349: R. Karl Hebenstreit—Who Am I? Try The Enneagram And Take A Better Look!

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Andi Simon: Welcome to On the Brink With Andi Simon. Hi, I’m Andi Simon, your host. As you know, I’m the founder and CEO of Simon Associates Management Consultants. You also know that I don’t like to do too much promotion on this podcast. What I like to do is celebrate the guests whom I’m honored to bring to you so you can do something special: get off the brink. I want you to see, feel and think in new ways.

Fast-changing times are asking you to do just that. Most of us hate change. And we’re not quite sure how to really respond. But I promise you, never waste a crisis. And even though the pandemic seems to be sliding back, the new is so unfamiliar. And I don’t care what kind of business or work you do, you’re facing people who are also trying to adapt to fast-changing times. Somehow, you’re going to have to figure out who they are now that they’re hybrid. Are they the same people that used to come into the office? What do I know about myself? How do I manage this wonderful array of people now, some are in, some are out?

The world has become global, and AI sticks its nose into the thing and chatbots are doing all kinds of stuff. How can I help? So today I have Karl Hebenstreit with us. And Karl is a wonderful individual I will tell you about. And then he will tell you about his own journey.

Who is Karl? Karl is a certified executive coach, leadership and organization development consultant, and author of two books that I’ll tell you a little bit about, and an international speaker. His career spans the areas of HR and OD in biotech, clinical diagnostics, life sciences, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and many other industries. He has really taken his expertise to places that needed him.

He holds a PhD in organizational psychology, and is helping organizations to attract, retain and motivate employees. He has an MS in HR management from Rutgers. And so he’s in New Jersey near us here in New York. But it’s really quite interesting. He’s the author of The How and Why: Taking Care of Business with the Enneagram now in its second edition, and a children’s book called Nina and the Really, Really Tough Decision. I’m not sure which we’re going to spend more time on, the really tough decisions. And don’t think that even though you’re grown up, you aren’t still Nina and trying to figure it out. Karl, thanks for joining me today.

Karl Hebenstreit: Thank you so much, Andi, this is a pleasure and an honor and privilege to be with you today. And absolutely. You are so correct. And we are all Nina, we all have Nina within us forever for our entire lives. And how do we access Nina? And how do we access all of the gifts and just perspectives that she can get from everything that’s within her? And that’s really what we’re here to talk about today.

Andi Simon: Well, you’ve had a wonderful career and a journey and people like to hear your story. Who are you? And how have you come to the point where this has become a focus, because I think it’s evolved for you, hasn’t it?

Karl Hebenstreit: It really has, and I love to say that it was planned and strategized, but it wasn’t. The only planning and strategizing was that I needed to get an education to be able to figure out what I’m going to do in this world and how I can impact change. And I started in one direction and ended up in a completely different direction and that was the right direction. So yes, as you said, there is a total East Coast connection. I was born in New York on Long Island, Mineola, Long Island, and was raised in Greece, my mom is Greek. So we went back to Greece when I was two. And I was there for seven years.

I came back to the United States with my parents with a Greek accent, which maybe every once in a while you hear some weird syllable or pronunciation, but it’s pretty much all gone. And we settled back in Old Bridge, New Jersey, and I was in New Jersey for pretty much the rest of my formative years, until I moved to California in 1998. And my formative years were spent, as you said, in New Jersey, my education was from Rutgers. My undergrad is from Rutgers. My master’s is from Rutgers.

And I really didn’t know what or where I was going to go with my aspirations. My parents had ideas for sure, just like everyone’s parents do. And my mom steered me towards languages and I started learning French and Greek as part of the school system there, along with Greek and English of course, and my dad was/is very much about politics, so he was political science, so I dutifully said, I’m going to do French and political science as a double major. I can use them. I can become a diplomat and lawyer or who knows what I’ll become but that’s what I’m going to do. That’s what I’m going to pursue and I dutifully went forward using those as my majors.

