A Curious Mind

Encouraged by Malcolm Gladwell’s recommendation (“It is a captivating account of how the simple act of asking questions can change your life”), I eagerly started reading this book. But I could not get myself to finish the book — not without much effort. And had to use all my fast reading skills to reach the last page. Maybe, much has to do with my lack of perspective of the author’s context (a movie producer and all the people he made sure he met and learnt from). That said, there are some amazing observations on “curiosity” in the book tucked in all corners of the pages. Here are some.

I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious — A Einstein
For me, curiosity is what gives energy and insight to everything I do. It infuses everything with a sense of possibility. But I don’t see people talking about it, writing about it, encouraging it, and using it nearly as widely as they could.
Curiosity should be as much a part of our culture, our educational system, our workplace, as concepts like “creativity” and “innovation.”
Curiosity comes in different shades. Curiosity of a detective trying to solve a murder is different from the curiosity of an architect trying to get the floor plan right for a family’s house.
Life isn’t about finding answers, it’s about asking the questions.
Curiosity was part of the way I approached the world every day. If you are at a boring business dinner, curiosity can save you. If you are bored with your career, curiosity can rescue you. If you’re feeling uncreative or unmotivated, curiosity can be the cure. It can help you use anger or frustration constructively. It can give you courage.
For it to be effective, there are two key traits. First, the ability to pay attention to the answers to your questions — you have to actually absorb whatever it is you’re being curious about. The second trait is the willingness to act.
The child who feels free to ask why the sky is blue grows into the adult who asks more disruptive questions. How threatening is curiosity!
In the first story in Bible, the serpent is appealing directly to Eve’s curiosity. A bite of the forbidden fruit!
The classroom should be a vineyard of questions, a place to cultivate them, to learn both how to ask them and how to chase down the answers. Some classrooms are. But with the recent proliferation of standardized tests, questions can derail the lesson plan! Authentic curiosity isn’t cultivated because it’s inconvenient and disruptive to the orderly running of the class.
Even at workplaces, outside of exceptions like Google, curiosity is unwelcome if not subordinate. Good behavior — doesn’t include curiosity!
We even get to think of “curious” as an oddity, a little weird.
The ability to ask any question embodies two things: the freedom to go chase the answer, and the ability to challenge authority, to ask, “How come you’re in charge?” Curiosity is itself a form of power, and also a form of courage.
Curiosity helps me cut through the routine anxiety of work and life.
Storytelling and curiosity are natural allies. Storytelling is the act of bringing home the discoveries learned from curiosity. The story is the report from the front-lines of curiosity. They give each other power.
You’re born curious, and no matter how much battering your curiosity has taken, it’s standing by, ready to be awakened.
We are all trapped in our own way of thinking, trapped in our own way of relating to people. We get so used to seeing the world our way that we come to think that the world is the way we see it. One of the most important ways I use curiosity every day is to see the world through other people’s eyes, to see the world in ways I might otherwise miss. It’s totally refreshing to be reminded, over and over, how different the world looks, to other people. Author recounts his meeting with LAPD Chief and literally both looked at the same city from completely different perspectives, every day.
The variety in my work (and my life) comes from my curiosity.
Being able to imagine the perspective of others is also a critical strategic tool for managing reality in a whole range of professions. We want our police detectives to be able to imagine what criminals will do next, we want our military commanders to think five moves ahead, we want our basketball coaches to discern the game plans of their rivals and counter them. You can’t negotiate an international trade agreement without being able to understand what other nations need.
In fact, the very best doctors, detectives, generals, coaches, and diplomats all share the skill of being able to think about the world from the perspective of their rivals. You can’t simply design your own strategy, then execute it and wait to see what happens so you can respond. You have to anticipate what’s going to happen — by first disrupting your own point of view.
The same skill, in a completely different context, is what creates products that delight us. The specific genius of Steve Jobs is — providing what we want before we know it.
Successful business people imagine themselves in their customers’ shoes. Like coaches or generals, they also imagine what their rivals are up to, so they can be ready for the competition.
Some of this disruptive curiosity relies on instinct. Some of this disruptive curiosity relies on routine. Like Sam Walton’s (Walmart) Saturday Morning Meetings where one of the questions is “What is the competition doing right?” They were only allowed to discuss things they’d seen that were smart and well executed. Walton was basically curious about why customers would want to shop anywhere besides Walmart.
I worked on making curiosity part of my routine. I turned it into a discipline. And then I made it into a habit.
We simply don’t credit curiosity. Even when we are using it, describing it, and extolling it. When coach and his assistants spend days watching film to prepare for a game aren’t considered “curious” about their opponent. Political campaigns call their form of curiosity “opposition research.” Companies call it “consumer research.”
