicate effectively by highlighting how different types and instinctual biases shape interactions. For example, when faced with organizational change, those with the Preserving Instinctual Bias may emphasize stability and practical details, those with the Navigating Instinctual Bias may focus on team consensus and interpersonal relationships, and those with the Transmitting Instinctual Bias may prioritize innovation and visibility. Understanding these distinctions enables teams to enhance collaboration, minimize misunderstandings, and resolve conflicts more efficiently.
3. Build Effective Teams
The ATA Enneagram offers valuable insights into how different people interact, collaborate, and contribute to team dynamics. It helps leaders and team members recognize how each individual’s strengths can complement others. By understanding these dynamics, teams can leverage each person’s strengths—whether it’s a Type 5’s analytical thinking, a Type 8’s leadership, or a Type 9’s ability to mediate conflict—leading to enhanced collaboration, innovation, and overall success. Using the ATA Enneagram as a tool to understand team dynamics fosters stronger collaboration and helps teams work more effectively toward shared goals.
4. Resolve Conflict
The ATA Enneagram offers insights into how different people engage in–and sometimes avoid–conflict. For example, a Type 8’s directness may be seen as aggression by a Type 9, who tends to avoid confrontation. Understanding these differences helps resolve conflicts and improves collaboration. Conflict can also arise from varying priorities tied to instinctual biases. Preservers focus on stability, Navigators on group dynamics, and Transmitters on innovation. Once teams understand these biases, they can depersonalize conflict and focus on resolving differences in priorities, rather than on personal attacks. There is no better tool than the ATA Enneagram to help teams better collaborate and work toward shared goals.
5. Develop Leadership Skills
The ATA Enneagram enhances leadership effectiveness by increasing self-awareness and improving team management. Understanding their enneagram type and instinctual bias helps leaders leverage strengths and address potential challenges. For example, Type Three leaders (“Pacesetters”) set high standards but can become frustrated if others don’t match their pace. Recognizing this allows Type Threes to develop patience and foster stronger team collaboration.
6. Foster Professional Growth
The ATA Enneagram is a powerful tool for driving professional growth within your team. Encouraging employees to explore their enneagram types and instinctual bias helps them identify areas for improvement, develop new skills, and reach their potential in their professional roles. As employees become more aware of their work-related behaviors and tendencies, they can adapt and refine their approaches, leading to higher performance and greater contributions to the organization.
7. Drive Organizational Change
The ATA Enneagram can be a valuable asset during organizational change. Whether it’s adapting to new management, a shift in company culture, or the implementation of new processes, understanding how different enneagram types and instinctual bias may react to change can help leaders manage transitions more effectively. Some types may embrace change with enthusiasm, while others may resist it. Recognizing these tendencies allows leaders to tailor their approach to ensure smoother transitions and greater buy-in from employees.
8. Improve Employee Engagement
When employees feel understood and valued for their professional contributions, their engagement and job satisfaction naturally increase. Using the ATA Enneagram to recognize the diverse work-related needs and motivations of your team members helps create a supportive, productive environment. Understanding these distinctions allows managers to create personalized strategies for employee engagement, resulting in improved retention, job satisfaction, and overall team performance.
Transform Leadership and Business with Awareness to Action
Ignite Growth and Success with the ATA Enneagram
At Awareness to Action International, we bring the transformative power of the Enneagram to leadership, teams, and organizations. Whether you’re looking to elevate your leadership impact, strengthen team collaboration, or drive organizational growth, our programs are designed to help you thrive in today’s dynamic workplace.
Let us guide you on a journey to uncover potential, overcome challenges, and create lasting success.
ATA Enneagram for Business:
At Awareness to Action International, we offer specialized programs designed to meet the unique needs of businesses and leaders. Our Enneagram-based solutions for the workplace support leaders, teams, and organizations in enhancing their performance, communication, and effectiveness. Explore our key business-focused programs below:
Awareness to Action Executive Coaching Program
“Everybody needs a coach.” Eric Schmidt
The most-elite athletes and performers know that to continue to excel over the long-term they need guidance from a trusted advisor. Leaders in organizations, however, often ignore former Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s advice and fail to take advantage of a coach. They fall into the trap of believing that past success guarantees future success.
This is a mistake.
Everybody needs a coach.
At Awareness to Action International, we provide coaching to a wide range of leaders across multiple industries and diverse cultures. Our clients span five continents and numerous business sectors, and we bring over two decades of experience working with global leaders to bear on our engagements with our clients.
Not Just “Enneagram Coaching;” You Need Awareness to Action Coaching
Unlock Success in the Workplace
If you’re not growing as a leader, team, or business, you’re falling behind.
It’s that simple.
The modern workplace demands constant adaptability, collaboration, and innovation. Leaders face complex challenges, teams strive to maintain synergy, and businesses must continuously evolve to stay competitive. That’s where coaching with the Enneagram makes the difference–especially with the ATA Enneagram.
