The Enneagram in Action: An interview with Charles Vora, President of Veristic

This is an excerpt from an interview about the Enneagram that Syte did with Charles Vora, President of Veristic in Houston, Texas. The Enneagram is one of the personality assessments that we use with our clients. You can learn more about the Enneagram, here.  The transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Interviewer at Syte Consulting (Syte): Charlie, just to orient everyone, briefly tell me who you are, what you do, and where you work.

Charles (CV): My name is Charles Vora. I work for Veristic. I am the president of Veristic. Veristic does engineering design of oilfield structures for joint contractors.

Syte: We’re here to talk about the Enneagram, and you’ve taken the Enneagram. How long ago was it that Syte did the Enneagram with you guys?

CV: It’s been about maybe four months. So, it’s pretty recent.

Syte: Tell me a little bit about your initial experience. Had you heard of the Enneagram prior to that?

CV: No, this is my first encounter with Enneagram.

Syte: What was it like for you?

CV: It was interesting because it identified me as a Peacemaker, and I would never have thought in a million years I would have been considered a peacemaker. But, after reading the description about it, I was like, “Okay, it’s starting to make sense.” It’s not that I’m a peaceful person, it’s that I strive to find peace in my life. Knowing that, it makes me more aware of what guides my decisions, my actions; it’s always that push for finding peace.

Syte: Peacemakers are an Enneagram Nine. I actually took the Enneagram not that much prior to you guys doing it. We rolled it out internally. What struck me about being typed as a Nine was its relationship to anger. That in order to achieve peace, sometimes, us nines just go around ignoring our feelings in general—downplaying them—but particularly when it comes to anger. Did that resonate with you?

CV: Yes. It does because . . . my first reaction to things that I don’t like is anger. And then the next step is to ask myself, “How do I make the anger go away?” So, anger is always showing up . . . dealing with anger is what drives us, and we want the anger to go away.

Syte: Walk me through how Erin rolled-out the Enneagram at Veristic. Did she do it just with you at first, or did she do it with the whole leadership team?

CV: She sent it to the leadership team, asked us to fill it out, and then Theo [Charles’s brother and Veristic’s CFO] jumped on it first, and he was really excited about it. He came to the rest of the team and was like, “Hey, hurry up and do this. I want to see what you guys are.” So, there was a lot of enthusiasm after Theo took it.

Syte: Did you just get your Enneagram results in an email and review them amongst yourselves, or did Erin walk you through your results, or both?

CV: We did both. First, we read our type descriptions, and we forwarded those to Erin. And Theo, Aaron Chang (Veristic’s COO), and I, we all compared our types and then looked to see how each one works with the other. Erin went more in-depth with the results.

Syte: With each of you. When you did that as a team between you, Theo, and Aaron Chang, what was that experience like?

CV: I think it was an “aha moment” for all of us. We were saying things like, “Oh, yeah, that’s totally you. This is totally me.” I don’t think any of us felt like we were mistyped. I do think it’s easy to get hung up on the type names because Aaron Chang was identified as an Enthusiast. And, if you’ve ever met him, he doesn’t seem like the most energetic person. But, once you read the description, you realize, “Oh, yeah, that is him.” The enthusiastic visionary. He’s always trying to make things perfect, look towards the future, trying to pave the way towards something better.

Syte: Which is helpful in somebody who’s in the COO role. Out of interest, what did Theo come back as? Do you remember what his type was?

CV: He’s the type One, so he’s the Perfectionist. That definitely sounds like him, too, because he’s always tinkering and trying to optimize. And, he will spend time on something until it’s perfect. Especially on his presentations.

Syte: Walk me through how knowing your Enneagram has affected you in your personal or family life.

CV: In personal and the family life [my Enneagram type] comes up a lot. I’ve got 3 kids, and they’re young—8, 5, and 2. They all go in different directions. Sometimes it’s like herding cats to get them to do something. But in knowing that I’m a peacemaker, when I hear the kids fighting or, you know, causing chaos, I can feel my blood pressure go up. And then I’ll tell myself, “Okay, I’m starting to get agitated.” And, this doesn’t happen all the time, but sometimes I’m aware enough where I can catch it, and take a breath, and it’s like, “Okay, I want the chaos to go away, so let’s try to understand what’s going on first before I blow a gasket.”

Syte: How about at work? It started with the leadership team. Has it expanded beyond that?

CV: Amanda (Verisitic’s Chief Engineer) took hers, and she comes up as a Helper, and that makes a lot of sense because she’s always looking to help. She’s now the main customer contact, so she deals with the customers on a daily basis. She also manages the Engineers, and she’s very supportive of the customers and the engineers and trying to balance the two sides. She leans-in whenever she offers help, she offers assistance whenever projects get heavy and are too much for just the engineering group to handle.

Syte: She rolls up her sleeves and gets in there.

CV: Yes, yes. Absolutely.

Syte: Has the Enneagram changed how you work together as a leadership team? Has that awareness of what your own type is, has that helped? How does that play out?

CV: You know, I guess, sometimes it’s hard to remember who’s which Enneagram type and their description. But I use it mainly to manage myself and my tendencies.

Syte: Can you give an example at work where maybe having an awareness of your own Enneagram has shifted either how you do things or how you relate to people?

CV: The one thing my mind keeps coming back to is working on our project for a drilling company we’re working with for the first time. There’s a lot of engineering work that needs to go on. There’s a lot of changes to the rig. There’s a lot of modifications, and it’s a big step for a first-time customer. The owner has never worked with a firm like ours, so he doesn’t really know what to expect. As a Peacemaker, I find myself trying to anticipate obstacles. I don’t want the customer to be blindsided by an invoice or a scope-of-work issue. I want to take those conversations and address them upfront rather than waiting for them to boil up. So, I’m actively looking for things that can cause hiccups, or to help manage the customer relations.

Syte: It sounds like you’re doing that out of a motivation to keep that relationship on an even keel, so that there aren’t problems, which falls squarely in a Nine’s description. Do you find that you’re able to sniff-out those kinds of issues before they happen, more than, say, Theo or Aaron would? In other words, can you anticipate those kinds of things because you’re a Peacemaker?

CV: I do bring it up a lot more often. Especially now that I’m taking on more of the sales role. So, before the customer gets angry, or before there’s a problem, I do actively sniff those out. And, when I do bring it up, I’m not sure if anybody else anticipates those kinds of problems because they say, “Oh, yeah, yeah, we need to do that.”

Syte: Charlie, if you had anything else that you would want to tell people about taking the Enneagram, is there any advice you would give or are there final thoughts that you have about it?

CV: Well, I do think it’s a very useful tool. It sheds a lot of light on who you are in ways that other tests can’t, because I’ve done the Myers-Briggs before. I’ve taken the assessments for Emotional intelligence and StrengthsFinders. And, you know, each one has its own flavor. The Enneagram definitely has its own unique perspective on what your personality type is.

Do you want to get to know yourself and the members of your leadership team in a way that highlights your strengths and reveals potential blind spots? Do you want to know how your personality drives your behavior and decision-making at work and with friends and family? The Enneagram is a powerful tool that can give you greater insight into how you “show up” in the world, enabling you to make decisions and to lead with more confidence. Contact us, we can guide you and your team through the assessment process and can help you turn the results into next actions and best practices more quickly.