Episode 168: How Understanding Our Core Motivations Helps Us Develop as Leaders with Enneagram Expert, Sandhya Sudhakar
I am such a Type 4. You’re definitely a Type 2. My inner-Type 3 is coming out to play.
Maybe you know your Enneagram type or perhaps this is all new to you.
No matter which boat you’re in, Erin and Enneagram expert Sandhya Sudhakar discuss how she first became interested in Enneagram, why taking a sabbatical was the best decision she could’ve made, and how Enneagram helps us to understand how our core motivations can help us develop as leaders.
Sandhya Sudhakar created a company called Self at Work where she takes a trauma-informed, inclusive approach to leadership, development, and wellbeing in the professional sphere. Sandhya’s main goal is to help leaders build meaningful connections with themselves, their teams, and their work so they can achieve breakthrough business results without burning out their employees or themselves.
If you are a leader who wants to understand yourself so that you can understand your teams on a deeper, meaningful, tangible level, then this three-part series is for you.
ICYMI – Your Post-Episode Homework: Take the Enneagram test here to gain a deeper understanding of your core motivations.
Connect with Sandhya Sudhakar:
Sandhya’s LinkedIn
Sandhya’s company, Self at Work
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Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
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Episode 168 Transcription
Erin (00:02):
Improve it! Peeps. Welcome to today's episode, episode 168 of the Improve It Podcast. Today we are chatting with my new friend, Sandhya Sudhakar and Sandhya is going to give us some fantastic information when it comes to understanding ourself at work. Now, self at Work is actually the name of Son's company where she takes a trauma informed inclusive approach to leadership, development and wellbeing at work through this company's self at work, Sandhya helps leaders build meaningful connections with themselves, their teams, and their work so they can achieve breakthrough business results without burning out their employees or themselves. If you are a leader who wants to understand yourself so that you can understand your teams on a more deeper, meaningful, tangible level, this three part series is for you. So we are going to just dive right into this brilliant conversation with my friend Sandhya right now. Let's get to improving it. Okay. I am so excited to have you on the show. Welcome to the improve it! Podcast.
Sandhya (01:30):
Thank you. I am excited to be here.
Erin (01:34):
Oh, okay. So this is how we met. I was trying to think back to this. So I posted on LinkedIn, anyone know any Enneagram experts? And I've got such a great community on this, this platform, and your name came up several times and I said, we have to meet, we have to connect. And so I was waiting for that perfect opportunity. And then this month on the podcast, we're talking about evolution and growth. And I thought, what a perfect way to have a, to have our first meeting by hitting record <laugh>
Sandhya (02:13):
<Laugh>. Yeah. You know what? Let's just put it out there for the world to be a part of, of this experience with us. I,
Erin (02:21):
No, I'm like, I'm thrilled to chat with you. I loved researching your background. I listened to some of your talks and you are just fantastic. So let's set an intention for you and this show. What is, if you could say a one word intention, what is one word that you want to give our listeners?
Sandhya (02:45):
Oh man. Okay, so <laugh> I'm in between either tangible or like, I don't know, something about feeling seen connected.
Erin (03:00):
Mm. Okay. I dunno. Let's go. Can I have two? Let's go Connected. Yes. I like that. We'll do tangible connection. Perfect. Tangible connection. That could be, that could work out <laugh>. Okay. So we're talking all about evolution on the show this month and growth. And as leaders and professionals, we are just constantly evolving and Oh, I loved the, I know your story, but the Improvement Peeps don't know the story about how you came to the Enneagram, which we'll get to in just a minute. But in, in simple terms, what is the Enneagram for those who clicked on this show and have no clue what it's about?
Sandhya (03:44):
Yeah. So it is a framework for growth. That is the, the simplest way that I would explain it. And the maybe like slightly lower level of that is like underneath the surface. It's a, a framework for personality development. And so it helps us understand what is the why behind the way that we show up in the world. It's not about the behaviors or the characteristics or the traits. It's about the core motivation that in our best of best times, in our worst of worst times, it's often often in the driver's seat of our behavior.