And then I took an elective course in psychology. And my eyes opened up. And I’m like, wow, this is interesting. This is really, really cool trying to understand people, trying to figure out why they behave the way they behave, why they do the things they do, what’s brought them to where they are. And I took more and more elective courses because I needed elective courses to graduate. And I got to the point where I ended up with a minor in psychology, but I still had one more semester to go. And I figured out, you know, if I just take six classes in psychology for my last semester, I can get a third major. So it’d be psychology, French and political science.

So then that gives you a little bit more of a hint of where my Enneagram type might be because of a wing of mine, probably that went into play there, which I didn’t know at the time. So yeah, I ended up graduating from Rutgers with a triple major in psychology, French, and political science. And at a time, this was back in 1993, and the economy was not very good. So I ended up figuring, well let me start trying to find work. I couldn’t find anything that I could use for my degrees.

So I took this one course in industrial and personnel psychology as it was called back then. And I thought that was it. That’s really the direction I want to take. But how do I get into that? So since I wasn’t able to get a job right away in an area where I wanted to go into, I decided, well, let me get a temp job, I can become a temp. I was a temp during all of the school vacations and the holidays and everything like that.

So back to the temp agency: I said, I have these parameters. These are my boundaries that I really want to focus on a job in human resources and a large organization that’s headquartered here, which hopefully that would mean I’d get a job there after being a temp with them, and proving myself to them. And it had to be in the human resources department for the long term. It couldn’t just be like, you know, a day here and a day there. It had to be something that was substantial.

So they came through with me with Merck. Merck was a huge or is a huge employer in New Jersey, obviously. And I went to work there covering maternity leaves. I did two years of covering maternity leave after maternity leave after maternity leave, lots of people got pregnant at Merck. I don’t know what was going on there. But yeah, covered for all the maternity leaves, and at the same time, at night was going to school for my master’s in HR management. So it was a really cool way to pay for my education, and get to practice what I was learning during the day at work.

So that’s what immersed me in the field of human resources. And when I eventually moved from, eventually landed a job at AT&T, which then moved me from being headquartered in New Jersey, moved me from New Jersey to California, which is where I ultimately always knew I wanted to be. I don’t know why it was just within me, ingrained that I was going to end up in California somewhere, didn’t know whether it was going to be, north or south or wherever.

I ended up in Northern California, knowing no one, absolutely no one, just moved out here. I knew this is where I needed to be. And that’s where I fell into the Enneagram. So I decided my HR career was great. And I loved many, many aspects of it, but I wanted more. And so the next step, the next evolutionary step would be to go into organization development. And how do I do that? I need to get more of an education. So through AT&T’s very generous tuition reimbursement program, I went to school again at night for my PhD in organizational psychology in California, and that’s where I was introduced to the Enneagram.

One of my professors was friends with Helen Palmer, who is a big name in Enneagram. She’s in the peninsula. And she came in for one of our classes. It wasn’t even a whole semester long class. It was just one class. And she came in and she introduced us to the Enneagram. And much like you, I know you use Myers-Briggs in some of your engagements, I was a Myers-Briggs guy. Myers-Briggs was great. It was awesome. It helped explain how things worked. People understood more about themselves. They understood more about their co-workers. People weren’t crazy, or maybe they were but they were at least explainable.

And then I found out that, Oh, wow, Myers-Briggs just scratches the surface. And we really don’t know what’s below the surface, what’s causing or motivating those behaviors that we’re seeing that Myers-Briggs is telling us that we do. So Helen Palmer explained that, all in that one class, that one less-than-three-hour class, and I was hooked, I was so hooked. I originally thought I was a certain type. All my classmates said Yeah, right. You’re not, look at your actions. And they were right. Because we always want to be something we’re not.

Andi Simon: We don’t really know what we are. And we don’t have a good mirror to help us do that. And, consequently, we know humans are storymakers. We create a wonderful living story. In our mind, our mental map, and however we create it, that’s where we live. We only see the things that conform to it. And if it doesn’t fit, we just scrap it. We didn’t delete it and so we’re good at that.

And so an Enneagram begins to create a way of understanding that story through a really sophisticated lens. They’re all trying to help you see yourself through a fresh lens. What’s interesting is that, I just want to pause for a moment because people listening and watching, you too may have had an epiphany at some point. I discovered anthropology when I was an undergraduate. And I really didn’t have a major. I was wandering, trying to figure out what life was about. And then I took one course and next thing I know, I went, Oh, wow, this is who I am, not just what I want to do.

