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The Art of Curiosity – IanSanders – Medium

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The Art of Curiosity – IanSanders – Medium

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What does being curious mean to you?

When I hear the word 'curiosity' I tend to think of my nine year old son seated at the breakfast table with his book of facts, wide-eyed with wonder as he tells us about the world's tallest building or the fastest car. Kids are like sponges at that age, always soaking up knowledge.

Most of us were like that at his age. But some of us lose our appetite for exploration and discovery as we get older.

We become experts in a single field or industry: our job doesn't require us to peer over the walls into other areas, and we lose our curiosity. We know what we know.

That's a shame.

I know many people with a laser focus on where they direct their attention. Focus is good but not if it is so narrow there's no room for taking anything new in. I try to stay broad. I still apply a laser focus to how I spend my time, but I revel in the exploration of the new, staying open-minded about where I will get my stimulation.

Me & Curiosity

I was a quiet child. I mostly liked to observe from the edges, rather than participate fully, watching those around me, taking it all in. At school I spent much of my time doodling pictures of the teacher, rather than paying attention. As an observer I became good at writing stories and of doing impressions of class mates, teachers and my family.

Those observational tendencies as a child have helped inform my skills as a storyteller and consultant today.

Throughout my career I've always strived to broaden my horizons, not narrow them. When I started working for myself in 2000, curiosity gave me a work life with no limits. In the space of a couple of months I worked with some friends managing a rock band, advised the fashion brand Benetton, co-wrote a kids' book, and advised a member of the House Of Lords about a website. My career strategy? I followed my curiosity.

Curiosity meant my offering didn't need to be set in stone, I could try my hand at multiple roles, venturing into totally new areas, broadening my horizons.

What if?

I've found curiosity can be a key driver in our careers and business lives.

A chief executive can harness curiosity in her leadership style, a freelance web developer can use it to hunt for new clients, an entrepreneur can apply it to research his startup idea.

Being curious is often about shifting your mindset to ask a really simple question: 'what if?'

What if we ran the project this way instead of the usual way? What if I ventured out of my comfort zone and gave that a try? What if, instead of continuing down the straight road towards the destination, we took this random left turn?

Asking What if can unlock innovation, it can make us solve problems in new ways. It can make us ask obvious questions that we never thought to ask before.

Questions like, do we really need a three hour meeting in a boardroom to solve this problem when twenty minutes in the corner coffee shop might nail it?

Fuel for your startup

Twenty years ago, Will King experimented with his girlfriend's baby oil to combat razor burn whilst shaving, applying principles he'd learned in his engineering degree. He applied the 'what if?' principle. Not only did his kitchen table experiment with oil and foam work, it worked so well that today King of Shaves is the third biggest shaving brand in the UK.

Three years ago Tina Roth Eisenberg was disappointed by the poor quality of temporary tattoo her daughter wore home from a children's party. She asked herself whether she could do better. And she could. Today Tattly is a successful business employing a whole team of people with thousands of customers worldwide, a business that Tina acknowledges practically started as a joke, just by being curious.

She applied the 'what if?' principle too.

But Will and Tina didn't just use curiosity to fuel their ideas; they took action to make it happen.

And that is the secret ingredient: acting on your curiosity.

A licence to be curious

I'm lucky. I have a - professional - licence to be curious.

Businesses hire me to explore their organisations, to look under the bonnet, to ask questions in order to capture their values, their culture, their stories. That means it's my job to ask questions.

I also tell stories about business for a number of publications; I have a second licence to be curious. When I wrote for the Financial Times, my brief was to write about people and trends that sparked my curiosity. So I wrote about the lessons Billy Bragg learned cutting out the middleman to sell direct to his fans; the opportunities and cross pollination that come from people sharing co-working spaces; the working cultures that small businesses adopt to attract the brightest recruits; the independent coffee scene in New York and London. I followed no editorial agenda, just my own curiosity.

But you don't need to be a consultant or a writer to have that licence to be curious. All it takes is a commitment to ask questions, to explore new possibilities, to embark on a journey of discovery.

Unplanning & serendipity

When I wrote for the FT, I didn't have a grand editorial strategy. Instead I stayed open-minded, relying on curiosity and serendipity to introduce story ideas.

This picture is of Ocaña, a bar in Plaça Reial in Barcelona. When I was there in 2012 I got talking to a woman at the next table - we were both struggling to get served. Her name was Lisa, she was creative director at a digital agency in New York.

Then she spotted my temporary tattoo of a typewriter and asked was I a writer. I told her about my FT role, and by listening to her story I could see the start of an idea for a piece.

A few days later I was on a train to London and happened to sit next to Andy, a friend of mine who is an academic. I'd never seen him on the train before (and I never have since). It was a random encounter. But we got talking and I realised he'd be great to feature alongside Lisa in the story.

My connections with Lisa and Andy were both literal 'blink and you'll miss it' moments - but I had been in the right mindset: my curiosity senses were heightened and I took action to turn it into something tangible. Adopting that mindset is key. The kind of mindset where you talk to strangers in bars and unplug from your electronic devices to talk to someone on a train.

When you are curious, you allow serendipity to come into play, and that can be a powerful combination.

Asking & listening

My two sons ask a lot of questions. Most of which I don't know the answers to, but I admire their thirst for knowledge.

Because I don't think we ask enough questions.

When I work with businesses as a consultant I ask a lot of questions. Questions like: 'What is your story?' 'Why do clients like working with you?' 'Why are you different from the rest?' 'What drives you?' 'What do you stand for?'

They may not sound very original, but these are questions that have not usually been asked before.

Asking and listening unlocks a valuable commodity. So valuable, one client said it was gold-dust.

All I did was go and have a tapas lunch with one of his clients, a very important company, a well known tech giant. I sat and asked questions about why he liked working with my client. A simple question that had never been asked before. The implications of that one question were far reaching. That didn't come from a feedback sheet or a questionnaire but by two people sharing tapas.

