Our curiosity quotient sometimes needs a little help; try our curiosity experiments to give yourself a head start.
As children, we’re naturally curious, asking endless questions to help us make sense of the world and indulging in imaginative play. But, as we grow up, we tend to lose this playfulness, this innate curiosity, becoming self-conscious, even feeling vulnerable about asking questions when we feel we should already know the answers or experimenting with things that might be embarrassing or tricky if things don’t quite work out as planned.
We also know that, to truly connect with our inner Leonardo da Vinci, we need to get comfortable with that vulnerability and to get over ourselves. It might take some practice after all these years, which is why we’ve devised our curiosity experiments to help you along the way.
Some of the experiments might feel awkward, silly or even a bit embarrassing. That’s not necessarily a bad thing; vulnerability and playfulness often go hand in hand. If you can’t bring yourself to do some experiments because they feel too awkward to try, that in itself might tell you something interesting about either yourself or your team dynamic.
Go on, give at least some of them a try. You never know, you might end up with a unique solution to a thorny problem; you might learn something about yourself; you might just give team members permission to be a bit more playful, to have some fun. Remember that reflecting on your experiences, maybe making some notes about them, will really help to reinforce what you learn. We’ve included some questions and prompts to help you do that along the way.
The artist and writer Austin Kleon advises: “Google everything. I mean everything. Google your dreams. Google your problems. Don’t ask a question before you Google it. You’ll either find the answer or you’ll come up with a better question.”
Spend at least 15 minutes each day this week Googling everything that has popped into your brain. Note at least three things you Googled and reflect on what you learnt from doing this.
Before your next meeting where you’ll be discussing a particular problem, discussing a strategic challenge or brainstorming for ideas, place a random object on the desk in front of you. This could be a saucepan, a toy dinosaur, a coat hanger, a bar of soap or even a shoe. Wait until someone in the team asks you about it. This might be an embarrassing wait depending on how curious your colleagues are.
When or if they finally ask you about it, explain that it’s there to help solve the problem. Ask whoever brought it up to list five characteristics of the object (for example, if it was a toy dinosaur they might say ‘scary’, ‘claws’, ‘asteroid’, ‘extinct’, ‘green’).
Take each of these words in turn and brainstorm how you could solve the problem/come up with new ideas using that word as inspiration (for example, how could you create a ‘greener’ policy around this? How could you make an awkward process suddenly ‘extinct’? What would happen if you made the campaign ‘scary’?)
The next time you’re shopping for groceries, find a food you’ve never had before. Buy it and try it (you may want to look up how to prep it). The more unusual the better.
What did you learn about yourself, the process and the outcome?
There are certain contexts where we are ‘allowed’ to just look: during football matches or in art galleries, for example. At other times, there is a bit of a cultural taboo about just ‘looking’ at everyday stuff for no reason. But Andy Warhol made a career out of finding what was interesting in the seemingly banal, whether that was painting soup cans or just filming himself eating a hamburger.
When you next venture out, look out carefully for one small thing that interests you that normally you’d pay little attention to – it could be a sad glove on a railing, a dog in a jumper that makes you smile or a sign with an interesting colour combination. Take a photo of the object (or sketch it if you have time).
Then study the photo (or sketch) and really ask yourself why it caught your eye.
Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left, write ‘radiators’. Under this column, list the people in your personal and professional life who inspire you and help you to learn new things. On the right, write ‘drains’. These are the time vampires who draw energy without giving anything back.
Reflect on:
Did the results surprise you? What might you change as a result?
Ask to have a social call with someone you’re curious about. Use these conversation questions to deepen the experience; you’ll be amazed where they take you.
In your next three team meetings, create a little four-by-four bingo sheet with the terms below (or create your own). Observe carefully and tick each option every time you observe it happening. If you get four in a row, shout “Bingo” loudly (only joking, please don’t do this):
What were the main patterns? What surprised you? What could be better?
For your next 1-2-1 or small group meeting, suggest doing it as a walking meeting.
