Welcome to the TTA Community. TTA Connect is where you can manage and update your profile, search, and view opportunities, manage your work, track payments, and more.
TTA is the largest provider of Learning and Development talent. Companies of all sizes partner with us to be a cost-effective, scalable, and strategic extension of their team.
The Problem and the Opportunity
Just about every child has an innate curiosity about the world, but that wonderful curiosity can get crushed by the time weâre adults. The responsibilities of school, work, family, and just surviving in the world mean that most people focus on their immediate needs rather than on exploring âwhat might be.â Many adults are âlazyâ because they rely on the mental habits and knowledge they already possess, rather than changing their habits or adding to their knowledge.
The good news is curiosity can be re-kindled and pressed into service for our personal and business lives. But, (you know thereâs always a âbutâ) thereâs a caveat: curiosity has to be nurtured and supported with approaches that donât always seem âbusiness friendlyâ at first.
Stick with me because the big takeaway is that curiosity is a âmuscleâ that can beâand has to beâflexed and strengthened if itâs going to be used well. Weâll talk about ways you can help your employees, and yourself, on the road to increasing curiosity, increasing your bottom line, increasing employee engagement, and increasing personal satisfaction.
A Bit of Background
While it may be true that human beings are âvisual creatures,â weâre easily distracted by all of the visual stimuli weâre exposed to these days, and by our electronic devices in particular. Our attention might be initially captured by visuals, but we make sense of what we see through thoughtâwords. And, as Rudyard Kipling once said, âWords are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.â Iâd argue that the most powerful words are questions that arise from curiosity.
Curiosity is largely about breadth rather than depth. Your employees might have tremendous depth of knowledge and expertise, but without making the connections between their expertise and the rest of the worldâthe world beyond their particular disciplineâtheir expertise might miss the mark. Thatâs one of the reasons that more companies of all stripesâtech includedâare hiring âgeneralistsâ who have liberal arts backgrounds, or whose work experience is very different from the âexpertsâ the company usually relies on.
Curiosity is about the presentâpaying attention to the here and now. Most businesses, however, are focused only on the future: future business, future customers, future products, future productivity, and future competitors. If weâre going to develop employeesâ curiosity, we need to slow down and allow their curiosity to make important connections in the present. Because, like it or not, business success only happens in the now. âNowâ is all there is. Personal and business success are the result of what we do now, and the payoff is in the future.
The problem is that most businesses and business leaders donât want employees to slow down to see whatâs going on in the present. If anything, they want them to speed up. Do something!
âCuriosity is insubordination in its purest formâ
Viktor Nabokovâs quip about curiosity gets to the heart of why curiosity often is treated with benign neglect, disdain, or outright hostility in some cases. When those who control departments, divisions, or companies are confident that they have the answers, they donât want to entertain thorny questions that make them uncomfortableâand challenge what theyâve done so far.
Curiosity is hard work and it takes time. Curiosity is also ornery and somewhat rebellious because it assumes that rules are only suggestions. It takes a courageous leader to allow their staff the latitude to ask out-of-the-ordinary, difficult questions about where weâre going, and why. But, thatâs one of the primary functions of leadership: communicate and sustain the vision of âwhere weâre going and why.â
Curious learners are those whose jobs are least likely to be replaced by machines, and a companyâs curious staffâemployees whose curiosity is openly supportedâare the most likely to be engaged and the most likely to ensure company success. Theyâre also the least likely to be looking for other employment, especially now that thereâs fierce competition for great employees.
Letâs try to keep one key point in mind: when weâre talking about curiosity, weâre not just talking about how to sell more stuff, get more customers, have a greater impact, and make more money. Thatâs all well and good, but those are resultsâoutputsâthat comes later. What weâre talking about is a curiosity that can outperform and outlast current needs because itâs the feedstock that produces beyond now.
What can we do to support curiosity?
Learning and development and HR professionals sometimes focus too heavily on the âlearningâ part of the phrase and less on âdevelopment.â But L&D is about more than force-feeding information to people just so they âperformâ better. Itâs about fostering âWhat if,â âwhy,â and âhowâ questions instead of just âwhatâ and âwhen.â What and when are about easy answers; what if, why, and how to engage peopleâs deeper thought so they break out of the thatâs-the-way-weâve-always-done-it mold.
One great way to break people out of their regular mold and enhance curiosity is to encourage them to read fiction, science fiction, or speculative non-fiction, and then discuss impressions, findings, and takeaways. Again, not to solve a particular business need. Just to spark creativity and further curiosity. And, make sure that what they read is outside of their areas of specialization. A variation on this activity is to have individuals read somethingâeven an articleâand make a presentation of findings or âwhat was interesting aboutâŠâ to a group and then have a discussion.
Another way to spark and maintain curiosity is to do what I call staying in âquestion energyâ rather than looking for answers. Curiosity is sustained by unanswered questions and the practice of asking the questions differently. Google can give you answers, but it canât tell you what questions you should be asking. Unfortunately, as we become used to getting easy answers, we forget how to ask difficult questions, particularly about things that might be mysterious or ill-defined.
Thereâs a difference between puzzles and mysteries. Puzzles ask âhow manyâ and âwhere.â Puzzles have an answer and we just have to find it. Mysteries ask âwhyâ and âhow.â Theyâre open-ended and endlessly fascinating. We want our people to wrestle with mysteries, not just puzzles
Curiosity is about things you donât yet care about and arenât yet interested inâuntil you find out that you are. Asking questions is contagious and can point you in directions you didnât know existed.
Yet another way to foster curiosity is to demonstrate it yourself. Wander into someoneâs workspace and start a conversation. âWhatâs something youâve learned recently that really intrigues you and why?â âWhat would you do if money wasnât a concern for you? In other words, if you were independently wealthy, how would you spend your time?â Those kinds of questions not only demonstrate your curiosity, but they also encourage it in others
Finally, leadership in the form of a curiosity champion is required. This isnât a one-shot deal. People need timeâtime away from their regular job duties to explore, ask questions, read widely, and mull over and discuss what they discover. Those activities need to be actively and openly encouraged and supported by leaders.
In their book, âThe Monster Under the Bed: How Business is Mastering the Opportunity of Knowledge for Profitâ authors Stan Davis and Jim Botkin make the case that businesses have to do some of the things they wish schools had done. Since most schools donât teach curiosity, itâs up to businesses to create the kind of curiosity culture that benefits the organization and its most valuable assetsâemployees.
Additional Information
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Comment *
Name
Email
Website
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.