Call to Curiosity - A Mini-Manifesto
Curiosity is a hugely under appreciated soft skill, yet one that always leads to growth.
I’ve spent some time reflecting on my experience in business school 10 years ago. We studied spreadsheets, theories and strategic frameworks. We were taught to apply the correct approach for a given problem. Marketing 101 taught pricing strategy. Operations Management 101 taught operating efficiency. Finance 101 taught the precise ratios used to value and compare businesses to their peers. These are all linear solutions to linear problems. But the real world does not operate in a straight line.
Outside of business school, you learn quickly that shareholders and board members don’t react well to leaders who don’t show up with answers, plans or positive news. You feel pressure to put a positive spin on the challenges you face — in the media, to your public markets, to your board of directors. The result is compulsory optimism. As a leader, you are not granted space or tolerance for exploration, rumination or curiosity, and this further buries these capabilities when you need them the most.
All this pressure to be certain and positive kills the potential for good strategy. Yet there is a case — a strong case — for being curious, asking questions and exploring different perspectives.
Consider Mel. Mel leads a healthcare services business that has a strong legacy of providing trusted care to aging populations. Recently, Mel’s business growth has slowed, while her competitors have gained market share. The board, the internal teams and the vendors are all asking Mel how she is going to turn things around.
Mel can choose one of two paths:
| Path A | Path B |
|---|---|
| Mel jumps to action! To demonstrate to the board that she is a leader with a solid plan, Mel gets right to work. She and her team put together a plan to increase client volume and revenue through marketing and sales campaigns. Mel determines that the core value in the market remains their longstanding history of excellence, trusted care and white-glove services. A bias for action is critical here, and Mel doesn’t want to appear to be a leader who can’t generate results. | Mel gets curious! Recognizing that there is an opportunity to better understand their core client base. She also decides to better understand any recent market changes. Since she knows that she’s going to rely on her internal team to execute a new plan, she decides to investigate how to support her team and drive results. Curiosity is critical here. Mel knows that there is a risk in acknowledging that she doesn’t have all the answers, but she recognizes an even greater long-term risk if she exhausts her limited sales and marketing resources. |
| Three Months Later… Mel has directed the marketing team to launch campaigns across all channels to remind people of their core values and service offerings. Mel directs the sales team to increase sales and encourages them with a new sales commission incentive plan. The team immediately starts to see a small uptick in sales! This reassures Mel that they are on the right path. | Three Months Later… Mel goes to the board with a clear target market and growth areas. They have a validated go-to-market strategy that aims to differentiate their services from the competition. While it is still early, the targeted campaigns have generated more awareness within a small community than they expected, and the team becomes excited to roll out the campaign more broadly. What’s more, the sales and marketing team are aligned on the go-forward plan to generate more sales. |
| Six Months Later… Mel has directed the marketing team to launch campaigns across all channels to remind people of their core values and service offerings. Mel directs the sales team to increase sales and encourages them with a new sales commission incentive plan. The team immediately starts to see a small uptick in sales! This reassures Mel that they are on the right path. | Six Months Later… The results are even more promising. Mel’s team has planned precisely where to spend their time and resources, with scheduled check-ins to reconvene and iterate the plan based on the progress and results. Mel has a clear purpose with strategic goals for the business, the team is encouraged and the board is supportive. |
If good leadership requires good business acumen and solid instincts, then a bias for action is a limited solution that we have been taught for too long. Asking the wrong questions — or worse, making assumptions — leads to misguided strategies. Mel might have accidentally succeeded in Path A, but even in that most positive outcome, she wouldn’t have produced a replicable process, which would’ve made her success challenging to maintain. Approaching with curiosity and understanding before reacting wins every time.
Curiosity is messy. It is not a framework, equation or model that can be applied with precise timing. It is not linear, and it most certainly doesn’t produce immediate results. It requires us to ask questions, rather than have answers. Most importantly, it requires us to ask the right questions.
The Faculty of Change Guidelines for Curiosity
When thinking of your target market…
Businesses will often ask: How can we increase share of wallet?
- This question is inherently focused on the business — on its products and services — rather than the customer.
Instead, try being curious about your customer by asking: What do our customers need? How are their needs changing? Why might their needs be changing?
- The answers will help you gain a fundamental understanding of where your customers’ needs and your offerings intersect, leading to more purposeful strategies for increasing share of wallet.
When thinking of your competitive market…
Businesses will often ask: What is our point of view and response to the recent changes in the market?
- This question leads with the business’s response to change, but fails to be curious about the qualities of the change itself.
Instead, try being curious about why this change is happening by asking: What is changing in culture and society? Why are people moving away from one thing and towards another?
- The answers can enable a business to make thoughtful decisions and lead the market, rather than simply reacting to change.
When thinking about how you enable your teams…
Businesses will often ask: How do we get the team to perform better?
- This question is only interested in the team’s performance and is not inherently curious about any underlying motivations, capabilities and opportunities.
Instead, try being curious about your team’s point of view by asking: What motivates different teams to succeed?
- The answers will allow you to understand the factors that lead to better performance, motivation and purpose, instead of focusing solely on the results your team produces.
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Curiosity is the key ingredient in any Strategic Renewal. If you want to talk about how and where to get curious, and harness that curiosity to generate growth for your business, get in touch and let’s chat!
