Marshall Goldsmith is arguably the world's best leadership / business coach. He gets paid huge amounts of money to help leaders change their behavior and to become more effective. What I love about his work is that he understands human change. Marshall typically focuses on only one behavioural change over an extended period of time, not 2 or 5 or 10 behaviours, just one....

So...if its all about simplicity and focusing on one practice, wouldn't it be incredibly useful if we could find the one simple practice that really delivered the change we wanted?

This is what the Enneagram's genius is. The Riso Hudson version of the Enneagram is now validated by the world's leading psychological testing company, and is accepted as the most in depth personality typing instrument on the planet. It has such insight in the complex area of human change that it can help you zero down to just one key life changing practice. The right practice just for you. But don't be fooled, that one practice will challenge your entire identity and it will shake the foundations of all your assumptions about yourself. In other words, the Enneagram can help you and / or your clients find that one simple practice that will literally transform them and / or you into a healthier, more aware person. Much more aware. People who have done years of inner work have been consistently surprised at how much they have learnt from this amazing tool. It's not for the feint hearted though. It literally is for the leader in you. The leader who has the courage to really look at the building blocks of their fake personality, the leader who has the courage to really face down their most preciously held negative beliefs and to practice something totally authentic.

We all have a core fear and a self defeating inner message about ourselves. It's why we so rarely ever feel totally satisfied. For example, the Enneagram Type 9 believes that they can only be truly present and fully engaged in life and relationships if they and the people around them feel OK and are at peace with each other. Imagine what that would do to your leadership capability? Psychologically average Type 9's avoid conflicts, are overly tolerant of negative behaviour and are "nice" even when tough discussions need to be had. Performance feedback...well as long as its friendly and nice...and we are all OK... These are the leaders who will unconsciously favour peace over challenge and progress.

Why behave in such an obviously self defeating way? Well...imagine if your strongest, deepest (and unconscious) belief is that life is not worth living if important people around you are not OK? This really is the truth for 9's. Ironically if you are a 9, this may not ring true because it is denied and is a blind spot. Why? Because acknowledging its truth may force you to get uncomfortable and deal with some people differently, thereby disrupting the false peace...an anathema to 9's. What an impossible contract with life right? Giving this person conflict resolution tools would not really help them, because they will unconsciously avoid conflict anyway. As a leader this person needs to develop a deeper insight into what authentic peace is. They need to learn how to change their inner messages about life and themselves. They really need to look at a core practice that is going to take them right through the pain of realizing that pleasing others, or pleasant pretending is fake and will never work. That real peace comes from full engagement in life, conflict and honesty. They need the support to understand how to get there.

If we are not dealing with the core building blocks of our avoidances and our behavioural addictions we really are "moving furniture on the Titanic". Yes, working on our core issues can be a whole lot tougher than quick fix promises, but quick fixes don't work. I personally prefer what is real. How about you?