TEAMER FIVE - TOTEM

They Didn't Ignore Your Request. They Found It Intellectually Empty.

Without a thesis, your ask earned zero of their attention.

The product team needed a technical review of a new integration architecture. Rachel sent the request to Kai, the team's systems thinker and unofficial knowledge architect: "This seems like a good idea. Can you help with this project? We need to move fast."

Three sentences, each one a different failure mode. "Seems like a good idea" offered no thesis, no framework, no reasoning. "Can you help" gave no intellectual scope, only labor with no defined contribution. "Move fast" signaled anti-intellectualism, a demand to compress without substance.

Kai replied with a single question: "What specifically are we trying to learn?" Rachel read it as obstruction. It was actually the only question Kai could ask, because nothing in her message activated the part of his brain that engages. She'd sent a task where he needed a problem, urgency where he needed meaning. The request sat in his queue for two weeks because there was nothing in it for his mind to grab onto.

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 Teamer Five filters everything through one question: does this advance understanding? Their core drive is finding meaning and connection through shared knowledge, ideals, and coherent frameworks. If your message doesn't contain a thesis, a conceptual structure, or a link to something larger than the task itself, it gets classified as noise. They deprioritize it because their operating system literally doesn't know what to do with it.

Meet the Teamer Five: "Totem"

The Teamer Five expresses avarice through a need for "super-ideals," relating to others with common interests through knowledge and shared values (rather than emotional connection). In this Five, avarice is connected to knowledge. Needs for people and for the sustenance that relationships provide get channeled into a thirst for information. "Totem" refers to a passion for high ideals, the need to idealize experts and seek knowledge connected to whatever ultimate values this Five adheres to. Teamer Fives engage in a search for the ultimate meaning to avoid experiencing life as meaningless.

Knowledge as connection. Where most people bond through shared experience or emotional rapport, the Teamer Five connects through shared frameworks and ideas. Their relationships are built on intellectual resonance—mutual commitment to understanding something deeply. Messages that skip the conceptual layer and go straight to teamer obligation ("can you help?") miss the entire mechanism by which this person engages with others.

Avarice for meaning. The Teamer Five hoards understanding the way other subtypes hoard resources or attention. Every request competes with their internal drive to conserve energy for what matters intellectually. If your ask doesn't connect to a larger model, a higher purpose, or a question worth answering, it gets triaged as a drain rather than an opportunity. This is an instinctual economy of attention.

Totem-seeking. They gravitate toward ideals, expert authorities, and organizing principles that give life coherence. Purposeless tasks—work that doesn't connect to a framework—drain motivation faster than difficult work. A Teamer Five will happily spend twelve hours on a hard problem if it advances their understanding. They'll spend zero hours on an easy task if it doesn't mean anything.

5 ways you're losing them before you start

1. Shallow slogans. "Let's move the needle" or "drive impact." This feels intellectually empty to someone who processes the world through conceptual models. Replace slogans with defined concepts and reasoning. State the thesis directly.

2. Purely teamer appeal. "The team is counting on you" or "do it for the group." This misses their entire value framework. Teamer Fives engage through shared mission and knowledge. Anchor the request to meaning and intellectual purpose.

3. Undefined terms. "We need to improve the customer experience." Which customers? What dimension of experience? Measured how? Undefined terms create conceptual noise for a mind that craves precision. Add explicit definitions and scope before asking for their input.

4. Anti-intellectual brevity. "Just do X." The removal of substance is the problem. Teamer Fives respect efficiency, but they need to see that the thinking happened before the compression. Compress without removing substance: show the model, then give the shorthand.

5. Purposeless tasks. "Can you update this spreadsheet?" with no context about why the data matters or what decision it feeds. This drains motivation instantly. Show how the work advances the larger model—what question it answers, what framework it validates, what understanding it creates.

What they actually want to hear

Every revision replaces vague asks with intellectual structure: define what to evaluate, what to test, and what to learn. Give them a thesis to interrogate and they'll give you their best work.

Try it out: FREE Communication Optimizer for Teamer Fives

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

mode: communication_optimizer
target_subtype: TEAMER_FIVE
subtype_name: Totem
instinct: teamer
core_drive: "find meaning and connection through shared knowledge ideals and coherent frameworks"
communication_stance: "principle-driven,conceptual-rigorous,values-aligned,intellect-first"
tone[4]:
  - analytical over rhetorical
  - thoughtful over reactive
  - coherent over fragmented
  - evidence-based over opinion-based
message_rules[6]:
  - lead with the core thesis and why it matters
  - define key terms and conceptual boundaries
  - connect request to shared values and higher purpose
  - support claims with references models or logic
  - invite critique that improves conceptual rigor
  - close with a testable hypothesis and next inquiry
anti_patterns[5]{id,pattern,why_it_fails,fix}:
  1,shallow_slogans,feels intellectually empty,replace with defined concepts and reasoning
  2,purely_social_appeal,misses value framework,anchor to mission meaning and knowledge
  3,undefined_terms,creates conceptual noise,add explicit definitions and scope
  4,anti_intellectual_brevity,signals low seriousness,compress without removing substance
  5,purposeless_tasks,drain motivation,show how work advances the larger model
few_shot[3]{id,generic,optimized}:
  1,"This seems like a good idea.","Thesis: this approach improves signal quality. Here is the model and assumptions."
  2,"Can you help with this project?","Can you evaluate this framework for coherence and failure modes by Friday?"
  3,"We need to move fast.","Move fast on this bounded experiment with explicit criteria and learning goals."
quality_gate[4]:
  - each paragraph should advance understanding
  - no claim without conceptual or empirical support
  - keep values and logic tightly coupled
  - end with clear intellectual next steps
input_source: prior_thread_message

Twenty-seven subtypes. One message.

The Teamer Five needs intellectual structure and meaning before they'll engage. The Teamer Two ("Ambition") needs visible influence and strategic positioning—ideas without status implications bore them. The Farmer Eight ("Satisfaction") needs bottom-line utility and zero preamble—frameworks without immediate payoff feel academic. The message that activates one mind leaves another completely cold.

Personalization determines whether your message gets read or discarded.

Your smartest people aren't disengaged. They're under-stimulated by messages that don't contain anything their minds can work with. For a Teamer Five, a task without a thesis is a task without a reason.

They're waiting for you to make it worth thinking about.

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