Curiosity is about asking, listening and then connecting the dots. You'll be surprised at what it might yield for your business.

So how can you inject curiosity into your own life?

So if you want to inject curiosity into your own business or work life, here are six ideas to get you started:

1. Be fluid. In life and business there's so much emphasis on having a long-term plan. It drives me mad. Who knows what's around the corner? Who would be able to anticipate an economic disaster or a world event that forces us to rip up a five year plan? Goals in both life and career are important; it's good to have a vision of where you're headed. But stay open minded. Instead of having a fixed linear path for how to get there, embrace randomness and serendipity along the way. Try going where the water flows.

2. Think like a kid. Once a French friend came to visit me in London. Alain had never eaten Japanese food before, so I took him to my local Japanese restaurant. Halfway through the meal he went to find the toilet, but when he hadn't returned after fifteen minutes, I went to find him. He was in the kitchen quizzing the chefs about the food and its preparation. I'd been to the restaurant a few times but had never met the chef. On his first visit Alain just walked in there and started asking questions. His curiosity was almost childlike - totally uninhibited unlike most of us who might think it inappropriate to walk in to a restaurant kitchen uninvited. Imagine if you embraced that mindset and thought like a child. If you wanted to launch a retail business, imagine if you lost your inhibitions and walked into shops asking questions. Imagine how you'd fast-track your mission and quest for answers.

3. Be an idea collector. Like most things in life, you get out what you put in. So you need to invest time in exploring ideas. New ideas tend to be a fusion of old ones, so if you're looking to be more innovative or creative, try collecting ideas. use your phone or a notebook to capture thoughts and ideas. Capture your own thoughts on your morning train commute. Note down other people's ideas and stories, copy quotes that inspire you, cut things out, snap photos on your phone. The fashion designer Paul Smith uses his curiosity to take photographs of everything from street scenes to window displays on his travels around the world. These images inform his next collection. The act of clipping (whether with a digital tool or a pair of scissors) makes my brain well-tuned to spotting inspiring content, whether it's a blog post, a tweet, a newspaper article or a photo in a magazine. I never know when these may come in handy. It's also satisfying to have a portfolio of ideas to leaf through when you're looking for inspiration.

4. Travel without a map. One day a meeting got delayed and I found myself with thirty minutes to spare. Exiting the tube station I decided to dispense with the map on my iPhone and instead let my instinct guide me towards my destination. I knew that Whitecross Street would take me in the right direction northwards. As I walked slowly up the street I followed the lunchtime crowd in their summer dresses and shirt sleeves into a little park that I never knew existed. Busy with office workers, children in a playground and people queuing at a coffee stand, it was a welcome, inspiring, break in my day. If I had focused on a map I would have never taken that left turn. It was a detour that just happened by following my curiosity. That sense of random discovery was really rewarding, like having an awesome meal in a new cafe, finding a great new novel or taking a ride down the coast and finding a deserted cove. It gave me a boost.

5. Read, watch & listen wildly. Curiosity is like a muscle that you need to exercise if you want to continue to benefit from it. So go out of your comfort zone - browse websites and read books you wouldn't usually choose. I love browsing the shelves of Magma design shop in London. Here I've discovered beautiful magazines like , a publication for people who work in the web industry. I might not be in their target audience, but I learned a lot about a bunch of talented people via some great storytelling and beautiful photography. If you're on Twitter and only follow people in 'your world', try following interesting people in other cities, engaged in other professions, industries and worlds away from your own. You may learn a thing or two.

6. Dabble. Don't keep your curiosity to yourself and the pages of your notebook. Apply it to your business and career by trying your hand at new projects, by experimenting. In my fifteen years of working for myself, dabbling has provided the more interesting projects - from working with an artist management startup developing new bands to writing a kids' book. The good things about dabbling is that it doesn't carry much risk. Because we recognise it's an experiment on the side, we can do it for the fun and curiosity of it. It's not our 'bread and butter' project, job or business - so who cares if it fails? It was just a dabble. At least we tried it.

So curiosity doesn't have to remain a 'soft skill'; it's not just a characteristic you'll find in the minds of kids and scientists. It's something we can all embrace: to find our next business idea, to navigate our work lives, to add new strings to our bow, to do better work.
So ditch the plan, stay curious... I'm a creative consultant, storyteller and coach on a mission to bring a fresh perspective to organisations, businesses and individuals, getting people fired up.Curiosity comes into play on every project I touch, whether that's helping brands and businesses tell their story; running workshops on creativity, curiosity and storytelling to help teams think outside the bubble; taking executives and business leaders on walk-and-talks to navigate change in their work lives. Email me hello@iansanders.com, find me online at iansanders.com, follow me on Twitter @iansanders

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The Art of Curiosity - IanSanders - Medium

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What does being curious mean to you? When I hear the word 'curiosity' I tend to think of my nine year old son seated at the breakfast table with his book of facts, wide-eyed with wonder as he tells us about the world's tallest building or the fastest car.

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How to Stimulate Curiosity and Promote Learning | TIME.com

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How to Stimulate Curiosity and Promote Learning | TIME.com

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Three practical ways to use information gaps to stimulate curiosity and promote learning

Getty Images

Curiosity is the engine of intellectual achievement - it's what drives us to keep learning, keep trying, keep pushing forward. But how does one generate curiosity, in oneself or others? George Loewenstein, a professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, proposed an answer in the classic 1994 paper, "The Psychology of Curiosity."

Curiosity arises, Loewenstein wrote, "when attention becomes focused on a gap in one's knowledge. Such information gaps produce the feeling of deprivation labeled curiosity. The curious individual is motivated to obtain the missing information to reduce or eliminate the feeling of deprivation." Loewenstein's theory helps explain why curiosity is such a potent motivator: it's not only a mental state but also an emotion, a powerful feeling that impels us forward until we find the information that will fill in the gap in our knowledge.