But don’t be fooled by people who simply offer “Enneagram Coaching”–we offer “Enneagram-informed coaching.” The distinction is important–the ATA Enneagram informs our work, but we are deeply experienced executive coaches who use the Enneagram in business, not people whose only tool is the Enneagram.
For over 25 years, Awareness to Action International has helped leaders, teams, and organizations around the globe leverage the ATA Enneagram in the workplace to achieve transformational growth. Whether you’re seeking individual leadership development, enhanced team dynamics, or strategies for enterprise success, our tailored coaching can help you thrive.
Awareness to Action Coaching Process
Our coaching approach offers personalized strategies for growth, typically involving:
- Initial Consultation: A 30-minute session to clarify objectives and align on goals.
- In-depth Assessment: A comprehensive evaluation of strengths, challenges, and professional aspirations, leveraging the Enneagram framework.
- 360-Degree Feedback: Gather insights through stakeholder interviews to enhance leadership and team effectiveness.
- Feedback & Action Planning: Collaborate on targeted strategies for measurable growth.
- Ongoing Coaching: Tailored sessions to reinforce progress and address emerging needs.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Partner with key stakeholders to ensure alignment and long-term success.
Why Does ATA Enneagram-Informed Coaching Work?
The ATA Enneagram provides a powerful framework for understanding human behavior, motivations, and interactions. Our approach uses this model to help individuals and organizations achieve:
Clarity
Identify real challenges and opportunities for growth.
Alignment
Align leadership, team, and business goals with core values.
Sustainability
Implement actionable plans that drive lasting impact.
By integrating the ATA Enneagram in the workplace, we empower leaders, teams, and enterprises to excel in today’s ever-changing business landscape.
ATA Enneagram Coaching Principles:
Awareness, Authenticity, and Action
Our coaching engagements are tailored to meet the needs of our individual clients, but they all build on a foundation of three principles:
Awareness
Awareness—All growth starts with increased self-awareness. We accomplish this through an in-depth 360 assessment via verbal interviews and a personality style assessment.
Authenticity
We build on what the client already values rather than try to change who they are. We help them rewrite their inner narratives in a way that honors their sense of self while allowing them to incorporate new behaviors.
Action
Improving self-awareness and talking about growth are not enough, we need to take action. We help our clients develop and execute on clear and precise action plans that take them toward their developmental goals as directly as possible.
Clear Thinking and Decision-Making Program for Leaders
The best leaders have clear vision.
This doesn’t mean they just know where they want to go; they also have the ability to read the world around them, assess it, and make decisions based on a solid foundation of clear-thinking skills.
Unfortunately, we live in a volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world and clarity is in short supply. Our brains are wired for much simpler times, and we are weighed down by cognitive biases and thinking patterns that worked to help our ancestors survive in a very different environment, but can work against us as we try to thrive in our more complicated and nuanced world.
“Clear Thinking and Decision Making for Leaders” helps leaders recognize the challenges they are up against when it comes to accurately and effectively assessing their environment and making decisions on reliable information with objectivity and logic. Those obstacles are:
- Built-in biases of the brain
- Personality
- Cultural filters
- Ignorance, and
- Misinformation
The program helps leaders develop skill in using the tools for countering each of these obstacles—the five elements of the Awareness to Action Clear Thinking Model.
Contact us today to find out more and to discuss your company’s needs. ATA’s consultants will work with you to design a program that is right for your company.
How We Use the ATA Enneagram for Leadership, Teams, and Business Success
At Awareness to Action International, we focus on empowering growth at all organizational levels:
The modern workplace demands constant adaptability, collaboration, and innovation. Leaders face complex challenges, teams strive to maintain synergy, and businesses must continuously evolve to stay competitive. That’s where coaching with the Enneagram–the ATA Enneagram–makes the difference.
For over 25 years, Awareness to Action International has helped leaders, teams, and organizations around the globe leverage the ATA Enneagram in the workplace to achieve transformational growth. Whether you’re seeking individual leadership development, enhanced team dynamics, or strategies for enterprise success, our tailored ATA Enneagram coaching can help you thrive.
Leadership:
- Develop self-awareness, adaptability, and strategic decision-making.
- Overcome limiting beliefs and enhance authentic leadership skills.
- Foster resilience and confidence to lead in dynamic environments.
Teams:
- Improve collaboration and resolve conflicts through a deeper understanding of team dynamics.
- Align individual strengths with collective goals for optimal performance.
- Create a culture of trust, communication, and shared accountability.
Enterprises:
- Use the Enneagram for business to create adaptable strategies and scalable systems.
- Strengthen organizational culture by addressing challenges at their root.
- Equip leaders with the tools to navigate complexity and foster innovation.
Personalities@Work: Our Signature Program
Transforming Companies with the ATA Enneagram in the Workplace
Connecting People and Enhancing Team Dynamics
Technology has made us more connected than ever. However, it has also contributed to a sense of disconnection at a human level, creating friction and making teamwork increasingly challenging. One of the best ways to address this issue is by understanding the diverse work personality types and how they can be effectively aligned to foster collaboration and high performance. The Personalities@Work Program provides the perfect framework for this.