It sounds like that’s what we did. It’s a calling. And so I am, and then I went to Columbia, and I finished it, but it’s a very interesting feeling. And so if you’re listening or watching, don’t miss it when you have that aha moment in your brain. I can remember the professor, it was like, wow, yeah. While the Enneagram may help tell you more about yourself, you know, sometimes somebody will help you see yourself in ways that you couldn’t imagine. And I don’t think those are separate. So when you discover this, you know what you do with it.

Karl Hebenstreit: I wanted to know more. Just that one three-hour class wasn’t enough. I wanted to know more. So then I became involved in the International Enneagram Association, went to my first conference, started seeing all the different presenters and seeing what the different ways that people were using the Enneagram were. I really saw how I wanted to use it in business because I was in business, I was in human resources at the time. And I saw the connection.

I was doing lots of recruiting at the time, and I saw how we were recruiting for the same type over and over and over again. And we were recruiting not only in our own image, but in the culture of the organization. We were excluding certain people right off the bat because we weren’t acknowledging different drives and needs that they had that would be important for them to have in an organization, to offer them those options, for benefits, for culture that they would need.

And the realization from a diversity perspective is that we do need all nine of those different drivers and perspectives in any group, team or organization. Otherwise, we’re going to succumb to groupthink. And we’re going to miss out on serving the needs of this whole other populace that is not being served, whose interests are not being thought of or considered.

So that’s where I just became totally immersed in it. And sort of practicing experimenting in the organizations for which I worked at that time, this was after 911. So AT&T had done some major layoffs. I was then working with many other different companies, and was able to practice the Enneagram and use the Enneagram model and framework in many different settings.

I know traditionally, it’s been used mostly for individual coaching, executive coaching, and team development and team building. But, there were so many other applications that I saw from all the other models that we use as consultants. And I saw the overlaps and the correlations. And I started saying, hold on a second, why do we need to know all these different models? What if we just tap into this one model and use its robustness for all these different applications?

Andi Simon: There are so many and I can begin to wonder how many colors you are with disk and you know what, what flavors are you and what does it really help you do? So can you give us and the listeners and viewers some idea about a problem where you applied it, or a case study that worked well, because I want to dig a little deeper. We’re torn in our society, between embracing the words diversity, equity, belonging, inclusion, and living it and being an apologist. Birds of a feather flock together; humans are herd animals and they feel the safest, out of danger, when they’re with people who are like them, who look like them, talk like them and affirm them.

I mean, we live with a mirror and we’re looking for a mirror that looks like us in some fashion. But cognitive diversity, neurodiversity, racial, ethnic and gender diversity and sexual diversity, bring new ideas and new ways of doing things at a time when we really do need to embrace them as well as to realize that that’s the world we’re in. And I have a hunch you’ve been applying this in different places. Can you give us a couple of illustrations?

Karl Hebenstreit: Absolutely. The one that immediately comes to mind is when I worked for a clinical diagnostics company, and my clients. I was internal. And my clients were the R&D division. So I had the Vice President of Research and Development, and all of his direct reports. And they had the introduction, and I did an introduction to the Enneagram for them. They loved it. They saw they understood each other better, and it was more for their own team development.

But they were struggling, it was a type six company overall, and still is, I believe, and it was very much about that conservative nature, which really doesn’t work in an R&D environment. You need to promote innovation and experimentation, and not basically punish people for exhibiting those behaviors that may not be successful because not all of R&D is going to be successful.

I saw something somewhere that said, If we knew what we were doing, we wouldn’t be calling it research. So it’s experimentation and learning from failures, and not really punishing the people that went out of the box and did that. So they’re struggling.

Andi Simon: They want to create a new sandbox, but God forbid you walk outside the door and try something new.

Karl Hebenstreit: Exactly, it’s unsafe, you can’t do that. So they knew the Enneagram. And this was a totally different engagement. We were totally different off site, because they were talking about empowerment. Empowerment was really something that they were wondering, why aren’t people innovative? Why aren’t they taking the initiatives to take things on? Why are they always coming to us for approval? Why does it have to go up the chain? And again, type six company, right?