( MORE: Secrets of the Most Successful College Students)

Here, three practical ways to use information gaps to stimulate curiosity:

1. Start with the question. Cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham notes that teachers - along with parents, managers, and leaders of all kinds - are often "so eager to get to the answer that we do not devote sufficient time to developing the question," Willingham writes in his book, Why Don't Students Like School? Yet it's the question that stimulates curiosity; being told an answer quells curiosity before it can even get going. Instead of starting with the answer, begin by posing for yourself and others a genuinely interesting question - one that opens an information gap.

( MORE: How to Raise a Group's IQ)

2. Prime the pump. In his 1994 paper, George Loewenstein noted that curiosity requires some initial knowledge. We're not curious about something we know absolutely nothing about. But as soon as we know even a little bit, our curiosity is piqued and we want to learn more. In fact, research shows that curiosity increases with knowledge: the more we know, the more we want to know. To get this process started, Loewenstein suggests, "prime the pump" with some intriguing but incomplete information.

3. Bring in communication. Language teachers have long put a similar idea to use in exercises that open an information gap and then require learners to communicate with each other in order to fill it. For example, one student might be given a series of pictures illustrating the beginning of the story, while the student's partner is given a series of pictures showing how that same story ends. Only by speaking with each other (in the foreign language they are learning, of course) can the students fill in each others' information gaps.

This technique can be adapted to all kinds of settings: for example, colleagues from different departments could be asked to complete a task together, one that requires the identification of information gaps that the coworkers, with their different areas of expertise, must fill in for each other. Communication solves the problem - and leaves the participants curious to know more.
This article is from the Brilliant Report, a weekly newsletter written by Annie Murphy Paul.
MORE: Four Ways to Give Good Feedback

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Curiosity is the engine of intellectual achievement - it's what drives us to keep learning, keep trying, keep pushing forward. But how does one generate curiosity, in oneself or others? George Loewenstein, a professor of economics and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University, proposed an answer in...

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7 Ways To Inspire Your Curiosity | The Creativity Post

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7 Ways To Inspire Your Curiosity | The Creativity Post

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Synopsis

Insights all of us can use to improve our curiosity and wonder.

Curiosity, according to Ian Leslie, is a combination of intelligence, persistence, and hunger for novelty, all wrapped up in one. It is what psychologists might call a trait cluster. Leslie, in his new book Curious: The Desire To Know And Why Your Future Depends On It explores the power of curiosity through a combination of entertaining anecdotes and summaries of pertinent research across many fields. He makes a compelling case for why it is more vital than ever, as we grow older and more demands are put on our time, that we stay intellectually curious. In the spirit of that pursuit, I have distilled some insights from his book on how we can all improve our curiosity and wonder.
1. Read widely and follow your interests
John Lloyd was a hugely successful TV producer and director until one day he started to encounter a string of failures. This led him to depression. He dealt with it by taking time off work, going on long walks, and reading voraciously. He read about "Socrates and ancient Athens. He read about light and magnetism. He read about the Renaissance and the French impressionists. He had no method or plan, but simply followed his curiosity, wherever it took him." All this reading eventually led to his idea for the BBC quiz show QI, which is loved by millions for its "ability to make anything-from quantum physics to Aztec architecture-entertaining."

Take away lesson: B. F. Skinner said "When you run into something interesting, drop everything else and study it." "The feeling of being interested can act as a kind of neurological signal, directing us to fruitful areas of inquiry."
2. Polish your mind with the minds of others
On a page from Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks is a to-do list:

Calculate the measurement of Milan and its suburbs

Find a book that treats of Milan its churches, which is to be had at the stationer's on the way to Cordusio.

Discover the measurement of the Corte Vecchio [courtyard of the duke's palace].

Get the Master of Arithmetic to show you how to square a triangle.

Ask Bendetto Portinari [a Florentine merchant] by what means they go on ice at Flanders?

Draw Milan.

Ask Maestro Antonio how mortars are positioned on bastions by day or night.

Examine the crossbow of Maestro Gianetto.

Find a Master of Hydraulics and get him to tell you how to repair a lock, canal and mill, in the Lombard manner.

Ask about the measurement of the sun, promised me by Maestro Giovanni Francese

Take away lesson: Not only are Leonardo's interests wide ranging, but out of the fifteen tasks on his list, at least eight involve consulting with others, and two involve others' books. "Montaigne wrote of how travel to different regions and countries allows us to 'rub and polish our brains' against others, and Leonardo seems keen to polish his brain against as many others as possible."
3. Visit a physical bookstore or library and browse the shelves
In the era of Google searches, we have no problem finding the exact answer to our question, but we may be less likely to serendipitously encounter information that is not specific to our question. Visiting a bookstore or a library allows us to encounter other information in a way that is not dictated by the structure of the algorithm. "A serendipity deficit makes innovation harder, because innovation relies on unexpected collisions of knowledge and ideas." Curiosity is also about discrimination. It is about which knowledge we want to explore.

But, "A truly curious person knows that she doesn't always know what she wants to know about. Discussing the future of his company, Larry Page described the 'perfect search engine' as one that would 'understand exactly what I mean and give me back exactly what I want.' But what if I don't know what I want?"

Take away lesson: Get out from behind your computer and explore. "Economist John Maynard Keynes once offered advice on how to conduct oneself in a bookstore: 'A bookshop is not like a railway booking-office which one approaches knowing what one wants. One should enter it vaguely, almost in a dream, and allow what is there freely to attract and influence the eye. To walk the rounds of the bookshops, dipping in as curiosity dictates, should be an afternoon's entertainment.'"
4. Be willing to ask dumb questions
Says Mike Parker, CEO of Dow Chemical:

"A lot of bad leadership comes from an inability or unwillingness to ask questions. I have watched talented people-people with much higher IQs than mine-who have failed as leaders. They can talk brilliantly, with a great breadth of knowledge, but they're not very good at asking questions. So while they know a lot at a high level, they don't know what's going on way down in the system. Sometimes they are afraid of asking questions, but what they don't realize is that the dumbest questions can be very powerful. They can unlock a conversation."

