How Workplaces Kill Curiosity (And What You Can Do About It)
Do not make the mistake of thinking that, as adults, you are any less curious. You display all the markers of curiosity. You read books, you watch a show someone recommends, you chat with friends, you travel to new places, you exchange gossip, you scroll through Twitter looking for something interesting. Only difference? As adults, we tone down curiosity in situations where we perceive there is a cost to it, like at the workplace.
Once upon a time, you were a curious little tyke. As a baby and as a child, you freely tinkered and toyed, slipped and bumped, upturned and poked. You made a hundred different trials and errors in your journey to figuring out how to survive in this world.
As humans, we are biologically engineered to be curious. But curiosity has a strong element of economic inefficiency built into it: time is lost, dead-ends are reached, and playful exploration is not seen as economically useful.
As a society, it is acceptable for children to doodle freely on walls and paper, poke in the mud, try combining random things from sticks and stones to LEGO pieces, even though nothing actually comes out of it. But not for all adults in their working primes.
Over time, we start prioritising efficiency over freewheeling.
As we grow up, we become more goal-oriented and direct. We start to wean out things that are inefficient or oblique, and become more focused. And so, we tend to shy away from activities that don't seem useful immediately.
Do not make the mistake of thinking that, as adults, you become any less curious. You display all the markers of curiosity everyday. You read books, you watch a show someone recommends, you chat with friends, you travel to new places, you exchange gossip, you scroll through Twitter looking for something interesting. Only difference? As adults we tone down curiosity in situations where we perceive a cost to it.
When it comes to the workplace, most adults severely restrict their curiosity.
Why? It is not because adults lack curiosity.
It is because of two reasons: the nature of the work, or the nature of the workplace, which do not reward curiosity. And this can be fixed.
Before I get to the specific reasons of how to change this, let us see how one stands to gain from a curiosity-sparked workforce. There are two important reasons that I always call out to leaders:
If an enlightened leader understands the power of curiosity, they can change the environment of their workplace to enable their workers to be curious and stay curious.
History is full of examples where problem-solvers and innovators took an idea that came from one domain and applied it to another. This cross-pollination effect of curiosity has been behind some of the greatest inventions of mankind. A great example is that of how the Japanese Shinkansen bullet train was made less noisier, by studying how a kingfisher flies.
To build rapport with a client, a prospect, or a potential hire, it takes social exchanges, small talk, and even banter. Curious people, whether introverted or extroverted, do this well. Asking questions, understanding interests, probing deeper: curiosity is the perfect catalyst for great conversations.
(There are many more reasons, so let me point you to HBS professor Francesco Gino’s work, which shows that there is a strong business case for curiosity at work, improving decision-making and conflict resolution.)
If an enlightened leader understands the power of curiosity, they can change the environment of their workplace to enable their workers to be curious and stay curious.
Based on my experience working with leaders in fostering curiosity and innovation, I have 5 concrete steps that I recommend to kickstart this change of mindset. Before that, take a moment to think about your own workplace and answer these three questions:
Are people at your workplace encouraged to display curiosity at work?
Moreover, are people at your workplace incentivized to display curiosity at work?
Do leaders like yourself express your curiosity at work?
If you are a leader, and want to foster curiosity at your workplace, think about these. (Need more help? Choose To Thinq can help you to foster curiosity in your organisation.)
Here are 5 STEPS I recommend leaders can take right away, if they would like their teams to bring their curious selves to work:
When you see someone being curious, recognise it publicly.
Noticed someone reading something apart from what is prescribed for work? Hear them talking about a podcast to someone else? Call out the value of their curiosity. Ask them a question about it, or in an all-hands meet, recognise it publicly. Everyone likes being noticed, and you will be setting the stage for others to replicate the same behaviour. Remember: culture spreads through mimicry. So the more you can spotlight such behaviours the better.
Amplify their curiosity by posting about it / talking about it.
Your coworker or your team member has brought a book. Take a photo and post it on your collection. Overheard someone talking about a podcast? Ask if they would like to talk about it to the rest of the team. Help them amplify their work. Most people are a little shy of tooting their own horn, so you can be the person to amplify their work to a larger team and perhaps even across teams. (Read my post on how having an outlet can help with MOOC completion rates.)
Let people wander and digress.
Curiosity can be a very discursive process. Sometimes when you meet curious people or have a conversation, things can ramble. So curiosity can feel inefficient. Don't let your focus on efficiency and productivity get in the way of curiosity. So that curious colleague strays off course recounting an anecdote which at first seems unrelated? Or points to a connection from a very different field? Allow them that leeway. Don't cut them short - enjoy it. This is a tip garnered from good parenting practises as well - where parents are encouraged to not cut their children short when they are talking about something the parent may not see the point of right away. You want to encourage that behaviour, so let them digress.
Offer curious people a stage
Curious people can make for great interviewers, and be great interviewees themselves. They can talk to people within and outside the organisation. That’s because they have a foundation of different ideas and perspectives, can handle a variety of topics, can respond to things in real time, and don't always need to be prepared because the system of curiosity itself has prepared them for most situations. So give them the stage when you can, especially when it comes to open-ended conversations.
In 2020, when my team started our own podcast, we were quickly able to interview close to a hundred guests ranging from CXOs to young super-achievers to authors to medical experts thanks to our accumulated stores of knowledge. You could be running an internal podcast series yourself, or you could be inviting an external guest and need a facilitator for it - your curious colleague is the best person to lead that charge.
Involve curious ones in problem-solving
Like in the cross-pollination example mentioned earlier, curious people can make great sounding boards for people with problems. So if someone comes to you as a leader for an input on a problem, ask them to speak to your curious colleague as well. Not only will the problem-seeker benefit from this interaction and get wider perspectives than run-off-the-mill ones, it will also contribute to a culture of building networks within the company. There is greater scope for cross-pollination and building culture when things are not siloed and will have a positive effect across the organisation.
And one last extra tip is for yourself as a leader.
If you want to encourage curiosity, be a role model yourself. Be an unabashed and visible practitioner of curiosity. Lead the way. Showcase the behaviours you want to see in others. And if you want to know how to do it, you can reach out to your curious colleagues or get in touch with us. At Choose To Thinq where we strongly believe that curiosity makes the world go round and keeps all of us relevant for the future.
Want to make curiosity a core tenet of your team?
Read how we helped would-be and prolific innovators of a multinational tech company to use storytelling in their curiosity and innovation journey.
Discover how Connections Cafe and The Same Page can help distributed/hybrid/remote teams to be curious together.
Find out why you should be orchestrating your desired culture and not leave curiosity to chance.
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Watch our Smartcast with the Global Curiosity Institute’s Stefaan von Hooydonk on why curiosity makes the world a better place and the role it plays in the modern workplace.