9 Domains
9 Domains rates a person or team's current state across nine areas of functioning at once, from self-regulation to stability, so the one or two domains dragging everything else down become visible instead of vague.
Nine spokes radiate from a single centre point, scored so the weakest ones stand out at a glance.
Reach for this when…
- Someone feels 'off' generally but can't name which part of their life or leadership is the problem.
- A team is underperforming and everyone blames a different single cause.
- You need a wide-angle check-in before narrowing to a specific coaching focus.
How to run it
- Introduce the nine domains: self-regulation, connectedness, adaptability, individuality, contextual awareness, interdependence, openness to change, focused action, dynamic stability.
- Have the person or team rate their current state in each domain.
- Identify the two or three weakest domains.
- Prioritise interventions there rather than spreading effort across all nine.
- Set concrete steps for the next 90 days per domain.
A worked example
Situation. Yasmine Bennani ran Dar Yasmine, a small boutique hotel in Casablanca, Morocco, and felt permanently exhausted without being able to say why, since the business itself was doing fine.
Applied. She rated herself against the nine domains with her coach and found her lowest scores clustered on Self-Regulation and Individuality - she had no recovery time and no space that was hers alone.
Result. She blocked two mornings a week as untouchable, not for the business, just for her. The general exhaustion didn't vanish overnight, but it stopped being a mystery.
The catch
Nine self-rated domains generate a lot of numbers fast, and it's tempting to treat the profile as diagnosis rather than a prompt for conversation. The domain labels are broad enough to mean different things to different people without a shared definition first. Rating everything at once can produce a flat, undifferentiated picture if the person is tired or in a low mood on the day.
A domain score is a starting question, not a finding. Ask why before you act on it.
Origin: Don Riso (The Enneagram Institute), developed with Russ Hudson - the Nine Domains Approach is built on Enneagram typology, not a generic life-coaching tool.