Take away lesson: Be willing to ask all sorts of questions, even what may seem to be dumb ones.
5. Put a lot of ideas and facts in your head: Don't rely on Google
Sir Ken Robinson's TED video "Do Schools Kill Creativity?" has been viewed over 4 million times. But Leslie argues that "Robinson has it precisely the wrong way around when he says that a natural appetite for learning begins to dissipate once children start to be educated." "Progressive educationalists like Robinson frame existing knowledge as the enemy of new ideas. But at the most basic level, all of our new ideas are made up of old ones...to create a smartphone, you need to know about computers and phones."

"We romanticize the curiosity of children because we love their innocence. But creativity doesn't happen in a void. Successful innovators and artists amass vast stores of knowledge which they can then draw on unthinkingly. Having mastered the rules of their domain, they can concentrate on rewriting them. They mix and remix ideas and themes, making new analogies and spotting unusual patterns, until a creative breakthrough is achieved."

"Anyone who stops learning facts for himself because he can Google them later is literally making himself stupid. Children who aren't encouraged by adults to commit information to their long-term memories are having their potential damaged and their desire to learn stymied."

Take away lesson: Facts don't kill creativity. Rather, they make creativity possible. Human memory may still be better for creativity. "Digital databases cannot yet replicate the kind of serendipity that enables the unconscious human mind to make novel patterns and see powerful new analogies, of the kind that lead to our most creative breakthroughs. The more we outsource our memories to Google, the less we are nourishing the wonderfully accidental creativity of our unconscious."
6. Be an expert who is interested in everything

"In the marketplace for talent, the people most in demand will always be those who offer an expertise few others possess. But having a breadth of knowledge is increasingly valuable, too. These two trends exist in tension with each other. Should you focus on learning more about your own niche or on widening your knowledge base?"

"The thinkers best positioned to thrive today and in the future will be a hybrid...In a highly competitive, high-information world, it's crucial to know one or two big things and to know them in more depth and detail than most of your contemporaries. But to really ignite that knowledge, you need the ability to think about it from a variety of eclectic perspectives and to be able to collaborate fruitfully with people who have different specializations."

Take away lesson: Leslie writes: "I don't agree with those who claim the Internet is making us stupid. The only person or thing that can make you stupid, or incurious, is you." Don't blame the Internet for your lack of curiosity. Use it in a way that helps you gain both depth and breadth.
7. Don't just focus on puzzles but on mysteries

"Security and intelligence expert Gregory Treverton once made a very useful distinction between puzzles and mysteries. Puzzles have definite answers...Once the missing information is found, it's not a puzzle anymore. The frustration you felt when you were searching for the answer is replaced by satisfaction...Mysteries are murkier, less neat. They pose questions that can't be answered definitively, because the answers often depend on a highly complex and interrelated set of factors, both known and unknown."

"Puzzles offer us the satisfaction of answering a question even while you're missing the point completely. A society or organization that thinks only in terms of puzzles is one that is too focused on the goals it has set, rather than on the possibilities it can't yet see."

Take away lesson: Leslie argues that mysteries have a longer half-life than puzzles, giving the example of Shakespeare, who commonly adapted story lines to his own ends up until the mid-1590's. Around this time, his son passed away, and Shakespeare began to remove "crucial planks" from these older narrative structures, which created a greater sense of mystery because not everything in the narrative could be logically explained, in the way a puzzle can. This is also true in science. As Einstein remarked: "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious...It is the source of all true art and science."

© 2014 by Jonathan Wai
You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or G+. For more of Finding the Next Einstein: Why Smart is Relative go here. Note: This article originally appeared on Psychology Today.
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Insights all of us can use to improve our curiosity and wonder. Curiosity, according to Ian Leslie, is a combination of intelligence, persistence, and hunger for novelty, all wrapped up in one. It is what psychologists might call a trait cluster.

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Four Ways to Cultivate a Culture of Curiosity

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Four Ways to Cultivate a Culture of Curiosity

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HopeLab is a curious place.

The California-based nonprofit researches and designs video games and other technology products for kids. But they don't create ones that involve sitting on a couch, staring at a screen, zapping warriors or aliens. Instead, HopeLab's games help motivate players to take on healthy habits, to be more physically active ( Zamzee) and even help fight cancer ( Re-Mission 2).

The organization, a client of The Bridgespan Group, encourages the same sort of exploratory attitude in its employees. So it operates a bit differently than most. There are fun internal tools designed to prompt conversation and reflection. Meetings are positioned as problem-solving opportunities. People always take responsibility for their own actions and mistakes. And employees are given financial and moral support to pursue any kind of learning, from a cooking class to a photography cruise.

"We look at our culture as a product, just like Re-Mission and Zamzee are products," says Pat Christen, president and CEO of HopeLab. "And we believe a culture of curiosity is key to innovation."

HopeLab's methods are replicable. Just consider these few principles:
Encourage Inquiry
HopeLab's products are rooted in scientific inquiry and research, iteration and experimentation. People are told to explore new paths and to challenge their assumptions and themselves. To that end, the company has created tools including a deck of cards called "Questions for Curious Leaders" with 12 categories, including "beauty", "candor", "emotions" and "100% responsibility." Cards can be found around the office, in conference rooms and at desks; people use them on their own and in meetings. One "emotions" question reads: "Am I fully acknowledging and experiencing my emotions, then letting them go?" Another in the "beauty" category is: "Am I enduring, allowing or perpetuating, mediocrity, inelegance or ugliness?"

It can be hard to find time for reflection and conversation. But these tools help. Plus, "work is more rewarding when curiosity and discovery are embedded in it," Christen says.
Write Agendas as Questions
Employees are more likely to engage in meetings when they know they can affect the outcome. So HopeLab's agendas are always in the form of questions. For example, "How should we prioritize these projects?" or "What models of engagement might we pursue? Why?"

