33: Steph Barron-Hall, on Enneagram in the Workplace and Leaving Well
“When we have these mass layoffs that we’ve been seeing, that’s really destabilizing. I think that managers forget about that emotional aspect of humans, no matter who you are, it’s going to impact you.”
Stephanie Barron Hall (M.A. Organizational Communication & Leadership) is a speaker, Accredited Enneagram Practitioner, published author, and host of the Enneagram in Real Life Podcast. Stephanie has been facilitating personality-centric team development for years as an outside consultant for organizations ranging from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies. Stephanie's approach to the Enneagram is grounded in communication theory and emphasizes deep personal work through application, curiosity, and self-awareness.
“What do I need from me? What does my family need? What does my future self need? So I think that’s leaving well and in whatever scenario, I think that’s really important.”
Additional Quotes:
It's like that concept of you build the plane while you're flying it. We love to say that. But you can only do that for so long before you actually have to really legitimize things.
When we have these mass layoffs that we've been seeing, that's really destabilizing. I think that managers forget about that emotional aspect of humans, no matter who you are, it's going to impact you.
When people bring me in, they're ready to talk a little bit, at least about emotions so I'm able to meet people there and to talk about those things. A lot of the time leaders will say, I don't understand why this is happening. Or there's this issue on my team where there's this conflict. They want something tactical but it's an emotional problem.
To purchase the books we discussed:
Necessary Endings, Dr. Henry Cloud: Amazon | Bookshop
Drive, Daniel Pink: Amazon | Bookshop
To learn more about finding your Enneagram type.
To connect with Steph or learn more about her work:
Take the Workplace Transition Archetype Quiz.
To learn more about Leaving Well, click here.
My Bookshop.org Leaving Well library has many resources to support your workplace transition journey!
To support and contribute to the production costs of this podcast:
This podcast is produced by Sarah Hartley.
Transcript:
What do I need from me? What does my family need? What does my future self need? So I think that's leaving well, and in whatever scenario, I think that's really important.
This is Leaving Well, where we unearth and explore the realities of leaving a job, role, project, or title with intention and purpose, and when possible. Joy. I'm Naomi Hattaway, your host. I will bring you experiences and lessons learned about necessary endings in the workplace with nuanced takes from guests on topics such as grief, confidence, leadership, and career development.
Braided throughout will be solo episodes sharing my best practices and leaving well framework. Expect to be inspired. Challenged and reminded that you too can embed and embody the art and practice of leaving well as you seek to leave your imprint in this world. Stephanie Barron Hall, who has an MA in Organizational Communication and Leadership is a speaker accredited Enneagram practitioner, published author and host of the Enneagram in Real Life podcast.
Stephanie facilitates personality centric team development as an outside consultant for organizations ranging from small businesses to fortune 100 companies. Stephanie's approach to the Enneagram is grounded in communication theory and emphasizes deep personal work through application, curiosity, and self awareness.
Steph, I'm really glad to have you on the podcast. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. I would love if you would start us off by sharing a little bit about yourself and also your relationship to change and transition. You know, I teach the Enneagram these days and I do so in organizations. I work a lot with teams, which I really love.
I love working with teams. One thing that This is just like a fun tidbit is that people are people, right? We forget that, but then you work with all these executives and you're like, Oh, they have doubts. They've gotten imposter syndrome. They have feelings just like everybody else, you know? So, so I, I really like that about the type of work I get to do, but I have had kind of this lifelong curiosity with personalities, like understanding why we operate the way that we do, how we tick.
And that's kind of why I. Got into this work in the first place. I did my undergrad in psychology, got really interested in, um, industrial organizational psychology, wanted to go into a PhD program. And then very quickly, it was like, Oh my gosh, school's way too expensive. I can not afford this. So I ended up in these different spaces where I was working a lot with.
Well, I actually worked a lot with, uh, adults with developmental disabilities, um, and children as well early in my career, but I also was able to work with really awesome teams, really awesome management teams. And that kind of sparked that interest for me. So I've, I've had these different points of transition and really a big part of my story is.
