58 in a relationship

They're connected by an arrow: strategy 5 moves toward strategy 8 in growth. Strategy 8 therefore often embodies what someone with strategy 5 needs to develop.

They're connected by an arrow: strategy 8 moves toward strategy 5 under stress. That's why someone with strategy 8 easily recognizes their own worse days in strategy 5.

The Eight is probably the most assertive strategy, the Five the most withdrawn. The Eight wants more, the Five needs little. The Eight goes out, the Five goes into privacy. Even so, it's a common pairing and they're close to each other. They're connected by an arrow, and after years together the aggressive Eight seems surprisingly calm and the Five seems as if they'd just come back from an assertiveness course.

In the safety of home the Five is much more open, and that fits the Eight's desire for truth. Thanks to the Eight, the Five experiences emotional energy. They hate arguing, but usually admit that "lessons from the Eight" do them good. The Eight, in turn, learns to wait from the Five.

• Mutual respect for independence.
• Direct, matter-of-fact communication.
• The Eight brings strength, the Five deliberation.

• The Eight pushes for contact, the Five withdraws.
• The Five can drain the energy out of an interaction as effectively as the Eight pumps it in.
• Both struggle to compromise and rarely blame themselves.

In business, we trust the Five because they neither seduce us nor attack us with emotions. But the Five rarely follows their ideas through into practice: implementation means intense personal dealings. The Eight is ideal for that. The Five gives the instructions, the Eight carries them out.