"Everyone at the meeting is invited into the conversation to help us make sense of an issue, solve a problem or imagine a new area of opportunity," Christen explains. "We expect people to speak up - to ask questions, share ideas and contribute." As a result, HopeLab is known for productive, energizing, get-togethers. In fact, visitors from other organizations often ask for how-tos after experiencing a HopeLab meeting.
Avoid Blame
When an early prototype for the 2.0 version of Re-Mission, HopeLab's free game to motivate kids with cancer to stick with their treatment regimen, strayed from the feedback provided by young patients, it could have been an opportunity for blame. The organization had already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on development. But instead of fault-finding, Christen assembled the team, took full responsibility and asked for ideas to save the project.

"There can be a 'villain, victim, hero' dynamic," she explains. "But when you recognize you're in that game, playing one of those roles, you have the choice to step off the triangle," and instead focus on moving forward. The solution for Re-Mission 2 turned out to be shifting from one big computer game to several online mini-games and an app for mobile phones and tablets - an expensive fix, but far less costly to the mission than a flop.

Avoiding blame doesn't mean avoiding consequences, however. When Christen found herself in a meeting on a very complicated personnel matter with the VP for staff development, she decided, perhaps not surprisingly, to ask the employee a question: What did he think should be done? "And the person went much farther than I was envisioning," she says. Having taken accountability, he has since returned to being a highly productive and valuable member of the team.
Assume All Learning Is Good
Employees choose their paths in professional development (PD), too. At first, folks felt compelled to rationalize their requests for PD resources by making them explicitly work-related. But Christen told them, "I don't need a rationale. Just keep learning things." Now people feel free to request support for any kind of class they want, and the openness has paid off. The woman who requested funds to pay for a portion of her photography cruise is now the company's de facto in-house photographer. "She discovered a new interest and genuine talent, and we saved tens of thousands of dollars on outside photographers by supporting that learning opportunity," says Richard Tate, her boss and HopeLab's VP of communications and marketing. "If you're practicing curiosity, no matter what you're learning, I believe it will benefit the organization." Other employees have simply come to work more engaged and with more and better ideas.

Christen credits her board, which includes Pam Omidyar, HopeLab's founder, for encouraging this culture of radical curiosity at the organization. "They recognizethat how we show up to do the work we do is a manifestation of the values and the impact we hope to inspire in the world."

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Four Ways to Cultivate a Culture of Curiosity

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HopeLab is a curious place. The California-based nonprofit researches and designs video games and other technology products for kids. But they don't create ones that involve sitting on a couch, staring at a screen, zapping warriors or aliens.

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Curiosity: The Key to Creativity and Innovation - Idea to Value

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Curiosity: The Key to Creativity and Innovation - Idea to Value

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Albert Einstein generally did not like school, but this all changed when he was 16 at Aarau High School, Switzerland where teachers nurtured his curiosity and encouraged him to ask a lot of questions and even express criticisms.

He not only became popular among his classmates but imagined what it would be like to ride a light beam, paving the way for his later theory of relativity.

Innovators' curious attitude is characterized by thinking in childlike terms while insatiably seeking out information. People often discourage curiosity and asking questions using phrases like curiosity killed the cat.

But world's greatest innovators are passionately curious and even nosy or annoying.

They approach situations and problems from an open, childlike, mind unconfined by rigidity or preconceived notions.

Fueled by curiosity, they ask crazy questions.

Their expertise grows as they actualize their curiosity by developing a love of learning. Their curiosity impulse and prior knowledge alert them to invisible gaps or details others miss, fueling even more questioning. Their curiosity drives them to become persistent. Their wide interests and curiosity enable them to apply ideas across divergent fields, improving upon the ideas of others,

Their wide interests and curiosity enable them to apply ideas across divergent fields, improving upon the ideas of others, synthesizing ideas, and discovering patterns from disparate fields to generate new ideas. Curiosity reveals new options even at dead ends and inspires a sense of purpose and meaning. Continuously rewarded and renewed curiosity becomes a lifelong passion.

Even as adults, innovators are still in close communication with their inner child. They are able to ignore social taboos and conventions, and their childlike curiosity fends off stagnant thinking, opening them to more possibilities while promoting mental flexibility.
Most people, however, are incurious. They stifle curiosity because they:

Assume what they believe or know is right (e.g., their assessment of a situation or knowledge about a topic is above average)

Prefer passivity rather than the active mental state required by curiosity

Create boundaries to manage and limit, rather than explore and expand by curiosity

Resist change and stay fixed in one place (but curious people readily adapt to changes and grow themselves across the board)

Today's technology makes people even less curious because they:

Rely on instantly gratifying one-mouse-click answers, instead of exploring a bookstore or a library and being exposed to a diversity of information

Have quick, easy access to shallow, superficial information (allowing them to avoid dealing the overwhelming amount and diversity of information available on-line), forcing social conformity

Conformity, however, is curiosity's enemy, so you must defy it or even be rebellious:

To not conform to social pressure or others' expectations

To test the underlying assumptions and convictions undergirding the status quo, and explore out of the box solutions and pursue the art of the impossible

To dedicate active energy to this possibility by:

Focusing your curiosity toward your goal without distractions

Aiming at becoming the best in the world in one thing (while being open to new and variety of experiences)

Immersing yourself in a particular effort for hours everyday to explore it deeply

Investing in training and tools to keep your curiosity alive

Regularly seeking brutally honest feedback.