You can’t understand, appreciate, and cultivate something if you don’t even acknowledge that it exists. How can we teach kids to be curious if we don’t use the word curiosity? How can we encourage curiosity at work if we don’t tell people to be curious?
We live in a society that is increasingly obsessed with “innovation” and “creativity.” In 1995, “innovation” was mentioned about 80 times in US media. And “creativity” 90 times. By 2010, they became 650 and 550 mentions a day! Curiosity gets only a quarter of these mentions.
US universities mention experts in creativity, and innovation. Faculty offerings to take about curiosity? Zero.
But as indispensable as they are, “creativity” and “innovation” are hard to measure and almost impossible to teach. This intense focus on creativity and innovation can be counter productive. The typical person at work in a cubicle may not think of himself or herself as being “creative” or “innovative.” They may even point to a Dept of Innovation! That’s why Customer Service reps are reading to us from scripts.
Unlike creativity and innovation, though, curiosity is by its nature more accessible, more democratic, easier to see, and also easier to do.
Here’s the secret that we don’t seem to understand, the wonderful connection we are not making: curiosity is the tool that sparks creativity. Curiosity is the technique that gets to innovation.
Questions create a mindset of innovation and creativity. Curiosity presumes that there might be something new out there. Curiosity presumes that there might be something outside our own experience out there. Curiosity allows the possibility that the way we’re doing it now isn’t the only way, or even the best way.
Curiosity is the flint that sparks great ideas from stories. But the truth is much broader: curiosity doesn’t just spark stories, it sparks inspiration in whatever work you do.
You can always be curious. And curiosity can pull you along until you find a great idea.
Sam Walton wanted to innovate in the most ordinary of settings — a store. He started by being curious about everyone else in retailing. He just kept asking the question over and over again — what are our competitors doing?
Keep asking questions until something interesting happens. That’s something we can all do. We can teach people to ask good questions, we can teach people to listen to the answers, and we can teach people to use the answers to ask the next question.
If you treat the question with respect, the person asking it almost always listens to the answer with respect — even if they don’t respect the actual answer.
Being curious and asking questions create engagement.
Using curiosity to disrupt your own point of view is almost always worthwhile, even when it doesn’t work out the way you expect.
That’s part of the fun of curiosity — you are not supposed to be surprised. If you only get the answers you anticipate, you’re not being very curious. When you get answers that are surprising, that’s how you know that you have disrupted your point of view. But being surprised can also be uncomfortable. Curiosity is risky, but that’s good. That’s how you know how valuable it is.
Curiosity pulls me back to reality. Asking questions of real people, with lives outside the movie business, is a bracing reminder of all the worlds that exist beyond Hollywood. You can make as many movies as you want about war or prison. They’re just movies.
When you watch a movie that is completely engrossing, what happens to you? When you binge-watch latest episodes ? Or what keeps you in the chair and turn pages of a book? Curiosity.
Curiosity is a vital piece of storytelling — the power of a story to grab hold of your attention, to create the irresistible pull of that simple question — what happens next?
Good stories have all kinds of powerful elements. Fascinating characters. Dramatic dilemmas. Talented acting. Good writing. Vivid voices. But it’s all in the service of one goal: making you care.
Inspiring curiosity is the first job of a good story. Its the engine that provides the momentum of good storytelling.
Curiosity is fun and enriching personally, in isolation. But the value and the fun of curiosity are magnified by sharing what you learned. Half of Twitter is literally people saying, “Look what I just read — can you believe this?”
Curiosity motivates us to explore and discover. Storytelling allows us to share the knowledge and excitement of what we’ve figured out. And that storytelling in turn inspires curiosity in the people to whom we’re talking.
There is a profession that connects curiosity with storytelling — journalism
Stories are how we learn about the world, but also how we learn about other people, about what’s going in their heads, and how it differs from what’s going on in our heads.
Manners are the basis for how we treat people — manners are born out of compassion, empathy. Manners are — quiet simply — making people welcome, comfortable, and respected. Etiquette is the set of techniques you use to have great manners. Etiquette is the by-product. The way you invite someone to an event makes a difference. Manners are the way you want to behave, and the way you want to make people feel. Etiquette is the granularization of that desire to treat people with grace and warmth.
You don’t have to actually sit down, by appointment, with the Social Secretary of White House or a Nobel Prize physicist to experience. When someone new joins your company, when you’re standing on the sidelines at your son’s soccer game alongside the other parents, when you’re on an airplane seated next to a stranger, or attending a big industry conference, all these people around you have tales to tell. It’s worth giving yourself the chance to be surprised.
If manners are the lubricant that lets us all get along, curiosity is the shot of Tabasco that adds some spice, wakes us up, creates connection, and puts meaning into almost any encounter.
