HUNTER SEVEN - SUGGESTIBILITY

They Loved Your Idea. Then They Chased Six More and Delivered Nothing.

Without an anchor, their attention scattered across a dozen possibilities you'll never collect.

Your product manager lit up when you pitched the new feature direction. "This could be amazing," she said, already riffing on extensions: a mobile version, an AI layer, a partnership angle, a whole new market segment. You left the meeting with momentum, buy-in, and energy.

Three weeks later, nothing had shipped: the mobile version was half-specced, the AI layer had become a separate initiative with its own sub-ideas, and the partnership angle had spawned two exploratory calls that went nowhere. When you checked in, she was genuinely enthusiastic: "I've been thinking about this a lot. I have so many ideas for where this could go." She had, and that was exactly the problem.

You fed her imagination without feeding her execution structure. For this person, a Hunter Seven, possibility is intoxicating and infinite. Without a concrete anchor in the first message, every exciting idea branches into three more, and none of them land. You inspired her perfectly but forgot to constrain that inspiration into something that could actually ship this week.

The problem with generic communication

Most advice about workplace communication treats people as interchangeable. Write clearly, be concise, lead with empathy. These are fine defaults, and they fail constantly with specific people for specific reasons.

Personality science has mapped this for decades. The Enneagram identifies 27 distinct subtypes, each with a different instinctual drive that shapes how they filter, prioritize, and react to incoming messages. These are hardwired filters, running beneath conscious awareness, that determine whether your message lands or gets discarded before it's finished.

The Hunter Seven filters every incoming message through one lens: does this open up exciting possibilities and ideal futures worth pursuing with enthusiastic imaginative focus? If your message sparks possibility, they're all in, immediately and completely, with contagious energy. But that same energy will scatter across a dozen directions unless your message also plants a flag in the ground: this one, this week, this metric.

Meet the Hunter Seven: "Suggestibility"

Hunter Sevens express gluttony through a need to imagine something better than ordinary reality. Gluttons for things of a higher world, they are idealistic dreamers with a passion for living in their imaginations. Hunter Sevens look at things with the optimism of someone who is in love; they see the world through rose-colored glasses. "Suggestibility" refers to being somewhat naive and easy to hypnotize. Light-hearted and enthusiastic, they focus on exciting possibilities and pleasurable fantasies, and they believe they can do everything.

Imaginative overdrive. They don't just see your idea; they see the ten better versions of it that could exist. Their mind genuinely works this way, and every input becomes fuel for a richer, more exciting future. The real issue is that engagement without structure produces inflation instead of output. Your communication needs to honor the vision while immediately channeling it into a single executable experiment.

Optimism as default lens. They genuinely believe things will work out. Rose-colored glasses are the default prescription. This makes them magnetic collaborators and terrible risk assessors. If your message is all upside, they'll amplify it uncritically. If you want them to succeed, you need to pair the excitement with the constraints, giving the energy walls to push against.

Naivete about limits. "We can do everything" is an operating assumption they live by. They'll overcommit, overpromise, and underestimate complexity with complete sincerity. Your job is to redirect that belief: "you can do this one thing brilliantly if you start now."

5 ways you're losing them before you start

1. Dream stacking without execution. "This could be amazing one day." You just gave them permission to fantasize without building. Convert each idea into one next experiment with a success metric and a deadline. The dream is fuel, and the experiment is the engine.

2. Harsh cynicism. "Let's be realistic—that's never going to work." You just killed their creative engagement and probably their willingness to bring you ideas again. Challenge optimism with grounded constraints. "Strong idea—here's the constraint we'd need to solve first" keeps them in the game.

3. Overpromised certainty. "This is definitely going to succeed." You're feeding naivete when you should be building confidence. They'll believe you, skip the risk assessment, and be blindsided when reality shows up. State risks, unknowns, and assumptions explicitly. They can handle it when it comes packaged with a plan.

4. Abstract jargon. "We need to leverage synergies across the ecosystem." Their imagination will fill in whatever meaning sounds most exciting, which won't match yours. Use plain language and specific actions. "We need Chen's team to test the API by Thursday" leaves nothing to reinterpret.

5. No deadlines. "Let's explore this when we have time." You just gave a Seven an open-ended invitation to dream indefinitely. Attach dates, owners, and review points. Deadlines, to them, are the thing that turns a beautiful idea into an actual thing in the world.

What they actually want to hear

Pair every vision with an experiment, every possibility with a constraint, and every "someday" with a "by Friday." They need their enthusiasm to have a runway with an end point.

Try it out: FREE Communication Optimizer for Hunter Sevens

Paste your draft message into your LLM, then paste the following prompt after it.

mode: communication_optimizer
target_subtype: HUNTER_SEVEN
subtype_name: Suggestibility
instinct: hunter
core_drive: "pursue exciting possibilities and ideal futures with enthusiastic imaginative focus"
communication_stance: "visionary,yet-grounded,possibility-rich,reality-anchored"
tone[4]:
  - inspiring over dull
  - optimistic over cynical
  - focused over scattered
  - concrete over magical
message_rules[6]:
  - start with a compelling possibility
  - quickly anchor vision in present constraints and facts
  - break aspiration into near-term experiments
  - keep enthusiasm high while guarding against fantasy drift
  - require commitments with dates and owners
  - close with the first concrete action now
anti_patterns[5]{id,pattern,why_it_fails,fix}:
  1,dream_stacking_without_execution,creates inflation and drop-off,convert each idea into one next experiment
  2,harsh_cynicism,kills creative engagement,challenge optimism with grounded constraints
  3,overpromised_certainty,feeds naivete,state risks unknowns and assumptions
  4,abstract_jargon,hides practical reality,use plain language and specific actions
  5,no_deadlines,allows perpetual fantasizing,attach dates owners and review points
few_shot[3]{id,generic,optimized}:
  1,"This could be amazing one day.","This can be amazing if we run pilot A this week with success metric B."
  2,"Let us brainstorm more possibilities.","Choose one idea now and execute a two-day test."
  3,"Everything will work out somehow.","Best case is strong and risk is real. Here is the plan that covers both."
quality_gate[4]:
  - keep imagination paired with execution
  - preserve hope without denying constraints
  - remove vague future-only language
  - end with an immediate measurable step
input_source: prior_thread_message

Twenty-seven subtypes. One message.

The Hunter Seven needs exciting possibilities anchored in immediate execution. The Teamer Seven ("Sacrifice") shares their optimistic energy but channels it into group service, needing to see how the idea benefits the collective before they'll commit. The Farmer Five ("Castle") operates from the opposite instinct entirely: they need minimal stimulation, maximum self-sufficiency, and time to think alone before committing to anything. Your inspiring brainstorm pitch would energize the Seven, bore the Five, and frustrate the Six who's still waiting for your risk assessment.

Personalization determines whether your message gets read or discarded.

The communicators who learn to inspire and constrain in the same breath, giving dreamers a launchpad instead of an open sky, will turn the most creative people they know into the most productive. Everyone else will keep having amazing brainstorms that never become anything real.

You sparked the vision but forgot to build the runway, and that's why the idea is still airborne three weeks later.

It's why we're building Rally, communications automatically optimized for each person's instinctual profile. See how we do it: AI Smells Remover.