How to nurture the curious attitude?
First, find and remove what gets in the way of your curious mind by:

Being humble enough to continuously learn from others and the world, and putting humility and learning before your ego

Being confident enough to be vulnerable, to be wrong, and to admit your ignorance or where your skills aren't good enough

Examining your own assumptions, opinions, beliefs, or convictions

Recognizing what you don't know and what you could do better

Considering what you do know about the topic is not nearlyenough, and drawing on the knowledge and insights of others to close the information gap

Choosing an inquisitiveness compelling asking over insecurity pretending knowing

Choosing novelty and new horizons over certainty, and the hope and excitement of exploration over fear of unknown, failure, or looking silly

Choosing nonconformity and defiance over conformity and compliance

Putting collaboration before competition, and autonomous motivation before rewards

Writing down three new things you've learned before going to bed every night

Being aware of your thoughts and emotions by reflecting and journaling on your experiences for five minutes daily

Controlling your response to the life events by being aware where your attention is focused (e.g., in thoughts, beliefs, emotions, the senses, or the body).

Second, never be too shy to ask questions, and ask questions even when you think you know everything you need to know. Carefully and intentionally frame questions that:

Solicit rich information, instead of simple answers

Lead to more unanswered questions, instead of definitive answers

Expand the constructive conversation, instead of placing blame or spawning defensiveness (e.g., Why did you do this? or Didn't you consider that?)

Display your true desire to be open to other views

Mine resources (e.g., books, articles, documentaries, etc.) for simple, straightforward factual answers (i.e., low-level inbox-thinking answers); ask experts for the details and depth; and ask the others for their perspectives

Ask out-of-the-box-thinking answers (i.e., outbox-thinking answers) to:

Stimulate imaginative or inventive thoughts, soliciting a wide range of alternative answers (e.g., How else can we do this?) rather than:

Questions eliciting yes-or-no or simple answers

Why questions squelching others' opinions or question others' motives

Leading questions intended to manipulate others

Ask critical thinking answers (i.e., high-level inbox-thinking answers) to:
Stimulate analyses of levels or processes and of cause and effect relationships for cognitive or emotional judgment answers

Ask newbox-thinking answers (i.e., combining both inbox and outbox thinking answers) to:
Stimulate combinations or connections for synthesis answers

Be a good listener while asking questions by:

Taking the time to listen and pay attention to the speaker

Asking about the speaker more than talking about yourself or your own ideas, stories, or advice

Listening to the speaker's point of view even in a dispute, instead of being defensive

For your own questions, turn off everything but your brain and:

Read constantly to expand and deepen your expertise

Read deeply, ditch distractions, and increase your concentration and mental health, instead of perusing magazines, blogs, or tweets

Read widely, and consume content outside your comfort zone; expose yourself to:

Concepts, ideas, information, stories, instructions, and inspiration

Different times (e.g., past, present, and future) and places interpreted by the author and filtered through your imagination

The life of another person

The world of your imagination where anything is possible.

Third, become more a interesting person and live a more interesting life by reconnecting with your inner child, sense of wonder, and mindset such as:

Think about and explain things from a child's perspective

Eschew a bored, humdrum, or jaded adults' mindset (e.g., been there, done that

or seen it all, done it all)

Sit on the floor and physically shift your perspective from adult to child

Allow yourself to play, and re-learn how to play from children

See the world afresh and anew everyday, and get excited by the simplest wonders

Look at each day as a gift and every person you meet as fascinating

Consider the world is a wonderful mystery full of things you don't yet know about

Approach all the places, events, things, people, and ideas with a sense of discovery, and look at them with tourists' eyes

Appreciate the magical, unexplained phenomena in the world

Consider everything is an incomplete, unsolved puzzle

Take nothing for granted, and challenge everything you know

Create a stimulating natural environment with flowers, trees, butterflies, stones, water, and living things

Avoid categorizing something into boring or interesting; search for the positive (e.g., what's interesting?) in all situations

Be enthusiastic by associating fun and joy with the tasks you have to perform or making them challenging

Make things fun and interesting (e.g., listen to an audio book rather than complain in a traffic jam)

Don't get caught up in the here and now, and step back and pose to yourself and others questions such as:

Then explore further and deeper, and then find connections between people or ideas.

Fourth, turn away from the familiar, and open your mind to new ideas, interests, experiences, and adventures by:

Getting out of your routine and adding variety to your life

Exploring, saying yes to new opportunities, stretching yourself, and expanding your experience, even when feeling uncomfortable

Having many hobbies, joining debate groups, or spending time in a library researching

Daydreaming, visualizing, or doodling with your non-dominant hand

Changing your environment, and exposing yourself to new things

Avoiding fixed ideas of things and situations surrounding you

Actively being aware and attentive to changes, new events, and anything unusual or unfamiliar

Welcoming the unexpected and the unpredictable, and looking for mysteries

Becoming a newcomer or outsider by seeking information from outside of your disciplines, not staying in one discipline for too long

Reaching beyond a narrow topic through experimentation, books, arts, and the outdoors

Becoming a keen observer and learner; emailing or meeting the lecturer after a lecture or a seminar

Learning from geeks, nerds, entrepreneurs, business leaders, celebrities, athletes, and world changers.

Fifth, dig deeper and understand the context, origin, and history of things by: Sixth, f orge deep and quality relationships by showing your sincere and genuine interests in people around you, across all levels, such as: Seventh, build your own lab with full of experimental tools Finally, work with inquisitive minds, rather than just qualified and experienced people by: as your sandbox to tinker or try out new things; enjoy mistakes and failures while:

Putting everything into new perspectives, and playing with ideas

Exploring and experimenting with analogies

Learning to see ahead, beyond, behind, beneath, from above, sideways, from within, and through (e.g., best-case, realistic-case, and worst-case scenarios)

Renaming agendas for a meeting as questions and problems as puzzles to change your mindset for exploration

Keeping a dictionary around for researching words, and using the words in conversation embedding them in your vocabulary and memory

Seeing and doing differently by playing around with questions like Sherlock Holmes or Spiderman

Imagining more possibilities by copycatting or piggybacking on others' ideas

Identifying underlying questions behind apparent questions, and learning to manage complex situations by:

Exploring problems from multiple angles to view all possibilities

Looking closer to examine details by placing the problems under a microscope

Stepping back to see the big picture by zooming out on, and placing the parts all together

Keeping your view of the world as unbiased as possible by looking through an unfiltered lens

Build multicultural rapport, empathy, compassion, and tolerance level exploring many different life insights and perspectives

Be open to other points of view, valuing differences of opinion and listening even when you disagree

Resist the adult tendency of labeling to put things in a box; avoid pre-conceptions, biases, stereotypes, and judgments

Challenge yourself to real conversations with acquaintances and strangers you see daily to connect with them on a deeper level

Observe others' behaviors and expressions in different situations, and imagine what it might be like to be them

Understand others through their background story and circumstances and asking them questions

Keep the focus on others (not yourself) to better understand their perspectives, and find:

What their world looks like

What's important to them

What drives them.

