Despite the need for innovation and continuous improvement, many organisations still fail to recognise the importance of curiosity as a critical leadership competency. In a previous article “Why the C in C-Suite stands for curiosity”, we explored the essential role of leadership in demonstrating and placing a high value on curiosity in order to enable breakthroughs at all levels for their organisations. The World’s most competitive firms, especially those with sector leading advantages, already understand that when curiosity flows through all levels of a business and is embedded in organisation culture, it can have a profound impact.

Francesca Gino is a behavioural scientist and Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Gino describes how, in order to truly foster curiosity, organisations must transition from the implicit message that asking questions is an unwanted challenge to authority. Gino believes that leaders at every level of an organisation must nurture their employee’s curiosity to fuel learning, improvement and performance. In a recent HBR article entitled The Business Case for Curiosity, Professor Gino describes the multiple benefits of fostering true curiosity. These include i) Fewer decision-making errors – decision makers being less likely to fall prey to confirmation bias or stereotyping; ii) Higher levels of innovation and positive changes in both creative and non-creative roles as the role holders are more stimulated to identify workplace improvements; iii) Reduced group conflict as team members are encouraged to place themselves in one another’s shoes; iv) Significantly improved communication - through increased sharing of information and more careful listening.

​Despite the best intents of some organisations, the development of curiosity as a core competency can be restrained by placing too much focus on efficiency to the detriment of exploration. Gino suggests that to accelerate the growth of curiosity, organisations should hire for inquisitiveness and demonstrate that active curiosity is a desired behaviour by asking questions of and most importantly, listening to the answers of employees and acting in these where appropriate. Leaders should emphasise learning goals within their organisations, relate these to longer term business goals and challenge their Managers on how they are facilitating growth and learning in their reports. One of our own clients at HRM links management bonuses in part, to the achievement of learning goals in their areas. Professor Gino outlines in her article how key it is for companies to encourage employees to broaden their work and personal interests.​​​

John Dore, Programme Director for Senior Executive Programmes at London Business School explains that companies and their leaders need to move on from emotional quotient to developing curiosity quotient (CQ) in their employees. He describes CQ as a series of behaviours that see leaders actively invest in a growth mindset by continuous knowledge acquisition from a broad range of sources. He cites formal education, reading of journals, quirky social media and attending networking events amongst the habits that leaders with high CQ engage in. Such executives he explains, are always scanning for new ideas, tend to be early adopters and noticeably enjoy experimenting with new ways of working or approaching assignments.

As much changes in the world around us, curiosity is not a nice to have, it is essential to organisation competitiveness, valued differentiation and organisation effectiveness. For leaders and professionals at all levels, curiosity is the key to a long and healthy career path. A McKinsey report entitled “Jobs Lost, Jobs Gained: Workforce Transitions in a Time of Automation” suggested years ago that as a consequence of AI, current technology adaptation and changing consumer and industrial patterns, up to 375 million workers may need to switch their occupational category. That startling number is enough to make anyone curious.

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