Erin (04:22):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Oh my God. Okay. So this is a tool and we'll talk about how you came to, to be this Enneagram expert and coach in just a minute. But this is a tool that can really help leaders understand their teams. Can you go into depth a little bit about how you can use this personality test and evaluation to really expand your leadership capabilities?
Sandhya (04:51):
Yeah, I think it's twofold and everything that I have come to work on in my business with clients is there's an internal component and an external component. And so I think to have highly functioning, really connected teams, we as leaders have to equip our people with tools and resources to develop their own emotional intelligence. So how can people show up to an environment knowing themselves, knowing their impact working on things that they maybe want to, to show up in a different way, and how do we create the right environment for them to show up into that feels inclusive of their version of authenticity? Hmm. So it's really kind of dual focus of like, starting with me. How do I show up? What do I wanna work on? How do I, I show up at my best as often as possible, and how do I show up into an environment where my way of doing things is accepted and leaning into like the superpowers that I bring into the world? There's a place for that.
Erin (05:59):
Mm. I love that that tangible connection is coming out. Okay. So okay, let's just jump into it because I love this story of how your company's self at work came to be. I read all up on this <laugh>, but could you give our audience, we call ourselves Improve It Peeps just a high level overview of the journey to creating self at work. How, how did you create self at work?
Sandhya (06:29):
Yeah. I like to say that my business found me. I was a, you know, you're box checking, corporate ladder climbing, high achieving women. And I ran into some circumstances where I, for the first time in my life was like really confused about what was going on inside of my body and felt out of control. I had a, a relationship that was really challenging and I had just gone through two different acquisitions in a, in the span of a couple of years and found myself really not connected to the work I was doing. Not motivated just feeling kind of empty. And it was something that I had never experienced before in my life because I love work. And so I quit it all. I quit life and I went and traveled and went on a sabbatical. <Laugh>?
Erin (07:23):
Yes. Wait, how long was the sabbatical? We need to know this.
Sandhya (07:27):
It was supposed to be four months and then I was gonna come back and work on my resume and get like a real adult job. But it turned into seven months because while I was on one of my trips, I just realized like, I am having too much fun and this is too great and I'm not ready to go back yet. And I ended up on my last trip, I came back on like March 14th, 2020. Ah straight into lockdown. So it was kind of quite a rollercoaster. Wait,
Erin (07:56):
Where were you coming from?
Sandhya (07:57):
I was coming from Costa Rica, so I came back to Chicago and hunkered down <laugh>. But while I was traveling I was doing things and I promised myself this, that, you know, when I was on this sabbatical, I was gonna just do things that I love that I was interested in. I wasn't gonna like think about what's next or look for a job or work on my resume. I was gonna just do me. And then when I came back home to Chicago, I would like figure out the other stuff. And in doing all of this and just doing things that excited me and that I loved and that I was super interested in. On one of my trips, I did an agram workshop for, you know, 15 strangers from around the world just for fun because that's how I am <laugh>. I love like a psychology nerd, a personal development nerd. I love to like, create experiences for people and planned trips. And so it just, like all the things I loved to do came together and I recognized how exciting it was for me and how energizing it was for me. And then everybody else was like talking about this workshop for the rest of our like trip together. And so I, I kind of had this moment where I was like, okay, I think there might be something here, you know,
Erin (09:14):
<Laugh>. Yeah. And wait, okay, so you taught the workshop, you had experienced Enneagram before you had seen it work at in your life. Okay. And you come back, then what happens once you're hunkered down and you're like, you saw this epiphany?
Sandhya (09:31):
Yeah. I came back and actually, so I started just sharing agram with people, right? It was that early covid time when people, we were having Zoom happy hours and whatever. So I did like some agram workshops for like friends that we would like get together on Zoom during Covid and you know, have our drinks and chat. And and one of the people on that trip to Bali that that was in the workshop that I did was the c e o of a travel company and said, Hey, do you wanna come do this for my team? And so my first client found me <laugh>. And so a couple months later I started working with Ingram, with teams, helping people really get to know each other at a really deep level, helping people articulate like, what is the thing underneath the surface that really motivates each individual differently?