Fooling around, pulling pranks, experimenting, and conducting your own research

Drawing, painting, or sketching out random ideas

Making your own music, videos, photos, or inventions

Taking things apart to figure out how they work, and putting them back together even if they might not work.

Asking them something that only they can know about when you meet new people, and asking yourself

How and why are we different or alike?

What can I learn from them?

How can we efficiently work together, knowing our differences and similarities?

Looking beyond their qualifications and credentials for a curious mind

Empowering others by giving them the space, time, and tools needed to satisfy their insatiable curiosity to seek answers, share ideas, and solve problems

Not falling into groupthink; bringing different teams and outsiders together to gain fresh perspectives and different strengths

Asking questions of other entrepreneurs for ideas, and reaching out to them when you go through difficult times in business.

Find more research findings about how to innovate in The Creativity Challenge: How We Can Recapture American Innovation (Kim, 2016), and follow Dr. Kim @ Kreativity_Kim.

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Curiosity: The Key to Creativity and Innovation

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Albert Einstein generally did not like school, but this all changed when he was 16 at Aarau High School, Switzerland where teachers nurtured his curiosity and encouraged him to ask a lot of questions and even express criticisms. He not only became popular among his classmates but imagined what it would be like to ride a

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Editor's Note: This article is one of the top 10 habits to adopt to be better at your job in 2016. See the full list here.
As children, we're naturally curious-it's how we grow and learn-but by the time we start school that sense of wonder starts to escape us.

"Answers are more valued than inquisitive thought, and curiosity is trained out of us," says Hal Gregersen, founder of the 4-24 Project, an organization that challenges leaders to spend four minutes a day asking better questions. "The average six- to 18-year-old asks only one question per one-hour class per month. Contrast that with the average teacher, who peppers kids with 291 questions a day and waits an average of one second for a reply."

But regaining our sense of curiosity is important to our success: "We've moved out of the industrial era and into the information era. Curiosity is a fundamental piece of that work and a powerful tool," says Kathy Taberner, cofounder of the Institute of Curiosity, a leadership coaching team that focuses on curiosity.

Answers are more valued than inquisitive thought, and curiosity is trained out of us.

While we're born curious, experts say we can relearn the trait. Here are eight habits of people who've retained their sense of curiosity:

Most of us size up and make assumptions as we listen to others. Curious people, on the other hand, have no hidden agenda, says Taberner. They seek to understand the perspectives of others, and are willing to sit in ambiguity, open and curious without being invested in the outcome.

"Curious people are non-blaming, non-shaming, and supportive, working together, focused on exploring options to find the best solution, one that supports collaboration and leads to innovation," she says.

Curious people ask questions that start with "how," "what," "when," "where" and "why," says Taberner.

"They stay away from questions that can be answered with a yes or no," she says. "This creates openness for the person who is being asked, and for the person who is asking."

Many of us have a love/hate relationship with surprise, says Tania Luna, coauthor of Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected. "When we have too much surprise, we experience anxiety, but when we don't have enough, we get bored and disengaged," she says. "We feel most comfortable when things are certain, but we feel most alive when they're not."

We feel most comfortable when things are certain, but we feel most alive when they're not.

Curious people welcome surprise in their lives. They try new foods, talk to a stranger, or ask a question they've never asked before. "Welcoming surprise is just asking yourself, 'How alive do I want to feel?'" Luna says.

Curious people turn off their phones and focus on conversations, says Taberner.

"It means not cooking dinner while talking to your families," she says. "If you're multitasking, you're not creating space to be curious."

The ability to shelve a sense of being right in favor of being open to the insights and opinions of others is a trait of curious people, says Sue Heilbronner, cofounder and CEO of MergeLane, an accelerator program that focus on female-run companies.

Curiosity often must be instilled intentionally, it comes from intentional pauses.

"There are tremendous benefits to a culture of curiosity in companies, particularly among leaders," she says. "Curious teams always look at a broader array of options for product innovations, marketing angles, and solutions to problems. A team lodged in 'rightness' does the opposite."

Heilbronner advises leaders to take one day a month to think of scenarios that are three years in the future, to question all of their major assumptions, and to wonder if they're doing things they no longer should be doing.

"Curiosity often must be instilled intentionally," she says. "It comes from intentional pauses."

Curious people are always seeking new knowledge by engaging in conversations. When asked a question, they aren't afraid to admit when they don't have an answer, says LeeAnn Renninger, coauthor of Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable and Engineer the Unexpected.

It's more important for them to learn than to look smart.

"It's more important for them to learn than to look smart," she says.

Our minds have two parts: one that has new experiences and one that understands those experiences, says David Klow, founder of Skylight Counseling Center in Chicago. One cannot work without the other.

"The problem for many adults is that we stop being curious about new experiences and are instead focused on understanding what we've already been through," he says.

This is especially true if we've been hurt in the past. Curious people, however, develop a strong base and are more apt to take risks, says Klow.

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Editor's Note: This article is one of the top 10 habits to adopt to be better at your job in 2016. See the full list here. As children, we're naturally curious-it's how we grow and learn-but by the time we start school that sense of wonder starts to escape us.