Were you more or less present? Did the changing scenery and physical movement help or hinder the conversation? Was not being able to take notes an issue?
What fascinates you? What do you think about the future? Make a list of at least 20 things you’ve always wanted to know more about. The breadth of your list will make your mind more fertile for innovative new ideas.
Start exploring some items on your list and see where they take you.
Steve Jobs credited some random calligraphy classes he took in college as a part of what made Apple so successful and different. The classes made him think deeply about the power and beauty of fonts and how, until then, many computer companies had effectively ignored them.
Pick a random item on your desk and read the Wikipedia entry about it. Maybe this is your chance to learn how pencils are made, or the story of Bill Hewlett and David Packard.
Repeat the exercise as you go about your working day, taking a couple of minutes here and there to learn about the items that normally go overlooked.
Use your sleep. Just before you go to bed, remind yourself of a problem you want to solve. A 1993 Harvard study found that when people ask themselves a question before bed, half of the participants dreamed about the issue and a quarter found a solution in their dreams.
To assist your unconscious, read something inspiring at night. Non-fiction or fiction is fine… anything that inspires your mind and suggests new information to prime the sleep connections. John Steinbeck described it as the “committee of sleep” who work on our problems while we rest.
Did your ‘committee’ help you?
Use the Wikipedia:Random search for at least five random pages. Write down the headlines on five Post-its and keep these on your desk.
Over the course of this week, try to find a way to work an aspect of at least one of them into a meeting, a project or a process.
The writer Julia Cameron uses a simple technique called “Morning Pages”. It’s a simple idea: as soon as you wake up, take five minutes and some paper and write down on two or three sheets every thought and idea that come into your head, however random or unconnected. These notes aren’t to share with others; they are just a way to clear out the intellectual and emotional debris and leave space for creative thought.
Your pages will make little sense and might read something like ‘I don’t know what to write for this exercise; I’m still feeling a bit annoyed at John; I might have a grapefruit for breakfast; I’m feeling a bit tired today; I really do need to change my mobile phone contract soon; that’s a nice noise; what’s that actor called with that weird moustache…?’; etc.
Try it over the next five days. What difference has it made to each day?
The writer Thomas Friedman wrote a booked called Thank You for Being Late because he noticed how grateful he felt when colleagues or friends turned up late to meetings. It gave him the much-needed time he hadn’t otherwise scheduled to just let his mind wander.
If we’re always busy, there is no room for curiosity. We often blame our boss for how busy we are, but more often than not, how busy we are is a function of our own sense of anxiety or ambition.
This week, try taking 10 minutes in the middle of each working day to literally do nothing. If you can’t manage 10 minutes in one go, try just five minutes, or even just one minute at a time. Good places to do nothing: in front of a window, in the shower, on a park bench, watching the kettle boil, lying on the floor.
How did it feel to just do nothing? What thoughts came into your head? Did you notice any patterns? Did you find yourself wondering about anything in particular?
The writer William Burroughs would often take a newspaper or book and cut out random words then try piecing them together like a jigsaw to find a combination that sounded interesting.
When you are next writing a report, composing an important email or preparing a presentation, take a page in a random book from your shelf, circle every 15th word and try starting each sentence using that word.
Did this process make the writing easier or harder; more or less interesting for the reader?
Be an x-ray listener. Get better at picking up on non-verbal cues in other people. Try really looking at people’s eyes, their small facial expressions and their body language. In your next meeting, focus on one individual and act like an anthropologist, noting down their physical behaviour and how they react to different aspects of the meeting.
Alternatively, you could try spending 10 minutes watching a Netflix drama with the volume down to identify how the characters are transmitting their emotions physically and what those emotions are.
Reconnect with at least five old colleagues/work connections. You might want to scroll through your LinkedIn connections or phone contacts and send a message to someone you haven’t talked to in at least a year, saying you’re thinking of them, letting them know what’s new with you and that you’re curious about what they’re up to.
What happened as a result?
