7 Reasons to be Curious (+1)
“By replacing fear of the unknown with curiosity we open ourselves up to an infinite stream of possibility. We can let fear rule our lives or we can become childlike with curiosity, pushing our boundaries, leaping out of our comfort zones, and accepting what life puts before us.”
Using curiosity as a powerful leadership capability. It sounds good in principle but can curiosity really add value to your business proposition and processes? As I’m about to demonstrate, the answer to this question is a very big yes.
Here are seven different ways in which I believe you will benefit from becoming more curious in your approach to business:
#1 Curiosity supports our motivation, emotion and learning
First let’s look at the neuroscience. Curiosity stimulates the hippocampus, which is a brain structure embedded deep in the temporal lobe of each cerebral cortex. It is an important part of the limbic system, a cortical region that regulates motivation, emotion, learning, and memory.
That’s all well and good but if we want a strong, resilient and learning team or workforce within our business, then creating space and the environment which allow people to indulge in curiosity is critical to success.
#2 Curiosity increases happiness – it’s a great counterbalance to anxiety and stress
In today’s world of volatility and uncertainty, where people are often left feeling overwhelmed at the pace of change, curiosity brings a childlike spirit which invites exploration – and has a very different feel to it.
When it comes to the human brain, long term stress, anxiety and uncertainty is a terrible state for it to be in and especially when we feel out of control. This often triggers the brain to produce more cortisol – our fight or flight reactor. Whilst this is great in short doses to help us in moments of stress, when it doesn’t get switched off, that’s when problems arise with links to dementia, memory loss etc. Interestingly, getting overwhelmed affects the part of our brain known as the amygdala – one of the oldest parts of the human brain. When in overwhelm mode, we simply do not have the capacity for team work, collaboration etc. which can have an inevitable impact on results.
Curiosity is being recognised for contributing to increasing levels of dopamine as it triggers new learning. This speaks directly into the biological benefits of a growth versus fixed mindset. It also speaks to increasing our levels of happiness or satisfaction with life.
#3 Curiosity fuels innovation and creativity
Most of the organisations I work with are chasing higher levels of innovation and creativity. We need to innovate to open up new revenue streams, new markets, etc. It’s pretty hard to achieve this without curiosity.
#4 Curiosity and agility
Surely curiosity is one of the major foundation blocks of truly agile teams and organisations? The ability to flex, to alter course and adapt, to innovate, to fail fast etc., are all pretty tough if you are fixed and rigid in your thinking or unwilling to play and test.
Curiosity allows us to trial, to be ok with unearthing things as we go along and also to dust ourselves off and try again when we don’t get what we wanted or expected.
As leaders, can we stay with our own curiosity long enough to allow our teams to operate in a more agile way and therefore to allow for potential risks, for mistakes, for things to fail and also for new results and outcomes to emerge? My advice is to give it a try.
#5 Curiosity can enhance performance and productivity
When the economy is failing to flourish and our markets are changing, it’s easy to want to drive for greater productivity. However, in the UK, many people are speaking about productivity being lower than it’s been for years. Curiosity can help us look at the underlying factors and explore, alongside colleagues, what factors are affecting productivity and explore how to address what is missing. It also acts as a great tool for engaging people, especially when we anchor it in high performance vs simply driving up productivity.
#6 Curiosity is central to substantial successful change and transformation
Change is hard. When moving from where we are to where we need to be, changing systems, processes etc. can all help. However, if we don’t engage our people and create the right culture and environment for the real conversations to take place, we are likely to fail to fully deliver on our change or transformation effort.
Encouraging our change leaders to be curious and to hear what others are really saying is vital. Hearing how the change is occurring to them, including their fears, worries etc., allows us to make adaptations and adjustments. If we don’t bring curiosity, we are likely to put things through the same old filters and keep doing the same old thing and, in all likelihood, nothing will fundamentally change let alone transform.
More and more, I hear people talk about curiosity as being something they value. After all, it fuels scientific discovery, challenge and questioning, all of which help us come closer to conversations about purpose and meaning in our work and can support people and organisations to look through this lens at culture. This is central to all change and transformation.
#7 Curiosity is a great leadership quality and attribute
It speaks to me of inquiry. It feels youthful and playful and therefore joyful. What’s not to like in that?
If we can bring more of this into our organisations, into our change programmes, meetings and projects, into our town halls into our 1:2:1s and performance reviews, who knows what might get revealed!
+1 more reason
As someone with a strong mindfulness and meditation practise, I continue to be surprised and delighted about the curious nature of the mind.
Mindfulness is not about the absence of thinking – just try turning your thinking off! It’s about being present. It’s about noticing. It’s about not being judgemental about yourself and others and it includes the attribute of having a beginner’s mind – seeing things as if for the very first time – seeing every moment as unique and therefore requiring unique thinking.
In organisations, of course, we want to bring our experience to bear but maybe this concept of curiosity could allow us to come with fresh new thinking to add to our experience. How might it change things if your organisation were able to leave behind some of its out-of-date thinking which is typically peppered with baggage and, instead, uses its knowledge and experience with an added dose of childlike curiosity? Entrepreneurial right?
I believe that by becoming more focused on curiosity you’ll achieve higher performance and in a way which surprises you. Let me know how you get on.
If you want to read more on this subject then try this article:
greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/six_surprising_benefits_of_curiosity