Cycles of burnout, which we can chat about more, but all of those sorts of things have kind of brought me here where I am today. I would love to actually, if you're up for it, go, go into that, the cycles of burnout that you experienced. I think that there's so much that we hold. In when we're experiencing burnout, when we're experiencing those struggles in the workplace or around our work, I know some, you know, if you're listening and you're not in that space at the workplace, but it might be a board volunteer opportunity or a project that you're working on and we don't normalize.
What it can look like, what it can feel like and what it can do to us. So yeah, I would love that if you could share a little more. Yeah. So I think one thing that's, there are a few important pieces of this one, if you know, the Enneagram, which, you know, we can again, talk about, I also have some really simple resources.
I can send your way that people can just download and be like, Oh, this is, this is me, I lead with Enneagram three and the type three is really motivated by this need to feel valued and worthy from other people. I'm not claiming that that's a healthy thing, right? Like, but it is like this, this sense of wiring.
And so it's a thing where it's easy for threes to be really efficient. They shut down their emotions and they just grind early in my career. I was, when I was 23, I was, I had like 12 people, I think 12 to 14 people on my staff at this organization I was at. And I remember these moments where I had the thought process, like if you're not Falling over dead at the end of the day, you haven't worked hard yet.
And combined with, you know, I, I was born and raised in Texas, like from Dallas. And a lot of my family is from, you know, my, like my grandparents and stuff. They're from farmland in Texas, World War II veteran, having that kind of Thought process instilled is like, you just grin and bear it. You just grind, you work yourself to the bone.
And basically you work for pennies too. It's like something honorable about working for nothing, like working on a good cause for like no money. Right. And so I think that those concepts were really ingrained in me and burnout has been a thing that I haven't always seen coming. When I worked, you know, at this organization where I was a manager, I was a leader, I got, it was, it was really emotionally exhausting work.
We were a day program for adults with developmental disabilities. And during that time, California was being de institutionalized in terms of adults with developmental disabilities, which. In a lot of ways, I can understand, like, I, I want those people in our communities. I want there to be this sense of community care and our society is not built up, built for that.
So one of the challenges is these people have had these resources their entire life, where they live in the same community, in the same campus, and then they're sent out and they have to go to all these disparate services. They have their group home, they have their day program, they have all these different things.
There can be good things there. There are also a lot of challenges and our program ended up having some of the most behavioral challenging cases in the state. Now, that's not because we decided that necessarily it's part of the way that funding works the regional centers, those sorts of things in California so because of that, and, and because our.
Where we worked really valued, you know, the people we had an amazing leadership team and really good management. We have people pouring into us and we were just exhausted. So. After many years of working there, I got to this place where I was like, I can't do this anymore. You know, I just wanted to be able to sit at my desk and to some, for somebody to not need me for five.
And of course, because, you know, again, like I said, type three, I, during this time felt really excited and passionate about starting my own business. So I started doing event florals. So I did wedding and event florals on the weekends. And then I had this day program job. During the weekdays. So you can see what's coming, right?
So I ended up, I changed jobs. I ended up working in, in e commerce merchandising, which is essentially like data analysis, trend forecasting. There were a lot of things I really liked about that, you know, burned myself out on the floral business. You know, I was doing this job and then I got bored for five seconds.
And I was like, what can I do? Went back to grad school, started learning and teaching the Enneagram and then started my current business. And then in my current business, I've had various cycles of burnout. And actually this year I've had such intense burnout that it's really transformed. I think the way that I think about my work and it's been a real wake up call.
That's really interesting to think about because I think we give ourselves this false narrative. Also that owning our own business for those of us that have been burnt out by corporate or by nonprofit or by service impact type jobs, owning our own business is the answer. And so it's really interesting to hear you say that you've had your own version of burnout inside of running your own business.
Yeah. So I think that first off, I don't know if I really recommend running a business the way that I did it, because what happened for me is I started selling like coffee mugs for each any room type and then started writing about it on Instagram. And then my Instagram just started growing to where I couldn't actually have a job and being grad school and do this Instagram thing.
And I wanted at the time I had already been teaching in teams for about a year. And it was a lot to balance. And so I ended up quitting my corporate job, which was really hard. We'd had layoffs like a year. I think it was like a year and a half before I eventually left. And I struggled a lot with anxiety every day where I was like, just lay me off already.