Andi Simon: So the second type six is a loyal skeptic? Is that what we’re referring to?

Karl Hebenstreit: Exactly! The loyal skeptic, their superpower. The type six superpower is the ability to see every single worst case situation that could possibly happen and plan and prepare for it, is how they stay safe. Because if it does happen, they are the ones that you want to follow. They have the plan, they have the kit. They have everything planned out and thought through and just follow them and you will go to safety.

Andi Simon: Until there’s a pandemic and they haven’t got a clue what to do.

Karl Hepenstreit: Exactly, exactly. They’re more conservative there, you know: I need to stay safe, I need to be secluded, I need to be isolated. That kind of thing until they can figure out exactly what is the safest way to do it. And of course, we can dive a lot deeper into this. And there’s a subtype that takes it to a different extreme where they push the boundaries, and they want to say, what will it take for me to be safe? Let me go and do all these outlandish things to know what the possibly horrifying, terrifying effects are and then plan for that afterwards, so that I know that it will be safe if these things even happen. So I will go skydiving, even if I’m afraid of heights, that kind of thing.

So thank you for bringing that back to type six, the loyal skeptic and a little bit more conservative to be safe, to stay safe. And necessarily push those boundaries unless you’re that specific subtype, or instinct. And what I thought I brought to them was because they were struggling, they were coming up with all these different things through their own lens, their own cultural lens that had all those barriers around it, all those walls around it. They couldn’t figure out how to help their employees be more empowered. And I said, Hold on a second, you have a model, you think about what this model has taught us, right? So what if we created this structure that we have in this culture that we have that needs a safety net? Let’s create a safety net that helps people be empowered.

So why don’t we look at the nine different types on the Enneagram and the insights that they provide and let’s think about how we can help people say, let’s look at what a type one lens would help us choose or look through. And that will be the perfectionist, that would be the mission, that would be the quality.

So if someone has an idea as an employee, and wants to do something that’s out of the box, have them go through each of the nine types and the questions that would be offered by them. And if they can answer them in a positive way and say, Yes, I’ve considered all these nine types and I know that this is going to work or it should work from everything that we know. And they go forward with it without running it up the flagpole, and if something does go wrong, or the pandemic strikes or whatever, that we didn’t plan for, oh, well, this person did everything with due diligence in the positive intent.

And, most of the times that would have been successful. But, if you know we have this weird one-off, the pandemic or some other thing that happens, we couldn’t plan for that anyway. So guess what? The vice president would probably make the same decision if they did it with good faith and good intent and due diligence and followed all nine questions or nine perspectives. Something fantastic will have come of it, or they will learn a lesson and reapply it and tweak it and make it into something fantastic. And that’s what can help us drive that innovation and empowerment that we’re looking for, rather than people feeling like, if I do something and it goes wrong, I’m going to be punished.

Andi Simon: Well, you know, part of the challenge, since we do a lot of work on cultural change, is that culture defines the way we do things here. And if you deviate from the way we do things here, it is scary, because you become an outsider. And, you know the book, The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. I love that we’ve evolved because of this collective brain that we’ve shared, and not because of isolates who have fooled us, sometimes they have.

But it is an interesting opportunity. The Enneagram, though, gives you a methodology for really understanding diversity in two new ways. And if you all find yourself at sixes, then you’re going to have a hard time trusting anybody who comes in as an explorer or an inventor. But you could if you understood the differences there. Are there some illustrations about how it’s being used to embrace diversity, and begin to understand what it means, something you can share perhaps?

Karl Hebenstreit: Absolutely. There’s actually some really great work through Dr. Deborah Threadgill Egerton. And she just published a book called Know Justice Know Peace: A Transformative Journey of Social Justice, Anti-Racism, and Healing through the Power of the Enneagram. And I love the way that she presents the Enneagram as a way that we have all these nine styles within us, and how do we tap into them. And obviously everyone is not at the same level of integration or healthiness in their journey, their development journey, and understanding themselves, and seeing how the Enneagram can help them be even more effective and productive and happier in their lives.

