Keep your organization ‘fresh’ – flex your curiosity muscle
When Satya Nadella took over the helm at Microsoft in 2014, he transformed Microsoft from a know-it-all culture to a learn-it-all culture. In his email to all employees on his first day as Microsoft’s CEO, he wrote this:
“A lot of what I do and how I think has been shaped by my family and my overall life experiences. Many who know me say I am also defined by my curiosity and thirst for learning… I fundamentally believe that if you are not learning new things, you stop doing great and useful things. So family, curiosity and hunger for knowledge all define me.”
Under Satya’s leadership, Microsoft went from a 300-billion-dollar company to over 3 trillion today. Microsoft’s story illustrates a fundamental truth: curiosity is the engine of progress and an essential ingredient to keeping the organization fresh, adaptive, and ahead of the curve.
THE ESSENCE OF CURIOSITY
So, what is curiosity? – Curiosity is about asking good questions. It came from our desire to explore, understand and learn.
It is that spark of new ideas electrifying our prefrontal cortex. The very act of asking questions powers the creative mind and leads to new perspectives. New perspectives give rise to new connections in our thinking which in turn leads to innovation and invention.
The status quo does not sit comfortably in a curious mindset. A curious mindset will question the relevancy of the status quo and asks how we can do better. Curiosity sometimes also surfaces as that nagging voice at the back of our minds refusing to ignore the small signs of trouble and demands that we address those signs.
“Curiosity activates the prefrontal cortex when it is something interesting and bothers the back of our minds when it detects small signs of trouble.” (Suresh)
CURIOSITY – A STRATEGIC ASSET
We have heard business leaders repeatedly say complexities and uncertainties are increasing, things are changing faster, where can we find the next growth curve. It is obvious and increasingly mind-bogging that the challenges for these leaders are compounding.
The answer to navigating these challenges is to ask good questions.
Curiosity can be your strategic asset.
As a leader – creating organisational impact
What is your experience as you observe leadership in navigating uncertain and rapidly changing environments?
“Do we know enough about our competition, how come they are not moving” “We need to see more scenarios for us to decide” “Let’s analyse more.”
Do these sound familiar? These are examples where leaders are acting out analysis paralysis and are reflective of their hesitancy to make decisions.
Instead of a protective reflex to go into a fight or flight mode, curious leaders:
• Ask insightful questions
• Listen to understand
• Seek different and diverse perspectives, and
• Feel comfortable not knowing the answer (yet)
By doing so, they create a very different impact on their team and organisational dynamics. They engage with their team with a positive intent, value the input from their team members and create the confidence in the team to share their point of view. This increases the trust level in the team, which is an essential building block for high performance.
“What are the data telling us / not telling us?” “What do we need to move to the next step?” “What are we doing better than our competitors that they find hard to copy?”
Embracing a curious mindset is to elevate the awareness that there are alternative modes to face off with uncertainties. Instead of feeling handcuffed on decisions due to uncertainties, leaders trigger opportunities by creating the space for innovation and finding new solutions. Through curiosity, they keep the dynamics needed to respond to external and internal ‘forces’, thereby creating a highly adaptable organization.
Benefits of Curiosity in Leadership
The curiosity lever is present across all stages of an organization’s activities. Adding a touch of curiosity to each of these stages is akin to adding an ingredient that sparks novel ideas, new methods of brewing the solutions process and ultimately leads to delightful experiences for employees, customers and other stakeholders.
Reflective questions:
• Looking at the list of benefits in the house diagram above, how do you assess your current situation?
• What would be the most impactful ‘point’ to focus on and do differently going forward?
FLEX YOUR CURIOSITY MUSCLE
Signal curiosity is a valued trait
“Curiosity is a characteristic of a great leader” (Alfonso)
In order to cultivate a curious organization, leaders at the top will need to signal that this is a trait valued by the organization.
The first act of signaling is none other than the leaders themselves adopting the practice of asking good questions in their day-to-day conversations. During team settings, leaders can take the opportunity to demonstrate that by putting ‘great minds together’, they can create collective curiosity for the business, markets, trends, competition, consumers, and customers across functions.
A curious team is not shy of conflict. Leaders can demonstrate how a shift to a curious mindset plays a pivotal role in team dynamics, how it could help the team navigate through difficult trade-offs to arrive at the most suited decision in that moment to drive business forward.
Importantly, curious leaders connect with empathy, they make an effort to understand what is occupying their team members’ minds and by looking at the situation through the other person’s lens, leaders create thoughtful conversations that deepen the trust level among each other.
To create a positive flywheel, leaders could create nudges and badges through acknowledging good questions and rewarding processes and outcomes driven by curiosity.
Identify and groom talent to strengthen your organization and keep it ‘fresh’…
It should not come as a surprise that a critical mission in all of this lies in identifying and grooming talent who embrace the right curiosity and growth mindset.
Here are some useful tips from Business Executives with whom we have been speaking on how they find curious talents (internally and externally):
• Look for people who ask good questions, who listen (more) to what others have to say
• They want to know more, have high energy and project a growth mindset
• They seek to understand business + operations deeper, they are not afraid to fail (and learn from it)
• They are ambitious and are excited by opportunities
• They exhibit edges or a sense of impatience in their behavior, and can appear critical
• They feel at ease to ask uncomfortable questions
• Use Executive Assessments
• Rely on your intuition to find the people with the ‘inquisitive mindset’ in the interviews
Reflective questions:
• How do you feel about your ‘bench strengths’ (your next level beyond your Executive team)?
• How do you feel about their growth mindset and level of curiosity to keep your organization ‘fresh’?
• Imagine the leadership team in 3 years’ time; how would it look like? To future-proof your organization…
CONCLUSION
According to Gartner’s CEO and Senior Business Survey 2024 “CEOs overwhelmingly selected growth as their top strategic business priority for 2024-2025. To prepare for growth, 79% of CEOs have in place their revised post-crisis business strategies by the end of last year”.
Growth in the form of innovation (product and business model), expansion, M&As – all have one underlying common trait – curiosity.
In our interviews with Business Executives from different industries (listed below), everyone believed in the power of a curious mind. They are acutely aware of the dangers of complacency and hold the mantra ‘not resting on our laurels’ close to their hearts.
To future-proof your organization and keep it fresh, we are convinced that curiosity is an essential ingredient that will differentiate your organization from competition and therefore attract better talent and create a more dynamic and winning working environment.
Which of your curiosity muscle will you begin to flex?
This article was made possible with the contribution of:
Alfonso Ordonez (Country Division Head) | Anusha Thavarajah (Regional Chief Executive) | Mao Chen (Product Lead Asia) | Mark Henderson (CEO Asia) | Mo Yasin (Executive Director) | Suresh Sidhu (CEO and Founder) | Stephanie Peregrin (Finance Director) | SVP of a sovereign fund
Rainer B. Schmitz, with decades of international experience in senior HR and talent management roles, is a Partner, Executive Coach, and Head of TPA Asia in Singapore, SEA and Hong Kong.
Diana Gan, with over 20 years of international experience in innovation, cross border investment, fund raising, is an Executive Coach at TPA Asia.
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