Like I just, just give me that severance and I will go because it was a lot for me to hold that tension and that like the uncertainty. And actually shortly after I left my team, but I think that I didn't have a really solid plan. And in those early days, honestly, I didn't necessarily need one because things were just running.
It's like that, that concept of you build the plane while you're flying it. And we love to say that, but You can only do that for so long before you actually have to really legitimize things. And it's been a continual cycle of every year, bringing in more systems, more structure, more legitimacy to the business and wrestling.
Like, should I even keep doing this? Cause I'm so tired. But the thing that really made me burned out this year was actually writing. A book while running a business that was just beyond the tale. I think that's another thing that we have a false narrative around is the whole idea of writing a book and the importance of it and the, all the things I just saw Lisa Renee Hall.
I don't know if you know who Lisa Renee is, but she wrote a book and she just posted about the both and of celebrating its release and being. Absolutely exhausted. And she's like, we don't talk as authors enough about the fact that it's not just exciting to have finished the book. It's really draining to have gotten to that point.
So. Well, so there's, there's the, the writing of the book, right? Then there's all the self criticism and the feelings of inadequacy and the what's wrong with you. You can, why don't you just put one like word in front of the other, all that stuff. I have the whole issue too, with what are they going to say?
Who's going to come after me? Who's going to say this isn't enough or good enough or all the things too? Guess what? You are going to get one star reviews. Like after I, I published my first book, I remember going and reading the one star reviews and be like, actually, like, I, I agree with that. Like, like, actually I do agree with that.
And. I think I had like this naivete at that point. This is like over four years ago that I wrote my first one. I was a bit naive. Like I was like, I know everything. It was like a bit of like Dunning Kruger effect, but since then I've learned so much more about the Enneagram and about humans and how we are and how we operate and all these different things.
And that's what can be really hard because. If you added all the nuance that you can see your book, I mean, nobody would ever read it, you know, well, there's also that idea to have some of the greatest things that I. Work on with my clients are aware. Someone else has left a gap for me to fill in. And so if we all had that idea and that mentality of the book that I'm putting out is not meant to be complete, it's meant to bring you to the next step so that you can, or someone else can fill in the gap.
And I would say the same for you and your work too. If not for us to fill in our own gaps for someone else too. Yeah. Yeah. And I, I think that's really important. Um, and also making it really like what the reader needs. Like, it's not about me saying everything I want to say. It's about what the reader needs to make it to that next step.
But when it comes to burnout, I could see it this time. I could see it before, cause I was already burned out before I even started writing. But I didn't know what to do. I was just like, I'm on this train, right? So I ended up having to have this big crash where like probably all of like the spring and summer of this year, I would work maybe two to three hours a day and otherwise like just couldn't, but I had to get all these other pieces.
Right. So how do I get into community and like, make sure that I have that. Cause I didn't have any sort of community. Um, how do I, like, what other supports do I have meditation, eating well, exercise, going outside, being kind to myself, journaling, cold plunge, like all of these little things that can add up tart cherry juice, you know, it was just never one thing.
Right. Like, so. It just took a long, it took way longer than I wanted it to. Well, I think that's a good lesson in all of this. When we talk about leaving well and change and transition, there's no magic formula, and it also typically takes way longer than we think when you think about. The folks that you work with and the teams that you help with their organizational support.
What do you see rise up as the most common intersections or corollaries between what they're going through and the concept and the topic of leaving well or change in transition? One of the things that in corporate that can be really challenging is the lack of transparency. Whether that's from, you know, top leadership and you know, what they're, they are in eight, aren't able to share.
And I understand that sometimes they can't share everything, but it does make it really uncertain and confusing for people when we have these mass layoffs that we've been seeing that's really destabilizing. And I think that managers forget about that emotional aspect of humans, no matter who you are.
It's gonna impact you. So that's something I see a lot of. I think that there is just kind of a constant level of anxiety around that. I'm sure that there are people listening to this that are thinking, Oh, I don't, I don't feel that. And that might be true in some spaces. But I think people are having to do this calculation a lot of the time of like, how do I maybe communicate a bit of the discontent that I feel?
