The Power of Why Unlocking a Curious Mind

in the summer of 2016

i found myself working at a free

michelin star restaurant in modena italy

it is called the austria francescana and

that year

he had been named the best restaurant in

the world

the owner chef massimo butura is a

master of traditional recipes

and his even greater skill is

transforming

this dishes into something new who could

resist the crunchy part of the lasagna

butura’s dishes were beautiful and

delicious

and hardly resembled the traditional

meals i’d grown up with

one busy night at the restaurant sous

chef condo takahiko

known to his colleagues as taka found

himself in a position of pastry chef

after a colleague left without notice

the day before

taka was overseeing the desserts when

suddenly one of the lemon tarts he was

making

fell to the ground at that same moment

chef botura walked in he saw the smash

star on the floor

he stared taka froze now a many fancy

restaurant the head chef would have

considered this a teachy moment

he would have yelled you would have

berated taka about his sloppiness

or made a speech about standards not

butura

he just stood there he thought for a

moment

why he asked himself couldn’t dessert be

smashed

that very question led butura to create

a new item for the menu

a deconstructed lemon tart nowadays

it’s one of the most popular dishes at

the restaurant

the name of the dessert oops i dropped

the lemon tart

but pura looks at the world even at

accidents and asks

why he approaches his work in his life

with awe

and wonder and a sense of possibility

though he’s incredibly skilled at

cooking his real talent

is curiosity we are all

born curious take my three and a half

year old daughter

lately one of her favorite words is why

as in why do we need to pay for things

why do we need to wear clothes when we

go outside

every time i’m confident i’ve given her

a satisfying answer

she palps me with another string of

queries

like most young children she doesn’t

assume

she has everything figured out or feel

embarrassed

about not knowing something she takes

time to puzzle over

issues and doesn’t dismiss ideas that

might be

outlandish curiosity has been shown to

be a key ingredient to learning

creativity and innovation but as we grow

older

our attitude toward curiosity changes if

you look at the data in fact

our curiosity peaks between ages 4 and 5

then declines steadily from there it’s

not just getting

older that kills curiosity i’ve taught

for over two decades

at harvard business school researching

how people can have more productive

creative and fulfilling lives in one

project on curiosity

in my work as a researchers i’ve

collected data from

hundreds of employees starting new jobs

initially their curiosity was high but

when i went back to them

eight nine months later i found that

curiosity had dropped by at least 20

percent across the board

no matter what industry they were in no

matter what job they had

this is not because we don’t recognize

the value of curiosity

to the contrary when i surveyed over

3 000 employees from a wide range of

firms and industry

i found that 92 percent of them credited

curious people with bringing new ideas

into teams and organizations

and viewed curiosity as a catalyst for

job satisfaction

motivation and high performance

curiosity my research shows leads to a

wide range of benefits fewer

decision-making errors

lower group conflict more open

communication

better team performance more diverse

networks

yet as i found in the same survey

only about 24 percent reported feeling

curious in their jobs on a regular basis

and about 70 percent said they faced

barriers to asking more questions at

work

we say we treasure inquisitive minds

as parents as colleagues as leaders

as friends but the truth is we

often end up stifling curiosity rather

than encouraging it and not promoting

curiosity comes with great cost

the good news is that curiosity is not

only something we are born with

it can also be fostered how

one way to start is by creating the

space for others to ask why

or what if we can model and invite

question asking pixel animation studios

has an impressive track record of hit

movies

and brilliant work by experienced

storytellers

which means that often new hires are

hesitant to question the status quo

but ed cutmo the co-founder and previous

president

knows the pixar’s success relies

precisely on going beyond accept his way

of thinking

when his people get started he makes a

point of talking about times when pixar

had made bad choices

like all other organizations he says

pixar needs

fresh eyes to spot opportunities for

improvement

in this way catmol gives new recruit

license

to question existing practices

recognizing the limits of our knowledge

and skills sends a powerful signal

to others we also create the space for

others to ask

why and what if when we remind them on a

regular basis

to ask those questions more often

in a study my colleagues and i conducted

at a large canadian bank

we sent different email prompts to

employees

over the course of three weeks one

prompt

reminded workers to ask why the other

prompt was

a more neutral message about engaging at

work

as we know from the email exchanges the

employees

had in the weeks that followed that

intervention

curiosity had an impact a meaningful one

those who had been encouraged to ask why

reached out to other colleagues more

often

and they did so to more varied

colleagues

across functions their networks were

much more diverse

this translated into higher job

performance and

ultimately quicker career advancement

whether we’re running brainstorming

sessions chatting over dinners with our

kids

or in a meeting with colleagues we

promote curiosity

when we ask questions and invite

questions

recognizing what we do not know and

encouraging

others to do the same let’s consider a

