What makes the Enneagram different?

Have you heard of the Myers Briggs? The DISC assessment? Or perhaps the four animals  - you’re either a lion, beaver, otter, or golden retriever?  These tools are all personality tools that are almost exclusively based on behavior.  So, you could probably guess what somebody’s animal is after watching them at work for a few days. Because it’s about what’s on the outside, what other people can see.  And even the presentation of ourselves that we curate.

What makes the Enneagram different from other personality systems?

Here’s how the enneagram is different: The enneagram looks at motivations, not behaviors. And it breaks us down into nine types of motivations.  For example, your female manager who is assertive, confident, and leads with a loud voice, she might easily fit into the Lion category. But what about her Enneagram number? Well, she might be assertive and confident and a good leader because she is motivated by a fear of being controlled by others, or motivated by a need to be successful at everything she does, or motivated by a desire to be morally good and do the right thing, or she could be motivated by a desire for safety and security and want to provide safety and security to the people she leads.  All of those motivations might be why she presents as an assertive, strong, confident leader.

This is the enneagram. Not how we look on the outside. Not what we do. But WHY we do it. Each of those possible motivations I just listed pertain to different Enneagram types  -  and Enneagram type is simply not something that you can see or figure out just based on the way somebody acts.

It’s also why the enneagram is such a powerful tool for understanding ourselves, and for finally getting what makes other people act and react so differently to the exact same situation.

Our subconscious assumptions about other people

Here’s something we all do subconsciously: we assume that other people are looking at the world exactly how we are. We assume that others are motivated how we are motivated. This is why I, as a child, was determined to be good, do the right thing, and avoid getting in trouble - and I could not understand why everyone else didn’t just try to be good, too. Why were my siblings talking back to my parents when they could just shut up and avoid getting in trouble? Why were kids at school being mean at recess or not taking school seriously? Didn’t everyone want to be a good little girl?

Well, no. Certainly not. There’s eight other motivations going on in these people. Not just my Type 1 motives. 

We all naturally relate to more than one type. That is normal. We are all motivated by many things. We are complicated and have many layers. But Enneagram theory teaches that, at the core, one motivation wins out over the rest.

The Enneagram is different from other personality systems in that it isn’t based on outward behaviors. It’s under the hood - it describes the motivations behind why we do what we do. What deep core fear is motivating our actions? What core desire is driving our specific patterns of behavior?

Each person’s Enneagram type describes a set of core fears and core desires. This is the power of the Enneagram: it illuminates the deep ways we are unconsciously motivated, and it explains why humans react and behave differently from one another.

The Enneagram is not about our behavior. It’s not about how we act.

It’s about what motivates us.