Sandhya (10:23):
How can they speak to that, share that, how do you talk about how your team can support you? And I, I find, and I found over the course of, as this has evolved, Keith e word here right? That so much of what this is about is language. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> having the words to articulate and express things that like you always known but you just didn't necessarily like put it into words or share it with people and context of how am I and how are other people? So like just having the language and having the context is like it opens up these doors for conversation that we just don't get to proactively in our normal team operations and day-to-day.
Erin (11:09):
Yes. Okay. And so Self at Work was born, you have been doing this with teams all over Chicago, all over the us is that right?
Sandhya (11:19):
Correct. I've worked with a couple of teams internationally over Zoom because Yep. All around the country and yeah, it's, it's, it's just kind of, I'm riding the wave <laugh>,
Erin (11:32):
I love it. And it's started actually internationally in Bali, which is fascinating. That is very true. You know what? Things just find you like that. How freaking cool. I want a seven month sabbatical, <laugh>, can we talk about that? That's, you're coming back on the show, how to give yourself a seventh month sabbatical. Even, you know what, I'm a, I'm a, an entrepreneur. Like we could figure this out, right? How we could do this with our team sets next. Okay, you're coming back for that next, but yes,
Sandhya (11:59):
Totally <laugh>.
Erin (12:01):
So, okay, so the Enneagram for has nine different personality types. Is that right?
Sandhya (12:09):
Yes. There's nine types at, its kind of like core. Each person has a dominant type. So that is the one type that is most true to you, not necessarily based on the behaviors of the traits or the things you see on Instagram, but based on that core motivation. The core fear is the core desire is the real human stuff and that stays with you for your whole life. But how we express that motivation changes depending on if we're really stressed and exhausted or if we're in a really good place in our life or if we've experienced trauma or if we've gone to therapy and done some work on certain parts of ourselves. So we change and evolve and grow. That core motivation stays the same, but it's about like, do I have more agency and how I express it versus kind of falling into a patterned kind of reactive way of expressing it.
Erin (13:05):
Hmm. Okay. Okay, that makes sense. Okay, so when we first connected, I had taken a Enneagram test years ago, confirmed I was a three. And then knowing we were gonna have this, this call today, I took it again yesterday and I took it on truity.com, which I'll link to in the show notes, I will ask you later. I want to know where you take your Enneagram tests. But for the purpose of this, I have confirmed that I am a three wing seven and you are a three wing two. So can you break this down <laugh> in the simplest terms and tell the listeners what does this mean? What does a being a three mean? And we'll just start there cuz there's nine different personality types. We don't have time to break down all nine today, but if we could start with a three, what does it mean to be a three?
Sandhya (14:06):
Yeah. Well, and first, let me just say, so a wing is on either side of the number of your dominant type. So if you're a three, you can have a two wing or a four wing. But technically in the framework of the engram, you can't have a seven wing. Now you might really relate to the seven and, and feel really connected to the 70 parts of the three. So anyway, we could break, we could break that down for you later. But the three is success-oriented image focused. Some of this stuff is great, some of it's, you know, a little mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> makes you cringe, right?
Erin (14:43):
We'll do it. Give us the real deal. We need, we need it real and true around here.
Sandhya (14:47):
<Laugh>. Yeah. So success-oriented, image focused a doer, a get done <laugh> super efficient and effective at what they do. And so there's this idea, the core motivation is it's to be valuable and to be worthwhile and to be successful and to be seen successful. And so they're great at understanding expectations. They use this kind of social intelligence to say, I know what everybody wants me to be when I walk in a room, and I can be that, and I can be that like really efficiently. I know exactly how to get straight to the outcome of that. And so it's an excellent thing where you have goals to meet, right? And it's like, I can get to the goal really efficiently. I know how to do that. It can be a challenging thing when we're really driven by expectations of others and we're not aware of that. And so we kind of go down these paths or shape shift ourselves to fit into different scenarios almost unconsciously and kind of like lose a little bit of our own authenticity. Not to say being fake, but like being able to kind of be different people in different rooms. And when you're doing that actively or like intentionally, that's great, but when you're kind of losing yourself in that process, that can be where like being a type three is really challenging.
