Why Your Best Successor might not be anything like you

Most personality tests tell you how someone behaves. Very few tell you why. In this episode of the Business Legacy Podcast, Paul Dio sits down with Karl Hebenstreit of Perform and Function, a leadership development consultant and executive coach who uses the Enneagram to help leaders understand the motivation driving their own behavior and the behavior of the people around them. Paul opens with a personal story. Early in his career, personality assessments told him he was too patient, too introverted, and not aggressive enough to succeed as a financial advisor. Instead of walking away, he built a business around his personality one relationship at a time. Karl explains why that matters: an assessment cannot tell you what you know to be true about yourself, and passion paired with self awareness will often outperform natural talent without it. Karl shares how he discovered the Enneagram while pursuing a PhD in organizational psychology, when his professor invited Helen Palmer to teach a single class. He then walks Paul through all nine types live on the show, organized into thinking, feeling, and action styles, and together they land on Paul's core motivation. Karl's Swiss Army knife analogy reframes the whole system: we each favor a few tools, but all nine are available to us, and growth comes from learning when to open the ones we rarely use. The conversation turns to leadership and succession. Karl explains why the person ranked first on a succession plan is often not the one who gets the role, why real one on one conversations about aspiration matter more than development programs, and how similar to me bias leads leaders to choose successors who think exactly like them. His point is simple and uncomfortable: the team you need is the one that covers your blind spots, not the one that mirrors you. ### Timestamps 00:00 Welcome and introduction to Karl Hebenstreit 00:30 Paul's personality test story and building a business around his style 02:30 Why passion and self awareness outweigh an assessment 04:00 From Myers Briggs and DISC to the Enneagram 05:00 Behavior versus the motivation behind it 06:00 Meeting Helen Palmer in a single graduate class 07:00 The nine motivations and the three centers 08:00 Thinking styles, types five, six, and seven 10:30 Feeling styles, types two, three, and four 13:00 Action styles, types eight, nine, and one 15:30 Paul's styles and the Swiss Army knife analogy 17:00 Identifying Paul's core motivation 18:30 Small talk, authenticity, and recharging 20:00 Handing leadership to someone wired differently 21:00 Why the top succession candidate is often skipped 22:30 Real versus fake succession plans 23:30 Similar to me bias and diversity of perspective 25:00 How underused types show up in our mistakes 26:30 Karl's favorite part of the work 27:30 Where to connect with Karl ### Episode Resources Learn how Carl helps leaders and teams uncover the motivation behind their behavior, strengthen relationships, and make smarter decisions about who leads next: https://www.performandfunction.com Leave a Review: If you enjoyed the episode, leave a review and rating on your preferred podcast platform. For more information: Visit https://businesslegacypodcast.com to access the show notes and additional resources on the episode.