The Power of the ATA Enneagram in the Workplace
Foster Better Communication, Collaboration, and Teamwork
Successful organizations understand that differences are not obstacles to overcome but opportunities to harness individual strengths. Our Personalities at Work program helps organizations foster better communication, collaboration, and teamwork by helping individuals understand not only their own personalities but also those of their colleagues.
The ATA Enneagram Helps Teams Overcome Friction
Understanding the ATA Enneagram is key to reducing friction in the workplace. By recognizing the different ATA Enneagram personality styles and instinctual biases, organizations can create an environment where differences are seen as assets, not obstacles. Our program helps individuals understand what drives them and their colleagues, allowing them to communicate more effectively and collaborate more harmoniously.
People with different personality types can clash because they have different values and priorities. For example, someone who values quick results may clash with someone who values thoroughness, even though both are contributing to the team’s success in their own way. The ATA Enneagram helps individuals identify these clashes early and gives them tools to navigate them, leading to a more cohesive and productive team.
ATA Teams Program
Transforming Team Performance with the ATA Enneagram in the Workplace
In today’s dynamic business environment, organizational excellence demands effective coordination across all levels of your enterprise. The Awareness to Action (ATA) Teams program provides a systematic approach to developing leadership capabilities through a unique dual framework—the ATA Enneagram–that enhances both individual and organizational performance.
From this foundation, we provide a robust menu of time-tested leadership-development and teambuilding tools and concepts that will prepare your team to meet whatever challenges the market brings your way.
Strategic Organizational Development
Our proprietary methodology combines two powerful frameworks for business excellence:
The Three Instinctual Biases: Overcoming your team’s self-imposed implicit vulnerabilities and leveraging its natural strengths through analysis of three fundamental drives that shape organizational behavior:
- Preserving: Resource optimization, operational stability, and sustainable growth
- Navigating: Stakeholder relationships, market adaptability, and network development
- Transmitting: Market influence, brand development, and innovation leadership
The Nine ATA Enneagram Strategies: Maximizing individual and team interactions. Our ATA Enneagram framework reveals nine distinct approaches to leadership, innovation, and team dynamics.
Understanding these two elements of the ATA Enneagram of personality helps you:
- Create authentic and aligned organizational culture
- Develop targeted leadership programs and enhance leadership pipelines
- Optimize employee engagement and retention
- Increase management effectiveness and cross-functional collaboration
Creating Alignment Between You, Your Product, and Your Customer
Achieve Seamless Alignment with ATA Enneagram-Based Strategies in the Workplace
To close the gap between your product and your customer’s needs, you must understand what drives their decisions. Awareness to Action’s proven framework, combined with expert coaching, helps you uncover the fundamental human values shaping their priorities.
This approach equips you with the tools to position your product or your organization as the perfect solution, build trust, and eliminate objections. Start using these strategies today to create deeper connections, close deals faster, and drive lasting results.
Instinctual Selling Program
Sales success depends on building rapport, understanding our customer’s needs, and speaking to those needs. Our “Instinctual Selling Program” helps you do that better by understanding how the three Instinctual Biases of the ATA Enneagram shape both salesperson and customer behavior and values.
For example:
Transmitting
Transmitting salespeople are often engaging and charismatic but can struggle to hear the customer’s needs.
Preserving
Preserving salespeople are methodical and consistent but can struggle to engage with customers.
Navigating
Navigating salespeople are good at understanding customer needs but can struggle with consistent execution.
Instinctual Selling provides a revolutionary framework for understanding and connecting with any customer, in any industry, at any stage of the buying process. The program has been developed by renowned Enneagram of personality model experts and founders of Awareness to Action International, Mario Sikora and Maria Jose Munita, in collaboration with ATA business-development advisor Jenny Byrnes from Enneagram Edge Consulting, who brings decades of real-world sales management experience to the program.
Testimonials
A Conversation About Instinctual Biases in the Workplace
Dive Deeper into the Instinctual Biases of the ATA Enneagram’s in the Workplace with Mario Sikora
Read the conversation about the Instinctual Biases in the Workplace with Mario Sikora, CEO of Awareness to Action International. In this interview, Mario explains how the three instinctual biases—Preserving, Navigating, and Transmitting—influence how people approach their work, communicate, and collaborate within teams.
By understanding these biases, leaders can improve team dynamics, reduce conflicts, and better align roles with individual strengths.
To dive deeper into the discussion, check out the full interview: Understanding the Three Instinctual Biases in the Workplace.
Start Your Journey Today
Executive Coaching
Preparing high-performing
leaders to scale effectively.
Group programs
Creating understanding around group
behavior through the Enneagram.
Enneagram OnDemand
Our asynchronous, self-directed introduction to personalities at work.
Grow your organization.
Stop letting habitual and limited narratives keep your organization from continuing to grow. Equip your organization with the tools they need to work with their innate tendencies, better understand their environment, and capably adapt to any situation.