Pick a colleague who is close to you and who you feel will give you some honest and direct answers. Ask them questions from the following list. Let the conversation flow naturally and see where it ends up:
What did you discover from this conversation? What surprised you and what might you change as a result?
Try silence. In an upcoming team meeting or 1-2-1, ask a big, open-ended (and potentially uncomfortable) question.
After you pose your question, stop. Leave a pause and don’t say another word until another person speaks. Stay quiet, even if it feels uncomfortable. The better your question, the longer it often takes people to process it and to respond. We live in a world where quiet gaps are often filled to avoid embarrassment.
How did it feel to wait? What happened as a result?
Select at least five individuals on social media who you would never normally choose to follow.
These might be individuals who don’t share the same opinions as you, (relatively mainstream) groups whose views you disagree, with or simply people who post about things you would not normally be interested in. If you don’t use social media, buy a newspaper that you would never normally read instead.
Make an effort to withhold judgement and simply try to immerse yourself in their world and see what you can learn about their point of view, their worries and their concerns. If you need to, imagine you are a concerned parent, purely interested in finding out why they feel a certain way.
Reflect on what you learnt and whether the experiment has helped you understand better some different perspectives.
Identify a colleague who tends to have a different point of view on things or who is at a very different stage of life from you and ask them this series of questions.
What did you learn about them? Did you feel more empathy towards them after this experiment?
Delegate a piece of work that shouldn’t take longer than two weeks to complete. Explain to your colleague that you would like them to entirely own the outcome and do the work exactly as they want to. When they present you with the work back, note down:
At least three times during one typical working day, stop and ask yourself:
Did this experiment lead to any changes in your working practice?
Is there an obvious question in your team or organisation that you feel everybody is avoiding because the answer might be a little scary? This is the elephant in the room. How might a skilful question make it visible? What happens if you ask the question?
What might that question be? If you managed to ask it, what happened as a result?
A simple but powerful psychological or therapeutic technique is to briefly try out acting ‘as if’ you were someone else, or possessed someone else’s characteristics. Choose your own curiosity ‘hero’: this might be Sherlock Holmes, Leonardo da Vinci, Barbie or Mulan.
In your next meeting, try acting ‘as if’ you had their particular brand of curiosity – ask yourself, what would they like to know? What might they question? (There’s no need to wear a hat or smoke a pipe for this activity.)
Were there any questions that came to mind that might not have done previously?
When the artist Michael Atavar wants a different perspective he often simply lies on the floor and looks at the world from a different perspective (ideally looking upwards through a window or in a park). He argues that the process is relaxing and allows your mind to wander more easily. In your next team meeting, try turning off the camera (you can blame bad Wi-Fi) and join the meeting while lying on the floor.
Did this change of perspective lead to any new thoughts or ideas?
At the next appropriate opportunity (for example, in your next 1-2-1), share a story about your journey to where you are with your team. Share some of the ups and downs along the way. Reveal some mistakes you’ve made in the past and what you learnt from them.
Invite your team/colleague to ask you any question they want. This will feel quite exposing and might make you feel uncomfortable, but fight through that.
How did it feel? What response did you get?
In your next three team meetings, create a little three-by-four bingo sheet with the terms below (or you may want to create your own). Every time you feel inclined to step in and ask a question/make a point, ask yourself how you felt just before you spoke (or didn’t speak up).
Were there any typical patterns? What surprised you? What could be better?
Talk to a colleague, tell them what you’re working on and what you’re finding particularly challenging or interesting at the moment. Ask them to introduce you to someone they know who they think it would be helpful for you to meet.
Did you get to meet someone interesting? What did you learn from reaching out?
How can you pierce your own media bubble? Make a list of all your typical sources of information/news.
How could you make your list more reliable or balanced?
Trying some or all of these experiments requires us to set aside time for curiosity – an investment which will be repaid in full when we find ourselves thinking more creatively, questioning received wisdom, and identifying new avenues and possibilities.
Enhancing our curiosity quotient helps to shift our minds from a passive mode into an active one, allowing us – like da Vinci – to learn relentlessly every day of our lives.