Enneagram at Work: Your Questions Answered
Everything you (or your boss) might want to know before bringing the Enneagram to your team.
1. What is the Enneagram?
The Enneagram is a personality framework that describes nine distinct ways people tend to see and respond to the world. Unlike tools that focus primarily on observable behavior, the Enneagram also explores the motivations and patterns underneath that behavior.
In the workplace, that can help people better understand why coworkers may communicate, make decisions, approach conflict, lead, or respond to pressure differently, even when they're working toward the same goal. Â
The simplest way we describe it: it gives teams a shared language for understanding themselves and one another.
2. How do organizations actually use the Enneagram?
Organizations use the Enneagram for everything from team building and leadership development to improving communication, navigating conflict and strengthening collaboration. Â
We find it becomes especially useful when teams move beyond simply learning everyone's type and begin applying the language to real work:
How do we each prefer to communicate? What happens when we're under pressure? Where might we misunderstand one another? What does each person need in order to do their best work?
The goal isn't to create a team of Enneagram experts. It's to give people a practical language they can continue using after the workshop ends.
3. Is the Enneagram a personality test?
The Enneagram is the framework; an assessment is one way to begin exploring it.
We often use an assessment before a workshop to give participants a starting point, but we don't treat a test result as the final word on someone's type. Participants learn about the nine patterns, reflect on their own experience and ultimately determine which one fits them best.
The assessment starts the conversation. It isn't the conversation.
Neither needs to replace the other, and teams that have already worked with DiSC often find the Enneagram gives them another useful lens.
4. What kinds of organizations use the Enneagram?
The Enneagram is used in corporations, small businesses and nonprofit organizations for leadership development, team building, communication and professional development. Â
At Enneagram MBA, we've brought this work into professional sports front offices, healthcare and physician groups, global manufacturing and R&D teams, leadership teams, and company-wide employee experiences.
Our clients have included organizations such as The Atlantic, Dallas Cowboys, ButcherBox, MARS Petcare, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, Kaiser Permanente, Medpace and others.
5. How is the Enneagram different from DiSC?
Both can give teams a common language for understanding differences and working better together, but they approach that work differently.
DiSC describes four primary behavioral styles and helps people understand and adapt to different workplace preferences and tendencies. Â The Enneagram describes nine different perspectives and puts particular emphasis on understanding the motivations, needs and concerns underneath the way someone shows up. Â
A simple way to think about it:
DiSC can help illuminate how someone tends to show up. The Enneagram invites us to explore more of the why underneath it.
Neither needs to replace the other, and teams that have already worked with DiSC often find the Enneagram gives them another useful lens.
6. We've already done DiSC, StrengthsFinder or another personality assessment. Will this feel repetitive?
It doesn't have to.
If your team already has experience with another framework, that's often an advantage: they're already comfortable talking about individual differences.
Rather than replacing what you've learned, the Enneagram can add another layer by exploring the internal patterns and motivations that influence how people communicate, react under stress, approach conflict and relate to others.
Different tool. Different lens. Same larger goal: helping people work better together.
 7. What if someone's assessment gives them the “wrong” type?
That's okay, and it's more common than people might expect.
An Enneagram assessment provides possibilities to explore rather than assigning someone an identity. Because the Enneagram is concerned with internal motivation, something a questionnaire can't always fully capture, participants are encouraged to stay curious about their results.
No one is told, “This is who you are.”
Instead, we help people ask, “Which of these patterns most consistently explains what's happening underneath my behavior?”
8. Will people have to share personal information?
No. A workplace Enneagram experience should still feel like a workplace experience.
Participants are invited to reflect and participate, but they don't have to disclose personal information or share anything they're uncomfortable discussing with coworkers.
We design conversations around things that matter at work, communication, collaboration, stress, strengths, differences and working relationships, while giving individuals control over what they choose to share.
Meaningful doesn't have to mean overly personal.
9. Does the Enneagram put people in boxes?
Used well, it should do the opposite.
The nine types give us language for recognizing patterns, not rules for predicting everything someone will do. People of the same Enneagram type can have very different personalities, backgrounds, strengths and ways of working.
We don't use type to excuse behavior (“I'm an 8, that's just how I am”) or to make assumptions about what someone can or can't do.
The goal isn't to put people in boxes. It's to notice our patterns so we have more choice in how we respond.
That last sentence could become another little pull quote.
10. What actually happens during an Enneagram workshop?
Expect something much more interactive than sitting through a personality presentation.
Depending on the length and goals of the experience, a workshop might include an introduction to the nine types, individual reflection, small-group conversations, team mapping, discussion of communication and working styles, and practical application to situations your team is actually navigating.
Our sessions combine teaching + conversation + application so participants aren't simply learning about the Enneagram — they're using it to better understand the people they work with.
Planning an Enneagram experience for your team?
Explore our complimentary Team Experience Planning Kit for sample agendas, planning checklists, discussion questions, room setup ideas and more.
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