Well, also putting myself at risk in any way, or how do I bring up this challenge and things like that? I don't know that we are good though, as a society at even understanding what anxiety is. I am surprised by the number of mostly women that will say, and some men, but that will say to me, Oh, I just figured out that that's anxiety, that thing that I have felt or that way that my body reacts or place that I run to in my head mentally.
Oh, that's anxiety. And so if we aren't even as a society, good at knowing what that is, let alone knowing how to deal with it. I just imagine how exacerbated that is. Then when you add the workplace to it, and the fact that we definitely don't talk about it in the workplace. When people bring me in, they're ready to talk a little bit, at least about emotions, right?
And so I'm able to, to meet people there and to talk about those things. A lot of the time. You know, leaders will say, I don't understand why this is happening, or like, there's this issue on my team, or there's this conflict. They want something tactical, but it's an emotional problem. Besides anxiety, what would be some of the other, maybe most ignored components or dangerous things that corporations and teams are, are not getting right, or Well, I think probably one of the most dangerous things I see is, is people treating everything as life and death.
And I think that was a big wake up call for me. Like I shared earlier, I was in this day program and there we had life and death moments. We had, you know, call nine one one, or you're doing CPR or that's a fragile population. You know, we, we had, we had those moments. And so when I went into, to a corporate or, you know, a startup, um, tech startup space, I was like, Okay, this is like not life and death.
Nobody will die. Let's just take a second. But by the, by the end of my, my years there, I also had that, like, You know, the fire alarm feeling. So I understand it. Like I empathize with it, but there are times when people are having these really intense, serious conversations and they're having medical emergencies in their personal life that they try not to bring into the workplace because they, everything is treated as life and death.
And I sit in these. Meetings. And I'm like, let's just take a second. And I, I get it. Right. Everyone is under a lot of pressure. You know, the C suite they're under pressure from the shareholders and, um, investors and like all that stuff. And then that trickles down. There are just so many parts of our daily lives that are like, this is your one life, right?
Like how are, how is that the only thing that you get to live for? I'm starting to sound like the anti work subreddit. I know, but Well, it makes me think too about, you know, a lot of times we, As an example, we say things like menopause in the workplace is a woman's issue, or caretaking for disabled family members, or aging parents is a woman's issue, and we then put it in a box, and we don't realize what someone's dealing with at home and how that impacts them in the workplace, and it's not just a woman's issue, first of all, and if and until we start to realize, like, Bringing that into the workplace and saying, okay, here's the reality.
Here's how we can do our work and address some of the things that might be going on at home, or at least have a workplace that is better able to let folks come in to the container of work. Knowing and acknowledging what they have going on at home would be a step in the right direction, I would think.
Yeah. Well, yeah. And I think that one, one trend I've been seeing is that people are taking a more whole person approach. I'm, I'm not the biggest fan. I've seen how straining it can be on teams when, when you're always remote, however, and there can be like this disembodied aspect of that where you don't see somebody as a whole person, cause you only see them from the shoulders up.
But when we see. Oh, like what do you have on your wall behind you? Or you see somebody's sick kid running through the background or. Their dog's got a cone on or, or whatever else, like, you see more of that context. You hear like, like today I've got, you know, a cacophony of like leaf blowers outside. We can kind of get a different sense for like what's happening in that person's life context.
And I think that in some ways, while we've lost some of the personal connection, there are ways that we're hearing and seeing a little bit more of this person's life. Um, so I think that that can be actually really helpful and the amount of people who show up to work now in just a hoodie or whatever, everyone's wearing workout clothes.
You know, I go into my corporate stuff and I'm, you know, in a blazer or whatever, because I'm the professional one, like I'm the, the contractor. I always am like, I look a little silly, but that's okay. Well, I think we're starting to see some of the, I won't even say accommodations, but the meeting folks halfway with.
What the reality of work to your point, it's not life or death in most, most of our work, how can we meet halfway to still get the work done and be human centered? Grief and loss is something that is a huge part of change and transition. And I would be curious if you would be willing to run us through how each of the types navigate grief and loss and, and maybe even change.
Yeah. So when I teach the Enneagram, I always start with type eight, eight have a tendency to say, I'm going to conquer this. You know, if they, if they get sick, they're like, I'm going to push through. I'm going to conquer it. I think it can take a lot for eights to slow down enough to recognize a sense of grief and loss, and they think they can conquer and push through.