So there are three different basic levels. And the really cool thing is, she shows how each type has this opportunity to leverage these gifts, the superpowers that each type has, and ultimately lead into an ally, to become an ally for all elements of diversity. So wouldn’t it be great because we do have all nine types within us? We just concentrate on one core, that’s our core motivator throughout our entire life.

But wouldn’t it be great to also explore these other eight styles that we have within us and see when they would be more appropriate in each different situation and know that other people are leading with one of those eight other styles or our style as well, but maybe through a different subtype or instinctual lens. And understand that we need all those nine perspectives in order to see the world as it really is, rather than just that 40 degree sliver that we’re looking at it through.

So there’s an application that way, where we can teach people about the Enneagram. So it doesn’t really take into account heredity, or sexual orientation, or race or anything like that, but it’s all about, we’re all human. We are all human. And we all share these nine primary motivators. And let’s understand each other through those nine lenses and not exclude them, not separate them, but include them and integrate them into ourselves as well. So we have this robust, diverse power that we can then catalyze for making change, and making the world a better place.

Andi Simon: Karl, if I hear what you just said clearly, and clarify for me, the words that are being used around diversity, all the different categories are fine, but maybe we should change that thinking not around gender, or sexual orientation or race or other things, but think about us as people who have different parts of us operating in different ways, nine different ways, to be looking at our different Enneagrams.

I remember when I did mine, it was a one something and a seven. But I’m an explorer, but I’m also an artist, and I’ve been a boss. I’ve been, you know, EVP of a bank, and an achiever and the balance of them create who I am, not one, but all of them that I’m heavier in. And then there are others where I’m even an anthropologist, and I know I’m a server, I really do five things all the time. And a skeptic, not much. I don’t over-plan, and I let life move me through a journey. But what’s interesting about it is that it redefines the diversity that you need for effective relationships for effective business. And that makes sense, right? And now it gives us a platform on which to understand each other, as well as to personally know how we’re evolving within the organization. Right?

Karl Hebenstreit: And, tapping into the differences, because knowing that whatever every organization is going to somehow end up being a certain culture, it’s going to align with a type one culture or two cultures, whatever one of the nine cultures just because of the nature of the industry, the nature of the leadership, and just who it attracts that way.

However, wouldn’t it be great to find the diversity that we need, and call it out rather than shun it and put it aside, knowing that we need that diversity because we know we’re in groupthink world. Whenever we have more and more of these type threes congregating together, or seven kinds of getting together. And we just need to integrate these other perspectives as well, rather than close them off and shut them down and not allow them to speak and not allow them to have a voice. And we have all nine types within us.

Andi Simon: I often use theater as a metaphor. This woman in Manhattan has a company called Performance of a Lifetime. And she’s an ex-theatre person. And I’ve used her for public speaking training and all kinds of stuff. But usually, if you think of life as theater, and then the question is, what are the roles that you’re playing when the context will influence what part of you.

I mean, if Robert Redford can play Out of Africa and The Way We Were, so can you play multiple roles. You can be cast in one by others or you can begin to cast yourself in a way for now that you can lead or you can follow or you can be an adventurer, and you can reframe yourself and the story you have based on the context. And you know that you understand that, like, theater. We do have to wrap up because I’m watching our time and our listeners are very, very engaged for about a half hour. And we’re just about at that point; a couple of things you don’t want them to forget.

Karl Hebenstreit: I don’t want listeners to forget that it’s really about the readiness of the person or the organization to which instrument you use. In some cases, the Enneagram is not the be-all and end-all for everything. Myers-Briggs is not the be-all and end-all for everything. Hogan is not the be-all and end-all, Leadership Circle is not. It’s whatever the organization or person is ready for, to get that information about the feedback, to understand themselves better if they’re not at that point of self awareness yet. So I think readiness is critical.

The other thing is the platinum rule, which we didn’t discuss. A lot of times people get hung up on the golden rule, which is to treat others the way that you want to be treated, which is not true and it’s not diverse, inclusive, it’s not.

