We have all been inspired by the relentless curiosity of toddlers repeatedly asking “why” in their quest to learn. Curiosity is no less valuable in business. Yet CEOs frequently bemoan the reluctance of their organizations to embrace new questions, perspectives, and paths.
But what exactly is curiosity? Why is it especially crucial to companies today? And what can leaders do to cultivate it?
What is curiosity in business?
We are more likely to take direct action when the goal is clear and the solution is known. When the precise solution is less clear, but the challenge pattern is familiar enough, we move to action by defining the process to solve, with milestones to benchmark progress.
While this direct approach to problem solving is efficient, it makes no sense for small children because their ability to tackle worldly challenges pivots on how well they can increase their knowledge of the world. The same logic applies to companies facing unprecedented business challenges in rapidly changing environments. Before they rush to execution, they need to deepen their understanding of novel situations.
Why is curiosity especially crucial today?
Shrinking the gap between the known and the knowable makes the most sense when we cannot easily draw on the experience of similar situations. The value of curiosity is therefore high in the following contexts:
One or more of these conditions apply to most businesses today. The rapid progress of generative AI, in particular, is forcing companies large and small to reconsider both the ends and means of strategy by investigating new approaches fueled by curiosity. Equally, the depletion of natural resources and the need to minimize environmental and social externalities—while continuing to create adequate financial returns—requires curiosity to drive new business-model discovery.
Why is curiosity hard for established companies?
Do the following experiment: Spend an hour observing a management meeting at a young, fast-growing company and an hour at a large, slower-growth incumbent. Be sure to note the number of references in each to new phenomena and stakeholders outside the company, the number of questions asked, or the number of new approaches suggested. A comparison will no doubt reveal a distinct lack of curiosity at the larger, more established firm.
Fortunately, incuriousness in big, incumbent companies is not an immutable law of nature. But large organizations must overcome several tendencies that erode curiosity, such as:
Curiosity at Genpact
Business-process outsourcing (BPO) leader Genpact started in the late 1990s as an experiment within General Electric. Designed to explore a new business model, it supplied previously internal services to other global companies using plentiful, effective human resources based in India.1
There was no existing template nor any tried-and-tested practices Genpact could use as a guide. Fueled by curiosity, its leadership learned its way toward an unknown future. Today, it is an independent, $4 billion-plus company providing all kinds of business, technology, and analytical services to global companies as part of a $300 billion-plus BPO industry it incubated from scratch.
Genpact continues to thrive in a rapidly changing global and technological business environment by intentionally embracing key practices that foster its foundational curiosity, including:
In addition to encouraging curiosity, Genpact leadership also works to prevent the complacency and stagnation that kills curiosity within teams. When something is running “too smoothly,” leaders deliberately disrupt the status quo through personnel substitutions and new goals to facilitate curiosity and learning.
Curiosity at KKR
Genpact is not alone in its emphasis on curiosity. Henry Kravis, the pioneering private equity legend and KKR cofounder and coexecutive chairman, recently told an interviewer that it is not possible to be a successful investor or founder without curiosity. He noted this is especially true today, as rapidly shifting geopolitical and economic dynamics create risks that can become business opportunities if thoroughly explored and understood.
Kravis operationalizes this belief by routinely seeking and having conversations with people who have very different perspectives from his. For example, when visiting an unfamiliar business environment, Kravis fills out his schedule by meeting with as many local stakeholders as possible. Even when on familiar ground, he tries to meet with as many young people as possible to understand their points of view.
How can leaders cultivate organizational curiosity?
Drawing on Genpact, KKR, and other examples of curious companies, a number of common organizational levers emerge for fostering a curious mindset:
CEOs can play a special role in cultivating these practices of curiosity. The following actions and behaviors can set the tone for the whole organization, creating a fertile ground for curiosity to flourish:
Business has always had two main jobs: exploiting today’s models and exploring future ones. As the pace of technological evolution and new ways of competing accelerates, it is incumbent on CEOs to not only reward current performance but also the curiosity to create new models that will drive tomorrow’s performance.
By Martin Reeves and Tiger Tyagarajan
Source: bcg.com
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