They might end up getting totally burned out, but they also can do this thing. I hate like throwing around the term gaslighting, but I think it's gaslight themselves saying like, Oh, you really shouldn't think that you really shouldn't feel that way. It's really not that serious. And I think that it's managed change.
Fairly well, when it's their idea, it's can have a lot of anger around change otherwise, but they tend to be like, all right, well, this is what it is. So I'm going to push through it. But I think in terms of grief and loss, they, they have to slow down and make space for it. Type nine, nines tend to really want to feel comfortable.
They don't really like to like, and I think nines do have a lot of feelings underneath the surface, but in some ways they're, they kind of tell themselves, oh, these feelings aren't really justified. I think that they're like, oh, it's not really that important what I'm feeling. So they kind of mute them.
They kind of turn them down. And some nines I know. Especially after a stressful work day, we'll go home and just, they want to just sit on the couch and just process it because they need to sort through it. They need to take time to process, but that's difficult to do. And so like eights, I think nines do need to make a little bit more space for it.
And I think nines would really benefit sharing with somebody else how they're feeling and what they're going through. Cause I think nines kind of dismiss. What they're going through too, for different reasons than AIDS though, mostly because it's really, really uncomfortable, um, to feel those things for ones.
I think the, the, the body types really don't like change and they don't like change. If it's not their idea in particular, they're, they're very autonomous, even nines. Sometimes people see the relational aspect of nines and they think that they don't, you know, care that much about it, but, um, nines. Care a lot about being autonomous.
They hate the feeling of feeling like they're just getting run over because they seem easygoing. But anyway, back to ones. So I think ones with grief and loss to they're like, is this appropriate? Like, am I feeling too much? Should I not be feeling as much as I'm feeling right now? That can be jarring. Um, and.
They like change when they're like, this is going to improve things, but they don't like change when it's like, things were already good as they were. Why are we doing this? And so there can be that frustration and like lack of acceptance, heart types. So we've got twos twos, they actually can. They can gain a lot of access to their feelings when they're alone in particular, but if other people around them are feeling a lot of that grief and loss or frustration, they're going to feel that instead of what they're feeling.
Um, and I think that that can be really hard because two's feel like this pressure to always be positive and to spread positive relationships and positive report like that. When we say the helper, the giver, that's what they give. Yeah. Sometimes they give other stuff or they help, you know, bring a casserole.
That's like such a stupid stereotype, but like a lot of the time, what they're giving is their relational capacity is their positivity is their warmth and their love choose when they're navigating this. They need to be able to express like, Hey, I need some support. And a lot of the time. Support can come from others within the team to need to be able to share with others on their team.
Like, Hey, I'm actually having a hard time and I need support too. But sometimes these things come from people at home because in work teams, it can be scary to actually share. And to show that our threes, they do a little bit of what. Aids do when the pandemic first happened. It was the week that I moved into my brand new house that I just bought it, not brand new to me.
I mean, it's like a hundred years old, but, you know. I had a client that I was doing some work for and they're like, we're done because of the pandemic. And what did I do? I was like, all right, I got to make money. I got this. And I just went into overdrive and created programs and created workshops and did webinars and all these different things.
And when that didn't work, I just crashed. And threes can gaslight themselves kind of like eights of like, I shouldn't be feeling this much. I shouldn't be thinking this much. I, I, you know, going into that, or like if I were stronger, if I were better, et cetera, I wouldn't feel this way. So they can experience a lot of that, that strain and that stress.
And. Threes have a deep well of emotion. They are the heart of the heart center, but they ignore it and they turn it down. And in order to actually grow and to, to find your authentic self and who you truly are, which is a question that threes are wondering, like, am I enough? Who am I really? Threes have to slow down enough to even ask that question and then slow down even more to let the feelings come up and to tap into who that is.
And when I talk about burnout from this year, right, that's something that that process allowed me to do. Whereas now I have a different perspective on who I am and what's important to me than I did a year ago, but it was so painful to get here. So yeah, that's, that's her threes and threes actually, I think do pretty well change a lot of the time they're very adaptable.
