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Curiosity

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Curiosity

The Secret Ingredient for Success in Personal and Professional Growth

Capstone,

15 min read
8 take-aways
Audio & text

What's inside?

Though curiosity is linked to high performance, leaders often discourage it. Start being a curiosity role model for your team today.

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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Engaging
  • Inspiring

Recommendation

Though curiosity and innovation have a strong positive correlation, many workplaces discourage employee curiosity, viewing it as risky, disruptive, or a waste of time. However, as “recovering conformist” and founder of the Global Curiosity Institute Stefaan van Hooydonk argues, humanity can ill afford to shun inquisitiveness and innovation when faced with complex challenges, such as global warming. His insightful book explains how to break the barriers that hinder curiosity and presents several hacks to help you integrate curiosity into your team’s processes.

Summary

Create a workplace culture that supports curiosity to give your organization an adaptive edge.

The 20th century was the age of command-and-control leadership and commitment to the status quo. In the fast-changing 21st century, however, companies must reject conformity and embrace curiosity, letting it guide them toward innovative solutions that will propel humanity into a better future. When organizations foster curiosity and encourage teams to learn from mistakes, they become more adaptive in the face of change and uncertainty. Curiosity is linked to higher performance: According to research published in Forbes in 2015, 83% of the top-performing leaders regularly request feedback from others, while only 17% of worst-performing leaders readily solicit feedback.

Despite the many benefits that curiosity yields, many companies don’t encourage inquisitiveness. Research by curiosity consultant Stefaan van Hooydonk found that 65% of workers report feeling they cannot ask questions freely at work. Only 51% say their employers encourage curiosity. When people lack curiosity, they are likely facing one of the following “barriers to curiosity”: They exist within a top...

About the Author

Stefaan van Hooydonk is the author of The Workplace Curiosity Manifesto and the founder of the Global Curiosity Institute. 

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