The platinum rule is a far better rule for people to help understand how other people want to be treated. So treat people the way they want to be treated, which then helps us use any of these other instruments that we mentioned. But the Enneagram really tends to be the best one in that realm because it helps us understand where they’re coming from, what their drivers are, their motivations, and what’s how they want to be treated.

Andi Simon: Well, you have to listen and listen without pushing it through your mind map so that you can really hear what they are saying and what they’re all about.

Karl Hebenstreit: You’re absolutely right to interpret it through your lens. And we need to be more curious and not jump to conclusions about that, and hear their story and build that relationship with them to really know where they’re coming from.

And the third one is that we are all diverse inside of us. We have those nine diverse perspectives and ways of looking at the world. And we should not just stick to the one that is our core. We need to integrate all nine types, all the eight other styles that are lesser used, and are less accessible. So integrate all those and then we’ll have a much better idea of what’s going on in every single situation.

Andi Simon: Now I have a hunch you have really elaborated on this in your book, right? Talk a moment about the name of the book and where they can find the book.

Karl Hebenstreit: Yeah. So the book is called The How and Why: Taking Care of Business with the Enneagram. And it’s in the second edition right now, the second edition got published during the pandemic when I had some time to really add more stuff to the first edition and make it even more robust and add more new learnings and more new exercises and models. So that is available to help people to basically use the Enneagram for any organizational development, organization development intervention that they have, or any organizational situation or challenge that they’re put in. So that’s available on Amazon.

You can also check out more about it on my website, which is www.performandfunction.com. There’s also another book intended for all audiences, especially people that may not even know the Enneagram in advance, not that you need to know the Enneagram in advance for the business book either.

But this is intended to help people learn about the Enneagram at a much younger age so it makes their life easier so they can understand the importance of the diverse perspectives that lie within us and that we can really integrate. It’s called Nina and the Really, Really Tough Decision. So they take one of the chapters in the business book and really reinterpret it through the lens of a child learning about all the different perspectives that her different friends have, and so how can she greet them whenever she needs to make a difficult decision.

Andi Simon: You know, you’re tickling my curiosity about whether I should take Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business, my second book, and begin to rewrite it for a teen book. And it’s an audience. But I’m not quite sure that teens can’t read the book already. It’s sort of like, Who do I want to be, and how. So it’s a really interesting time. This has been such fun, if they want to reach you, your website is where they should go?

Karl Hebenstreit: Performandfunction.com has all my contact information as well. LinkedIn, of course: Karl Hebenstreit.

Andi Simon: I think that the listeners are probably listening to us talk about nine different types, and kinds of things that are difficult to talk about in a half hour. So I would urge you to Google Enneagram, and then get into Karl’s book because it offers you a way to see, feel and think about the world and yourself through a fresh lens.

That’s my job to get you off the brink. I want you to soar again, to change. And sometimes the mirror isn’t going back to what you need to know, to see the world the way it’s developing. And I know in particular, people managing in a hybrid world really need to understand what people are going through as they are reassessing themselves, understanding how to get things done differently, and changes are unsettling your mind. You’re amygdala gets hijacked and hates change and wants to go back to the familiar and you can’t go back. The world that was, I’m not sure it’s coming back that fast. Might be a little bit of time. But it’s been great fun. Thank you for joining me today.

Karl Hebenstreit: Thank you, Andi. This has been awesome.

Andi Simon: It is! For those of you who come, I can only tell you, thank you. You can pick up my books at Amazon and Barnes and Noble and, you know, Google them. They are selling really, really well. And I have colleges and universities still using On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights , and Rethink: Smashing The Myths of Women in Business is helping women see themselves through a fresh lens so they know that they should not accept limits.

And McKinsey’s writing about the great breakup, and then women leaving the workforce, it’s time maybe for women to understand themselves better, and help the organization understand why those women are so important to them. But you can reach me at info@andisimon.com and learn more about us there and about our programs. And Simonassociates.net is our website. It’s brand new and ready for you to explore and learn all about what we do to help people see, feel and think. Goodbye Karl. Have a great day everybody who came, thank you for joining us. Have a wonderful day, bye bye now.