Um, so as long as the change doesn't make them look bad, they're like, all right, I got it. I move in fours. You know, grief and loss, I think can be hard for fours because they tend to think it's all their fault. They can be pretty comfortable with a lot of these deep, vulnerable feelings within themselves.
They don't necessarily always want to share that with everyone. They can, they can really like turn it and like introject, right? So it's like anything that's happening, anything that's going wrong, they think. It's my fault. It's because I'm not good enough. It's because there's something missing in me. And that can be really hard.
So I think that, that fours, when they're going through that, they really need somebody to say, Hey, you're all right. Like this is all happening, but you are separate from it. And you're good. You're a good person. You're doing a good job. Yeah. You've made mistakes even, but that doesn't change your value or your worth.
I think fives. And we're moving into the head types now. And these types attaching or connecting to the heart center can be difficult. And what's interesting is that even though fives do have a really hard time connecting to the heart center, sometimes they may might have a bit of an easier time than are these other types, because fives.
Do something that a lot of people don't, which is they actually, no matter what, always take time to process. They have to, they have to have that time to isolate. They have to have that time to process to go inward. Fives are not going to say, Oh, this is how I'm feeling. They're not going to react in the moment.
They wait until later. And then they, they allow those feelings to come up. And a lot of the time they'll. You know, pick them apart and be like, what is this part of the feeling? And they like to analyze it, but it can be really healing for fives to actually allow those feelings to trickle down from their head into their body, their heart, and allow that to come out.
But change can be jarring for fives when they don't understand it. So the best thing for fives is if they can get all the information. And they can really, really understand, like I was working with a team recently and somebody pitched an idea on the team for like a reorg and the five went home and just processed and thought about it.
And, and, you know, I think they took like a week or, or something. They came back, they said, all right, here, here's, here's a plan, you know, so, so they can do that, right? Like they can really process and think analytically. And sometimes for a five, if they are going to be. You know, on the chopping block, it's brutal.
And if they can understand why they can be objective and say, I understand my position needed to be eliminated. It sucks, but like, I can understand it. It doesn't mean that they want to go find a new job right away. Right. But, but they can, they can process that and understand it. But the rug pull can be really hard for five.
Sixes they think of all the worst case scenarios, every six, they always think they're going to get fired. And sometimes let's be honest. Okay. Like sometimes that that is a six just projecting, like sometimes they don't want to be in their job anymore. And then they're like, Oh my God, I'm getting fired.
And I'm like, wait, but is it actually that you just don't want to be there? So you think they don't want you. Right. Uh, but. For sixes, it can all kind of feel like the grief and loss part doesn't always come into play. Like when grief and loss is in the picture, I just interviewed a dear friend of mine.
This was not a job related grief. This was like, you know, a family member passed, but we did a whole podcast on a six when the worst case scenario happens and how to stabilizing it is, um, and how difficult it is and how important it is to actually. Learn how to let the grief come down into your body. Um, and to, to feel it because that's the worst.
Like that's the uncomfortable part, actually having to feel the fear and the sadness and the losses is really, really hard with change. I don't think six is really, I mean, they, they get, they do much better with change once it happens, but before the change, they're always like, Oh no, what's going to happen.
What's going to happen. What's going to happen. And then once that happens, they're like, Okay, well, now what? Yeah. Sevens. Are famous for their love of change, right? But again, some people only like change when it's their idea. I think sevens in a lot of ways are like that. Now sevens don't really tend to stay in grief and lost long.
When I've talked with sevens who've had these, like their, their life's work, essentially their life's lesson, big lesson has been grief has been losing somebody close or walking through that. It's incredibly painful because they have to use so much energy to stay in it and to not just be like, all right, well, I'm out of here, but to really let it trickle down and feel it.
But sevens will often say things like, I don't understand why you would ever not like your life, not enjoy your life. Just change it. You don't like it. Change it. Either accept it or move on. And so that can be really great. Like that can be really great for sevens to be that way. I think sevens do need to be able to, to allow more of that grief to come out.
So as you listen to this, and if you don't already know what your Enneagram type is, Steph has a Find Your Type site on her website, where you can go look that up. If you do know what your Enneagram type is, I would encourage you to rewind and re listen to it and think about the other folks that you know in your life.
