Curiosity

“Don’t be nosy.”
“Don’t ask stupid questions.”
Curiosity killed the cat – they say.
 
There was a point in my childhood where I shifted from asking lots of questions to expecting myself to figure things out by myself. The Encarta encyclopedia (who still rembers the good old CD-ROM?) turned into one of my best friends. I refused to eat with chopsticks instead of admitting that I had no clue how to use them. When someone asked my if I had read a certain book, I’d rather say yes and hope I’d get through with it than asking what it was about. At that time, I would never have guessed that one day running classes about product discovery would become my bread and butter – let alone that I would start recording a podcast with the sole purpose of interviewing other people (spoiler alert… stay tuned 😊). 
 
My own kids have taught me: One of the most valuable things you can generate in life are questions. They are the tip of the iceberg that will guide you to uncover a lot of “unknown unknowns” – if you are willing to truly listen. They will help you (in)validate your assumptions. They have the potential to deepen your relationships and can lead to unexpected opportunities. So, if curiosity is so beneficial, should we be curious all the time?
 
In his research at INSEAD, professor Spencer Harrison differentiates between productive and unproductive curiosity:

“What we found is that productive curiosity doesn’t mean that I’m locked into the task that I’m doing. In fact, people are really good at doing what we were calling micro pivots where they are stepping out of a task stream and thinking more broadly about what’s going on. They were doing divergent things, but they didn’t completely step away from the task.

Unproductive curiosity was when people described listening in on gossip because I’m curious about what’s going on. Or I’m checking a website or I’m on social media or I’m just trying to discover a little bit of information that allow me to distract myself from the work that I’m doing.  Whereas productive curiosity was s deliberate choice to try to understand a bigger world and see a bigger pattern and then returned back to the task with a new idea or a way to experiment within that pattern.“ Source

In a nutshell: exploration without direction is unproductive. What is productive, according to former Stitch Five executive Colson, is “curiosity plus the desire for impact.”
 
Now, there definitely is a time and place in life to not be productive (don’t you dare take away the Fail Tuesday pic dumps on Watson from my husband…). However, Harrison also stated that in their research high levels of unproductive curiosity correlated with a higher risk for burn-out. So, a focus on productive curiosity seems to bring a lot of benefits both for the individual and even the business context.
 
As I was digging deeper into the topic of curiosity I started to wonder: Is the individual level of curiosity something we are born with? The studies I found did not show conclusive results on the degree of curiosity that is genetically predisposed. In any case, there seems to be a way to infuse your life with more curiosity: by surrounding yourself with curious people 😊 In his research, Harrison discovered that the most successful business people in the study were closely working with consultants, coaches, colleagues and/or advisors with a high level of curiosity. The team is now crunching the data to figure out to which extent curious partners have an influence on the business success.
 
“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”, motivational speaker Jim Rohn said. Although researchers might disagree with this provocative statement, it makes sense that our broader environment is having a substantial impact on us. Therefore, I guess it cannot hurt to ask ourselves: How curious are the people we surround ourselves with? Do they bring in new topics and new perspectives? Do they challenge our assumptions, are they eager to learn from and with us?
 
My best friends and I exchange a ton of voice messages.  And as I started to dig into some new topics (out of curiosity 😊), I bombarded them with my latest discoveries from all sorts of books and podcasts – from spirituality to parenting, from systems thinking to poetry 😊 Those aren’t topics everyone might be naturally drawn to, but I love what my dear friend Eva said to me the other day: “Your topics are my topics.”
 
I consider myself lucky that I am in touch with a diverse set of people – and yet I realize that I am also living in a bubble. Most peole in my circle come from a similar socio-economic background and share a similar level of education. Most content I am exposed to on Linkedin is revolving around product management (and many voices there frankly care mostly about pleasing the algorithm…) 

It could not hurt to shake up my bubble once in a while (it actually might be cool to host a Curiosity Dinner with people from completely different backgrounds and see what happens 🤔). I really feel the urge to expose myself to more different topics to expand my horizons and to see how that might connect to topics I am naturally drawn to.

So, shall we do a little experiment together and be a little more curious this month? Let’s ask the one questions we might otherwise have swallowed in a meeting and overcome the fear we might look stupid. Let’s talk to someone new at the playground, in the bus, at a café. Let’s randomly listen to a podcast on Spotify. Let’s not doze off when our partners start talking about solar panels or railway data 😊 I promise I’ll try.
 
Also, I just wanted to share a little picture I created to show the topics in my life I am most interested in – in case you get curious about any of them I am happy to share some resources, stories or practices that might spark your interest. 



And now I am curious: What does your  “Wheel of Curiosity” look like, Sascha? 
 
Lots of love

Tanja

This text was first published in my though-letter Tanja’s Butterflies (February Edition 2024 – Part 1). If you are interested in receiving the next editions in your inbox including additional resources such as inspiring quotes, books and more, you can subscribe here.