For several days, a series of revelations have shaken the “Silicon Vendée”, a prosperous area in the west of France. In question: several articles published in the local press, which revealed the strong taste of entrepreneurs in the region and certain academics for the enneagram, an esoteric practice which would make it possible to decipher “the soul and human psychology”, better known as the name “test of nine personalities”. From the Loire Bay to the pastures of the Vendée hinterland, this occult “science” is a hit in companies in the sector, as revealed The Letter to Lulu (Nantes), The Topette (Angers), or The Sans Culotte (Vendée), after several months of a joint investigation (1).
The agri-food group Fleury Michon, the carrier Mousset, the packaging manufacturer Mecapack, or even the doctoral college of Pays de la Loire… According to the documents collected by these three media, business forecasts, course brochures and training programs that L’Express has been able to consult, around thirty companies and around twenty schools in the sector have got into the habit of sending their staff to be trained in this controversial technique, which worries the Interministerial Mission for the Fight against sectarian aberrations (Miviludes) for ten years already.
Within Silicon Vendée, several thousand people learn every year during professional training to read enneagrams, modified polygons found on many spiritual artifacts. Each of the edges of this drawing would correspond to a “personality”, associated with a number: the perfectionist is at 1, the altruist at 2, the beater at 3, and so on up to 9, passing through facets such as romantic, observer, loyal, epicurean, leader or mediator. A series of questions would make it possible to determine which number corresponds to us, and thus to know… who we are.
A drawing that governs human behavior?
Better: the geometric figure also designates behaviors that would often go hand in hand. Thus the 6, the loyal, would also frequently be the 3, the fighters. But wouldn’t go well with other character traits at all. A psychological postulate that is not based on any science but a simple mathematical operation according to which the different affinities and correspondences between characters would evolve. Armed with this mystical knowledge, the people trained could thus better progress in business, promise the trainers.
According to the documents that we were able to consult, the company Fleury Michon, whose taste for these methods is assumed, would spend approximately 170,000 euros per year to train its executives in the enneagram; 70 of them must still benefit from these lessons in 2023. “Compared to the content, and the number of people who benefit from it, the amounts are disproportionate”, is surprised the CGT Fleury Michon, questioned by L’Express. “This money could be allocated to safety at work, and qualifying training, rather than to personal development. We wonder what is the return, the positive impact expected for the company. Nothing justifies such an investment “, says the union.
Contacted by L’Express, Fleury Michon believes that the use of these mystical techniques in the company does not need to be commented on and sees nothing abnormal. “The enneagram is a training tool, among others, to shed light on its practices. The results of the test are strictly reserved for the person who takes it and are not used for recruitment or internal mobility purposes. On this subject, we work with an external training organization certified Qualiopi, certification which aims to attest to the quality of the training”, answers the company.
When the enneagram has the answer
Still, in Silicon Vendée, these practices worry a growing number of employees. Conductor for the Mousset group, Pierre (name has been changed) says: “During my enneagram session in Nantes a few years ago, several people started crying and talking about their private lives, in front of about twenty employees of the group from all walks of life. There was a reframing of the facilitator, it was not specified from the start that it was necessary to remain within a corporate framework. The border between the professional and the personal seems to me very thin.” Unaware of the theoretical filiations of the enneagram, the employee believes that these courses were not “shocking”, but also doubts their usefulness.
At Mousset, all of the 2,800 employees are eligible for this training. The group’s internal application lists the enneagram profiles and recalls the information given during the training sessions. “At Mousset, as we know it and as we practice it, it [l’ennéagramme] helps put things into perspective. It is an opening towards all the facets of a personality”, explained to the Sans-Culotte the group’s founder, Jean-Michel Mousset.
Within this company, reading one’s enneagram has become a reflex. To the point of replacing the real mediation tools. Recently, staff representatives even wanted to send two colleagues close to the fight in this type of training to help them resolve their dispute. They dropped the idea, alerted by the controversy. “At Mousset, the enneagram is everywhere, but no one sees the harm that these risky methods can do, they are presented as an opportunity, a plus, in a sector where management is done in a tradition of closeness between one and all. the others”, explains Clément Barraud, journalist at Sans Culotte.
Just as American tech bosses have their gurus, Silicon Vendée also has its star trainer. His name is Serge Masserot, a former quality manager in the industry. His clients ? Fleury Michon, Saunier Duval, which manufactures heat pumps, Asys, a computer company, Crédit Mutuel, LNA Santé nursing homes, the Constellium metalworker… or even the packaging manufacturer Mecapack, whose boss considers himself a victim of “misleading” remarks. To the universities and colleges of the region, such as Centrale Nantes or Polytech Angers. The interested party sees nothing abnormal there: “The enneagram is part of the landscape of tools for self-knowledge, to better understand others”, he indicates to L’Express.
Before starting his own business in the 2000s, Serge Masserot was himself trained by the company Regard9, established for twenty years on the outskirts of Nantes. It claims more than “20,000 people trained” in the west of the country, for twenty-two years. To “develop communication and management techniques” through the enneagram, the company learned from one of the greatest representatives of the movement: the American psychologist Helen Palmer, who helped popularize this occult science, whose books regularly exceed one hundred thousand sales all over the world.
20,000 people trained
Serge Masserot, Regard9, or even Helen Palmer, none of these figures of the enneagram in business, from the Vendée bocage in the United States, evoke the esoteric background of this technique. However, it was invented at the beginning of the 20th century by George Gurdjieff, champion of the Fourth Way, a movement he created by mixing the precepts of the main religions, occultism, esotericism and even theosophy. On the contrary, many trainers go so far as to affirm that these methods are “scientifically validated”, or, as Regard9 writes more cautiously, “factor of personal progress”.
Still, the enneagram is far from trivial: “These methods, which present themselves as communication and personal development tools, offer no guarantee of seriousness other than the label that they alone attribute to themselves. They cultivate a great conceptual vagueness aimed at giving either an illusion of scientificity and efficiency, or an impression of spirituality even though they have neither scientific foundation nor cultural foundation and have never been evaluated”, details Miviludes.
The enthusiasm for this type of training extends far beyond the west of the country. Almost everywhere in France, the offer is multiplying. Author of The Enneagram is neither Catholic nor Kosher, a survey that traces its origins and its ramifications, published last April by Editions du Cerf, Anne Lécu confirms: “Business leaders and trainers can offer this pseudo-method by really believing in it, without trying to generate influence. It nevertheless remains dangerous. Among fragile people, or in contact with ill-intentioned individuals, everything ends up passing through this prism. It is therefore difficult to leave this vision of the world, which poses many relational problems. At L’Express, Miviludes recalls that it has in particular been the recipient of “disturbing testimonies” concerning “people engaged in expensive training, who have profoundly changed their behavior”.
(1) Games of the ego, toxic novenas. The enneagram, an esoteric tool dreamed up to reorganize boxes and explode couples, Letter to Lulu, n° 124, June 2023; Esoteric training courses taught in companies, La Topette, No. 12, June 2023; Discomfort at work: develop yourself! , Le Sans-Culotte 85, n° 159, June 2023.