Steph, I'm curious, If someone's listening to this, who is a leader, a manager in charge of a team, it sounds like there is a possibility for a lot of need for communication, narrative and messaging around change and transition and having hard conversations with your team. What, what would you say is the biggest piece of advice you'd say for someone who is a manager or a leader in understanding their team, whether it's Enneagram or another way to truly understand their people, it's the biggest advice.
I think the biggest thing is. Don't get stuck in thinking that they, they need what you need. So really ask them, like, we don't even have to go into all the Enneagram types to know, do you want all the information up front or do you want to get the bottom line first and then ask questions later, like those sorts of questions.
Also understanding that different people need different levels of insight. So having those conversations amongst your teams. I work a lot with teams, just helping them to get, I don't go into all the depths of the Enneagram when I work with teams all the time, sometimes, but typically I want them to have enough working knowledge to say, Hey, this is how I describe myself.
This is how I describe my leadership style. This is how I describe my communication style and give each other cliff notes on. On how to discuss that. So I think that's, that's a big thing. There's this book drive the surprising truth about what motivates us by Daniel H pink. So a friend of mine who has a lot of experience in HR for years and years, we talked about actually building a framework using this, this book and the Enneagram and it's still kind of, you know, in the works, but we had to put on pause because my book and all that good stuff, there are three.
Three motivators. So autonomy, mastery, and purpose, and understanding what motivates each person on your team. So even if you don't have the Enneagram framework, this framework is also useful and can help you understand what they need to feel supported through different transitions. That's powerful. And I, it makes me think also of what a model behavior that is then for a leader, a manager to have that awareness that not everything that works for one is going to work for another, because that ripple of when folks leave, because that's a reality that people leave when people leave those teams, they're taking that into hopefully into their workplaces.
And so that ripple spread would be really could be really powerful. What would you say about change or transition that people might be shocked or surprised to hear? Well, I'm not sure if it's shocking, but I think in a team context, I think leaders sometimes forget and sometimes I know, you know, somebody gets fired.
You can't say anything. Giving as much transparency as possible will work wonders. And there are times when painful transitions happen that it's going to be better, like it just is going to be better, but it's hard. There's a great book by Dr. Henry Cloud called Necessary Endings, and I reference it all the time because it will be better sometimes on the other side of the really icky yucky transition, whether that is.
A people transition or a merger and acquisition, whether it's a sunset, something that we don't talk a lot about is the change that comes when a project stops or ceases to exist, but it will be better on the other side. As we wrap up, is there anything that we didn't get a chance to talk about that you'd like to make sure to share?
I think I would love to hear your thoughts on this, perhaps on one of your solo episodes, but I recently listened to something that was all about, um, subtraction, like when things aren't going well, we tend to add. Right. We tend to add more rules or more insights or whatever, but we don't think enough about how to subtract and what to subtract.
And I think that's something we could talk about more. I love that. That feels so resonant with so many things. It feels resonant with burnout. It feels resonant with slowing down, taking the time to know each other, that awareness. That would be a really good topic. Last question for you. And then we'll have all of your links and such in the show notes so folks can find you.
What does leaving well mean to you? I think it means making a choice from a very grounded and authentic place. Even if it's a difficult decision, even if it's like something, even a pragmatic decision of saying like, yeah, I love this job, but my family needs me to make more money. So I'm going to make this choice.
I think having that sense of. I'm going to do what's best for me intact is really important because a lot of the time, and maybe this is just me and my perspective as a three as a heart type. I spend a lot of time thinking about what other people need from me. And I think it's really important for me to think, what do I need from me?
What does my family need? What does my future self need? So I think that's leaving well and in whatever scenario, I think that's really important. Thank you, Steph, so much for the work that you do in the world and with the teams that you intersect with and interact with, thanks for being here. Thank you.
To learn more about leaving well and how you can implement and embed the framework and culture in your own life and workplace, visit naomihattaway.com. It's time for each of us to look ourselves in the mirror and finally admit we are playing a powerful role in the system. We can either exist outside of our power or choose to decide to shift culture and to create transformation.
Until next time, I'm your host. Naomi Hattaway and you've been listening to Leaving Well, a navigation guide for workplace transitions.