Erin (16:17):
I am super here for this and all of this. I mean, listen, she went on a self-healing journey in 20 22, 20 23, and people pleasing was at the forefront of that problem. Okay? And that is just when reading the description of our, of our Enneagram type, oh my god, it's so true. It helps me understand my own core motivations, which I know could be so valuable for a leader to see the personality types or the Enneagram types of their team members. You can learn how to effectively manage and lead and coach them through this process, which I'm super here for and which is what you're helping teams do, right?
Sandhya (17:02):
Yeah. I had two different teams recently where one of, one of the leaders, as soon as we finished the session, she was like looking at her like pages of notes, right? Where she was writing down each person's type and kind of what the motivation is. And she's like, yeah, some things really landed for me, <laugh> <laugh> like, oh yeah, now I see why we butt heads on this one thing all the time, or why this person does so much better with like cleared structure and this person does better with like messiness or, you know, all these different things. And I had another one recently where she was actually going through a restructure and she started to move people into different roles based on the things that they said were most supportive or allow them to do their best work. And she's like, this is gonna be so much better because I realized I, I had people in roles that wanted messiness, that had a lot of structure in that role and vice versa, or this is a white space. And so there aren't clear expectations. And so somebody who should be in that wants to be in the muck and in the complexity of figuring those things out. So it was just like a really cool to have that stuff reflected back and see you can make real decisions based on this. Now, I wouldn't say make a decision based on someone's number, right? Make a decision based on them and what they're articulating to you that they need and how they thrive. But you can really like see a lot of return from having these conversations.
Erin (18:31):
So freaking cool. So cool. And when you think too of, or you think about a leader in your own life who probably has paved the way for you in terms of great leadership? I think about, I think of two leaders in my own personal life. One who I think really understood my personality and the way to lead it, the other who did the opposite. And it was a, it was night and day and how I wanted to, and how I personally showed up for this person and for my job. Because on one hand, the person who understood it, I felt seen, heard and valued, which is all about this connection piece, this tangible connection piece we're talking about. And on the other hand, I felt misunderstood and I felt like I was just another cog in the wheel. And I did it matter. And even though I was throwing myself into this job, it was never valued. And so this personality, I don't wanna call it a is it a personality assessment? Is that the right place? Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Sandhya (19:36):
That's an accurate way for sure. Yes. To describe it.
Erin (19:47):
Okay. So this episode just gave us this deeper understanding of how our core motivations can help us develop as leaders. And if you were listening to today's episode and have not taken the Enneagram, take a Google, you can go to truity.com, you can Google Enneagram test results or Enneagram testing on your Google platform. Take this test, take this assessment, and see where you land on the Enneagram scale. This is all about evolution and all about growth. So investing not only in today's episode, but in yourself and in yourself, growth is huge, huge. I wanna encourage you to understand where you fall on the Enneagram scale. So that is your homework for today. Come back for part two of this three part series, episode 169. We have a great show for you all about the biggest challenges with this assessment. I'll see you back here for episode 169 with Sandhya Sudhakar. Hey friend, did you enjoy today's show? If so, head on over to iTunes to rate and subscribe. So you never miss an episode. Now, did I mention that when you leave a five star review of the Improve It podcast, an actual team of humans does a happy dance? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>? That's right. So leave a review for us on iTunes, screenshot it, and send me an email at info learn to improve it.com. I'll send you a personalized video back as a thank you. Thanks so much for listening. Improve at Peeps. I'll see you next Wednesday.