Have you ever tried being left with the feeling that nobody understands you – even though you believe that your message has been communicated to the best of your abilities? When you have explained again and again – loud and clear – why it is important that your employees deliver on time – and in the right quality. And then have to accept that not everybody has got the message. Or when you, as the sales person at the sales meeting, believe that your products and solutions are exactly what the client should buy – and do not get the order? Only one person can do something – you! You should re-evaluate how you communicate, your choice of instruments and your attitude.

People are (luckily) different. Different in relation to what motivates and scares us, and what we perceive from a conversation. An old saying is that “you hear what you want to hear.” And if you communicate with others, as you would like being communicated to, there is a risk that you will not get through with your message. Do not presume that everybody is like you.

The Enneagram explains the differences to us as well as the characteristics which might mean something in communication. In this article, I aim to show how the “rhetorics” supplements the Enneagram and help us communicating with different characters in connection with specific rhetoric deliberations.

A Rhetorical Situation

Rhetorics is the theory on communicating and convincing and it dates back to the ancient Greece. A sender (rhetor) has something on his/her mind – and a recipient is more or less involuntarily exposed to being part of the situation where rhetorical possibilities and tools are displayed.

Rhetor’s purpose would be to communicate a message to the recipient in such a way that he/she either changes or continues his/her demeanour as a consequence of the message received. As such, a rhetorical situation aims at convincing the recipient through the message to act, thus separating it from ordinary communication. The rhetorical situation depends on the situation or the context, and conditions will therefore be present, which besides rhetor or recipient  are important to the communication (Blitzer (1992)).

The capable rhetor is able to identify the possible convincing elements in the rhetorical situation – and to make use of these (Aristotle (1983)). These elements or factors are decided by, e.g., time and place, the medium, historical and cultural context, and are, at the same time, examples of the conditions of communication. Other conditions may be the mood of the speaker or writer, experience, style or reputation. Finally, and not least, the recipient’s knowledge of and attitude towards the subject; personal assumptions, competences and preferences are very important to rhetor’s possibility of accomplishing the mission of convincing.

”Any communication must respect that the use of the words is embedded in a context which cannot always be verbalised, but is only accessible through practice.”
                             Tor Nørretranders (Danish author of popular science)

Communication between Two People – A Relation

”It takes two to tango” – and it also takes at least two people to accomplish communication and specifically a rhetorical situation.

Good communication requires receptiveness, true attention, and ”synchronisation” or identification between the parties.  If the recipient should be able to see the point of the message and act on it; it means a lot that you recognise, accept or respect rhetor and the rhetor’s purpose with the communication.  It rests with the rhetor to put himself in the recipient’s situation and to meet the recipient on his terms. When the human relation has been established, the communication and rhetoric can unfold.

”The meeting between two personalities is like the contact between chemicals: If there is a reaction, both will change.”  Carl Gustav Jung.

The Enneagram as Frame of Understanding

The theory of the Enneagram, and its description of nine equal personalities, is a valuable tool to understand the recipient in the rhetorical situation, and thus the possibility of establishing the identification and the human relation.

The characters are described and understood on the basis of their thoughts and actions, as well as the motives behind them in the form of motivation (what we strive for and want to achieve) or what we try to avoid or escape (fear) because it creates discomfort. The motives, both the motivation and fear, may often block the message from the sender. They are called distorting filters and form the basis of the expression “you hear what you want to hear”– or believe that you hear. In communication, this is important both to the rhetor and the recipient. The rhetor must put himself in the recipient’s situation in order to establish the best foundation of communication and deliberations of the choice of rhetorical tools.

In the basis triad, the nine characters are grouped in three intelligence centres from which the immediate motivation stems when decisions are to be made:

• The Head (analysis),
• The Body (gut feeling)
• The Heart (feelings)

In a communicative situation where conviction and action are to be created, one of rhetor’s first tasks is to identify the recipient or the intelligence centre and placement of the target group in the basic triad as a shortcut to understanding the motivation for action.

In verbal communication, eye contact, body language, attire and physical presence are advantages as they can indicate the intelligence centre. Are these possibilities not present, e.g. in writing, it should be assumed that all intelligence centres are present and that communication takes place on the terms of all three centres. Clear, brief and relevant communication is always the best basis – but there are no guarantees.

Do you, who are the rhetor, know the recipient’s intelligence centre, it is possible for you to choose the rhetorical means based on a conscious strategy of meeting the recipient on the basis of his conviction.

Rhetorical Considerations – and Tools

The rhetorical tradition describes a number of tools which may be used in a communicative situation.
Three of the basic tools are choice of appeal, arguments, and linguistic style.

Forms of Appeal

The rhetor should be able to appeal to understanding, support and agreement with the recipient of your communication. In rhetoric, there are three basic forms of appeal or different kinds of means (Geist (2002):