Just like curiosity and storytelling reinforce each other, so do curiosity and persistence. Curiosity rewards persistence. If you give up with the first “no,” then your curiosity isn’t serving you very well. There’s nothing more fruitless and unhelpful than idle curiosity. Persistence is what carries curiosity to some worthwhile resolution.
Likewise, persistence without curiosity may mean you chase a goal that isn’t worthy of effort — or you chase a goal without adjusting as you learn new information. You end up way off course. Persistence is the drive moving you forward. Curiosity provides the navigation.
Curiosity can help spark a great idea, and help you refine it. Determination can help you push the idea forward in the face of skepticism from others.
How often have you been involved in a project where you get halfway along and discover that the people involved had slightly different understanding of what you are up to — differences that turned out to make it impossible to work effectively together, because everyone didn’t actually agree on the goal?
It happens every day — in movies, in marketing, in architecture, in politics. It’s a little counterintuitive, but rather than derailing or distracting you, questions can keep you on course.
Does curiosity require work? Of course, it does. Asking questions, absorbing the answers, figuring out in what direction the answers point you, figuring out what other questions you need to ask, that’s all work.
Asking questions always seems, superficially, like an admission of ignorance. How can admitting your ignorance be the path to confidence? That’s one of many wonderful dualities of curiosity. Curiosity helps you dispel ignorance and confusion, curiosity evaporates fogginess and uncertainty, it clears up disagreement. Curiosity can give you confidence. And the confidence can give you determination.
Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will. Indeed, it has led many people into dangers which mere physical courage would shudder away from, for hunger and love and curiosity are the greatest impelling forces of life.
That’s what curiosity can do for almost anyone. It can give you the courage to be adventurous and ambitious. It does that by getting you comfortable with being a little uncomfortable. The start of any journey is always a little nerve-racking.
Curiosity gives you power. It’s not the kind of power that comes from yelling and being aggressive. It’s a quiet kind of power. It’s a cumulative power. Curiosity is power for real people, it’s power for people who don’t have superpower.
So far, we have looked at curiosity as a tool for discovery, as a kind of secret weapon to understand what other people don’t. As a spark for creativity and inspiration. As a way of motivating yourself. As a tool for independence and self-confidence. As the key to storytelling. As a form of courage. But I think the most valuable use of curiosity is one we haven’t explored yet.
I am talking about the human connection that is created by curiosity.
Human connection is the most important element of our daily lives — with our colleagues and bosses, our romantic partners, our children, our friends. Human connection requires sincerity. It requires compassion. It requires trust. Can you really have sincerity, or compassion, or trust, without curiosity?
I don’t think so.
Authentic human connection requires curiosity.
To be a good boss, you have to be curious about the people who work for you. To be a good parent, you have to be curious as well.
True love requires curiosity, and sustaining that love requires sustaining your curiosity. Real intimacy requires curiosity.
I use curiosity every day to help manage people at work, not just in all the ways we’ve talked about, but as a tool to build trust, cooperation and engagement.
I manage with curiosity by asking questions.
People often imagine that if there’s going to be conflict, they need to start with a firm hand, they need to remind people of the chain of command. I’m never worried about who is in charge. I’m worried about making sure we get the best possible decision.
Asking question elicits information, of course. Asking questions creates the space for people to raise issues they are worried about that the boss/team does not know about. Asking questions gives people the chance to tell a different story than the one you’re expecting.
Ask open ended questions. Not yes-or-no questions. Questions where the answer can itself be a story, sometimes short, sometimes a longer one.
Asking questions creates a lot more engagement in the people with whom you work. It’s subtle.
Asking for people’s help — rather than directing it — is almost always a smart way of doing thinks, regardless of stake. The real benefit of asking rather than telling is that it creates the space for a conversation, for a different idea, a different strategy.
Another unexpected characteristic of using questions: they transmit values. More powerfully than a direct statement!
Questions create both the authority in people to come up with ideas and take action, and the responsibility for moving things forward.
People should ask their bosses questions. What are you hoping for? What are you expecting?
Indeed, people at all levels should ask each other questions. That helps break down the barriers between job functions in our company, and in any workplace, and also helps puncture the idea that the job hierarchy determines who can have a good idea.
Making questions a central part of managing people and projects is hard.
I think questions are an under-appreciated management tool. If it’s not the way you normally interact with people, it will take a conscious effort to change. And be prepared — asking questions initially slows things down.
Best way is to pick a particular project and manage that project with questions. You will see that people’s creativity gradually blossoms.
Note — we are not asking questions for the sake of hearing ourselves ask them. There are two key elements to a questioning culture. The first is the atmosphere around the question. You can’t ask a question in a tone or voice or with a facial expression that indicates you already know the answer. You can’t ask a question with that impatience that indicates you can’t wait to ask the next question. The point of the question has to be the answer. The questions and the answers have to be driving a project or a decision forward. And you have to listen to the answer. If you don’t take the answers seriously, no one will take the questions seriously. You’ll just get the answers calculated to get everyone out of the conversation quickly.