second way to foster curiosity

on a cold january evening in 2009

captain sally sallenberger just taken

off from new york’s laguardia airport

in a u.s airways jetliner when the plane

hit a flock of birds the plane

lost use of both engines which meant

that sally

and his 155 passengers were in serious

danger

sally had 208 seconds to find a place to

land

before the plane crashed there was no

time to turn around

and there was no real space below it was

over a city of tall

buildings most captains would have taken

the most

obvious course they would have tried to

land at the nearest

airport this is what experienced

so sally you should do but sally didn’t

stop his calculations there

instead he asked himself what he could

do

after running through the standards

options he thought of a solution not in

the box

he landed the flame in the yakson river

everyone on board was saved

we can all learn from this approach

especially when we’re in positions of

leadership

positions that come with a lot of

experience

according to my research there are

situations where

being more experienced be more expert or

more knowledgeable

leads to our being close-minded having

experience

narrows our perspective rather than

broaden it

and these leads to lower performance

experience it turns out can be a

negative

unless we also hold tight

to our humility this is what curiosity

is

when we acknowledge that the more we

know the more there is to learn

it’s a posture of humility that opens

our mind to the fact that there are

multiple ways to approach a decision

or a task by the time suli took

off in that plane he had tons of

experience

over 30 000 hours of flying under his

belt he has served in the military

so he had experience flying all sorts of

planes

he had also served as a volunteer in

studies about what goes wrong in plane

accidents

so he had plenty of relevant knowledge

yet

yet also trained himself to ask every

time you enter the cockpit

what can i learn on this flight

how might today’s flight go different

this curiosity meant

that in the most crucial moment of his

career

sally was able to work from a broadened

perspective

he knew to ask not just what he should

do but what he could do

and this made all the difference

like sadly we foster curiosity when we

adopt

a posture of humility when we recognize

that our expertise and experience

are really just a starting point we

promote curiosity when we

emphasize not just results but also

learning let’s consider another way to

encourage curiosity

in 1938 adriano levati took over his

father’s role as ceo

of italian typewriter manufacturer

olivetti

right away he introduced some drastic

changes

including a much more efficient

production system

he also made investment in the company’s

workforce

that were unusual especially for the

time

yet new factory buildings built almost

entirely of glass

so that workers could enjoy the view of

mountains invalid outside

and so that townsfolk outside could see

what was happening in the factory

you also extended the lunch break to two

hours

the first hour to eat lunch the second

to eat culture with a visit to the

factory’s extensive library

or participation in poetry or music

events

cultured sophisticated and

community-minded

adriana was an engineer fascinated by

art

design and architecture he saw his

interest as

interconnected and he believed he could

promote innovation

the kind of innovation that comes from

asking questions

and making connections if he encouraged

his employees to pursue a broad range of

interest too

adriano was making a bet that he could

foster curiosity in his staff

by creating an environment that offered

and celebrated many sources of creative

input

even when that input has seemingly

little to do with typewriters

his bat soon paid off one day

adriano was told that one of his workers

had been

caught leaving the factory with a bag

full of iron pieces and machinery

colleagues accused the man of theft and

suggested he be fired

the employee protested that he hadn’t

been stealing but rather

taking the parts home to work on a

project over the weekend

because he didn’t have enough time for

it at work

when adriano heard this he asked to

speak with the worker directly

at their meeting the employee explained

in his spare

time he was developing a new calculating

machine

intrigued adriano refused to fire him

instead you put him in charge of the

production process for the new machine

not long after the electric calculator

known as the divizuma was built

the first to offer automatic calculation

of all four basic mathematical

operations

in the 50s and 60s the divisum was sold

really well across the globe

as adriano discovered giving his people

opportunities to explore and expand

outside interest adrift outstanding

results

we too can foster curiosity when we

explore and broaden our interest

and when we help others do the same

input from unexpected places give

peoples reason to wonder about new

things

to ask different questions it makes us

curious

the italian sculptor and artist

michelangelo gunarati

is known across the world for many of

his sculptures

like this one la pieta

a few years ago a quote from him caught

my attention

michelangelo described sculpting as a

process

whereby the artist releases an ideal

figure from the block of stoning which

is lumbers

i find this idea powerful for the

question it provokes

a what if questions i’d like to leave

you with

today what if we look at those around

us in our professional or personal lives

and could see the powerful curiosities

lumbering within them

what if our role like michelangelo

is to bring that curiosity out

why not the results could be a

breathtaking masterpiece

whether it’s an idea a project the

perfect solution to a problem

or a famously delicious highly acclaimed

lemon tart thank you