How To Instill Curiosity In The Workplace
Curiosity is one of the most critical determinants of performance that organizations can cultivate today. Although leaders often state they value curiosity, Harvard's Francesca Gino's research for HBR (registration required) explained only about 24% of employees feel curiosity in their jobs on a regular basis. Leaders must recognize this and make some changes.
Some leaders are at the forefront in the area of developing curiosity and have already reaped the benefits. Consider Novartis, a global pharmaceutical company, where they embrace the value of fostering curiosity in their employees to allow the discovery of new and better ways of doing things. I am currently working with an employee at Novartis whose doctoral research focuses on developing curiosity. Novartis focuses on the value of continuous learning through the development of curiosity. Chief learning officer Simon Brown has been a force in their curiosity movement. Novartis knew the value of staying at the forefront of innovation, so they created a program that encouraged employees to explore 100 hours a year of employer-paid education to broaden their interests. In addition to paying for tuition at universities, they have included online training, access to audiobooks and other nontraditional, education-based resources. They dedicate the entire month of September to the theme of improving curiosity. They have embraced TEDx events to showcase talks provided by their employees.
Verizon's CEO, Hans Vestberg, embraces the need for change through "encouraging curiosity." (Full disclosure: Verizon is a former client of mine.) Verizon encourages employees to share their learning with a unique hashtag on social media. They have created training videos to share with their employees with incentives for learning. Through daily newsreels and quick five-minute bites of content, employees can remain on the cutting edge while exploring their natural sense of curiosity.
These programs have had enormous success, with employees who feel that learning is celebrated and rewarded. These organizations have enabled better access to more relevant and timely knowledge to ensure employees develop curiosity. They have made learning more accessible through flexible access to fit in around people's lives. Developing curiosity has had a positive impact on employees. Nearly a third of the employees at Novartis have utilized their digital awareness hub to improve learning, which has led to retaining the best talent.
While these are excellent examples of how to improve curiosity, it can be critical to explore what inhibits curiosity in the workplace. In my research, I found four factors that can hold people back, including fear, assumptions (that nagging voice in our head), technology and our environment. We can all fear failure, embarrassment and loss of control. We sometimes assume that we won't be interested in something, are apathetic or have failed to see the necessity in learning something new, which can lead to that voice in our head that talks us out of further exploration. Technology can be over- or underutilized and allows us to have things looked up for us, without giving us a foundation. Sometimes we are not adequately trained to use technology or we find it overwhelming. And we have all had environments that could influence our desire to explore. Everyone from our educators, family, friends, workers, peers and even connections on social media can impact what we desire to explore.
Organizations and their leaders can play a crucial role in instilling curiosity among their employees to create a significant impact on engagement, innovation and productivity. Culture begins at the top, and creating a path of learning and exploration can be critical to an organization's success. For that, curiosity must be encouraged and rewarded. To encourage curiosity, you can facilitate access to training. It's vital that curiosity is invited and not sanctioned, as can sometimes be the case in organizations.
You can also spark curiosity by rewarding curious employees. Rewards could include distributing certificates, recognizing efforts and celebrating them publicly to emulate others. Lastly, another way to instill curiosity is to select curious people during the recruitment process. Curiosity is viral, and these newcomers will have an impact on their colleagues, providing that the culture of the organization promotes one of curiosity.
A curiosity-based culture can begin by assessing how the four factors of fear, assumptions, technology and environment have impacted employees. Once people learn what inhibits them, it is easier for them and their organizations to move forward to reap the rewards of developing a curious mindset.