The questions have to come from genuine curiosity. If you’re not curious enough to listen to the answer, all the question does is increase cynicism and decrease trust and engagement.
Curiosity creates interest. It can also create excitement. A good first date, for example. But what happens after months or years?
Familiarity is the enemy of curiosity. And when our curiosity about those closest to us fades, that’s the moment when our connection begins to fray. It frays silently, almost invisibly. When we stop asking genuine questions. When we stop really listening to answers. What happened at office today, dear?
A little simplistic, of course, but the quickest way to restore energy and excitement to your relationships is to bring some real curiosity back to them. Ask questions and pay attention. Like you would have on a first date. You need questions that can’t be answered with a single muttered word.
We know what our closest relation thinks. But we don’t. That’s part of the fun of curiosity, and part of the value of curiosity: it creates the moment of surprise. And before the moment of surprise comes the moment of respect. Genuine curiosity requires respect — I care about you, and I care about your experience in the world, and I want to hear about it.
To be a good manager, you need to understand the people you work with, and if you are doing all the talking, you can’t understand them. And if you don’t understand the people you’re working with, you certainly can’t inspire them.
Curiosity isn’t necessarily about achieving something — about driving toward some goal. Sometimes it’s just about connecting with people. Which is to say, curiosity can be about sustaining intimacy. It’s not about a goal, it’s about happiness.
When you run into limits of curiosity, you need anti-curiosity.
It’s the moment when you shut down your curiosity, when you resist learning more, when you may have to tell people, No, that’s okay, don’t tell me all your reasons for saying No.
No one in Hollywood really knows what a good idea is before a movie hits the screens. We only know if it’s a good idea after it’s done.
So how do you know when not to be curious?
Most of the time curiosity is energizing. It motivates you. It takes you to places you haven’t been before, it introduces you to people you haven’t met before, it teaches you something new about people you know already. Sometimes curiosity carries you to places that are hugely unpleasant or painful, but important.
You know to stop being curious when your results are just the opposite of what you need — when they sap your momentum, drain your enthusiasm, corrode your confidence. When you’re getting a critique but not much in the way of useful ideas, that’s the moment for a pinch of anti-curiosity.
If you have good taste, three things are true. You have the ability to judge the quality of something. Movies, books, architecture, cooking. Second, you bring a perspective to your judgements. Third, your taste has a appeal — understood and appreciated by people who aren’t as experienced as you.
Developing a sense of taste means exposing yourself to a wide range of something — music, art — and not just exposing yourself, but asking questions.
Taste is opinion, framed by the context of what you’re judging. And taste gives you confidence in your judgement. To be able to ask, and answer, the question, “Is that a good idea?”
Curiosity is as powerful in a public sphere as it is, for instance, at work. The very act of showing up and asking questions at local government hearing is a vivid reminder that the government is accountable to us, and not the other way around.
Curiosity isn’t just a quality of my personality — it’s at the heart of how I approach being alive.
One of the things I love about curiosity is that it is an instinct with many dualities. Curiosity has a very yin-and-yang quality about it. For instance, you can unleash your curiosity, or it can unleash you. That is, you can decide you need to be curious about something. But once you get going, your curiosity will pull you along.
Curiosity requires a certain amount of bravery — the courage to reveal you don’t know something, the courage to ask a question of someone. But curiosity can also give you courage. It requires confidence — just a little bit — but it repays you by building up your confidence.
Nothing unleashes curiosity in an audience like good story-telling. Nothing inspires storytelling, in turn, like the results of curiosity.
Curiosity can easily become a habit.
We live at a moment in time that should be a “golden age of curiosity.” As individuals, we have access to more information more quickly than ever before. The energy and creativity of entrepreneurs comes from asking questions — questions like “What’s next?” and “Why can’t we do it this way?”
And yet, curiosity remains wildly undervalued today. In the structured settings where we could be teaching people how to harness the power of curiosity — schools, universities, workplaces- it often isn’t encouraged. At best, it gets lip service. In many of those settings, curiosity isn’t even a topic.
The point isn’t to start asking a bunch of questions, rat-a-tat, like a prosecutor. The point is to gradually shift the culture- of your family, of your workplace-so we’re making it safe to be curious. That’s how we unleash a blossoming of curiosity, and all the benefits that come with it.
Consider what happens when you ask someone a question. They might respond — that’s a good question. Often this means the person knows the answer. The person who says — “That’s a curious question,” on the other hand is feeling challenged. They either don’t have an answer at hand, or they feel the question itself is somehow a challenge to their authority.
Curiosity is a more exciting way to live in the world. It is truly, the secret to living a bigger life.