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4 Reasons Why Curiosity is Important and How to Develop It

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4 Reasons Why Curiosity is Important and How to Develop It

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4 Reasons Why Curiosity is Important and How to Develop It

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The important thing is not to stop questioning... Never lose a holy curiosity. Albert Einstein Curiosity is an important trait of a genius. I don't think yo

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Curiosity as a Catalyst- Right Question Institute

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Curiosity as a Catalyst- Right Question Institute

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This issue of InQuiring Minds reaches back to explore that initial feeling of curiosity that can then spark all learning, creativity, and innovation. We should understand why curiosity is so valuable before we can begin to know how to keep our curiosity alive. The articles below capture the importance of curiosity along with discussing how the skill of asking questions can activate and sustain curiosity in learners of all ages.

Our first article, written by Sarah Boesveld, asks a crucial question: "Did the internet kill curiosity?". We have so much instantaneous information available to us and yet, so much time is spent on superficial activities like checking Facebook, sending emails, and playing Candy Crush. It could be a major concern if people aren't routinely leveraging the Internet for curiosity and access to knowledge. Boesveld cites Ian Leslie, the author of Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It, who shares that, "unless you've grown up acquiring these habits of learning ... already in your head, then you find it very hard to absorb information from the Internet and you're much more likely to use it as a shortcut ... without ... depth and detail."

People of all ages need to practice asking questions and thinking critically so that these processes become habits and part of ongoing learning and workplace practices. When people follow new trajectories of inquiry, the Internet can be an essential conduit for finding answers and reaching deeper learning.

Another article asks, "Does GPS kill curiosity?", and the authors, David Sturt and Todd Nordstrom, investigate geocaching, which essentially sends interested explorers off to investigate new areas and locate something hidden using GPS. The authors found that many people didn't find any value whatsoever in geocaching, which seems like an oddly negative reaction to simple exploration. Their introductory geocaching example underscores their greater argument that we're not prioritizing or cultivating that sense of curiosity, innovation, and exploration in our regular work. Sturt and Nordstrom showed "that companies know creativity is important, but they aren't very good at being creative." It's critical to have curiosity stimulate companies to stay ahead of their competition and continue building on new ideas. Without curiosity, employees don't learn anything new about their roles and practices and organizations cannot move forward.

Our next article touches on the important question of how, specifically "How Can Teachers Foster Curiosity?". Erik Shonstrom writes, "For students to be curious, they must feel worthy of seeking. They must feel entitled to ask questions and encouraged to stray, to explore, to seek." He points out that it is difficult for teachers to give students the time to explore in school with increased pressure (on both students and teachers) to demonstrate significant gains on standardized tests over brief periods of time. Nevertheless, Shonstrom stresses that schools must develop inquisitive learning environments and build student curiosity because that feeling is "the key to learning".

Curiosity isn't secluded to classrooms. Annie Murphy Paul at Time magazine discusses the importance of curiosity as "the engine for intellectual achievement" and offers suggestions for "How to Stimulate Curiosity". In fact, her initial suggestion is "Start with questions" to stimulate curiosity: "being told an answer quells curiosity before it can even get going. Instead of starting with the answer, begin by posing for yourself and others a genuinely interesting question - one that opens an information gap." Asking questions is a key activity for anyone in any field to create learning momentum.

Hal Gregersen goes one step further for making questioning a daily habit. While his article, "Don't know what to ask? Secrets of Good Questioners", is directed towards leaders in business, his advice for making questioning a regular routine is applicable to everyone. He asserts that by spending 4 minutes a day to ask questions around whatever challenge we're facing, we can renew our sense of curiosity and be more creative. Moreover, Gregersen founded the 4-24 Project, "which strives to rekindle the practice of asking provocative questions and to inspire a new generation of innovators." Everyone can ask questions and therefore, everyone has the ability to think critically and creatively.

In closing out this issue of InQuiring Minds, we are leaving our readers with a wonderful piece from Scientific American. The author, Ashutosh Jogalekar, recounts how Abraham Flexner began the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton through the generous donation of the Bamberger family. The Institute was created to be a place for curiosity, pursuing ideas, and imagining new possibilities. In fact, scientists were encouraged to simply pursue their interests and explore various topics without focusing on tangible outcomes. Jogalekar highlights Flexner's 1939 Harper's Bazaar article demonstrating his support and argument for exploration without focusing on outcomes, profits, or production. In advocating for "useless" curiosity, Flexner wrote, "[W]hat is infinitely more important is that we shall be striking the shackles off the human mind and setting it free for the adventures," which in our own day have, on the one hand, taken Hale and Rutherford and Einstein and their peers millions upon millions of miles into the uttermost realms of space, and on the other, loosed the boundless energy imprisoned in the atom."

Jogalekar writes that many scientists have reached astounding conclusions and developed new inventions just by following their interests and attempting to find answers to their questions. Certainly, they didn't know that they would create these things when they started their inquiries; however, this experimental time to play with ideas and concepts ended up being fundamental to making future discoveries.

"Asking questions is the gateway towards curiosity and building an endless path for learning."

These articles emphasize that while there is a noticeable lack of natural curiosity and exploration in our daily habits, our natural sense of curiosity is certainly not lost forever. We must find ways to bring exploration back and implement habits around continually asking questions. By starting with questions, we can spark new interests and increase personal growth; and by continuing to ask questions as a society, we can create organizational cultures that value curiosity without larger expectations and generate new ideas for 21st century needs.

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Curiosity as a Catalyst- Right Question Institute

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This issue of InQuiring Minds reaches back to explore that initial feeling of curiosity that can then spark all learning, creativity, and innovation. We should understand why curiosity is so valuable before we can begin to know how to keep our curiosity alive.

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Learn Something New Every Day with Online Video Lessons | Curious.com

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Learn Something New Every Day with Online Video Lessons | Curious.com

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Learn Something New Every Day with Online Video Lessons

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