May 21, 2024
Curiosity – we hear that word thrown around a lot these days when it comes to business, don’t we? Execs love saying their companies need to “foster a culture of curiosity” and employees should “stay curious.”
But let me ask you this – do you actually know why curiosity matters so much?
You’re probably nodding your head, thinking “Yeah, yeah, I get that curiosity is good. Helps you learn, grow, get creative, all that jazz.” But I’m going to push back on you a little. Have you truly thought through how powerful curiosity can be for your business and the work that you personally do every day?
Look, curiosity isn’t just some nice-to-have soft skill. It’s actually one of the most critical assets you need if you want to survive and thrive today.
The business world is changing at a blistering pace with new tech, new competitors, and new customer expectations hitting you from every angle. If you and your team aren’t endlessly curious – always asking questions, poking holes, challenging assumptions – you’ll get passed by quicker than you can say “blockchain.”
Harvard Business Review calls it “the spark behind innovative ideas” and “the engine of opportunity.” George Yancopoulos, the big boss at biotech giant Regeneron, says it drives you to address major needs that people don’t even know they want yet.
Pretty powerful stuff, right?
Quick Takeaways
- Curiosity is what keeps you ticking, pushing you to explore, learn, and get creative.
- Perpetual curiosity keeps you engaged with the world, always eager to learn, see, and experience more, driving your journey of discovery and understanding.
- When you’re so hooked on a puzzle or a book that you lose track of time, that’s epistemic curiosity at work, nudging you to dig deep and uncover the layers beneath.
- Specific and diverse curiosity fuel your learning, ignite new ideas, and expand your horizons.
Understanding types of curiosity
Sometimes you catch yourself totally zoning out, don’t you? Maybe it’s because something random caught your eye. Or a random question just popped into your head out of nowhere. We’ve all been there – that’s just curiosity doing its thing. Curiosity is hard-wired into us humans. It’s a huge part of what makes us tick.
This curiosity factor is something British Canadian psychologist Daniel Berlyne really keyed into. Daniel broke curiosity down into different categories to make more sense of it all. He looked at curiosity as either being “perceptual”, which is when you’re focused on your surroundings, or “epistemic”, when you’re craving to understand something deeper. He also separated curiosity into being either “specific” with a single burning question, or “diversive” where you’re just openly interested in any and everything.
Daniel was onto something by mapping it all out this way. Because when you start to recognize these different curiosity types, it actually helps you tap into them more and unleash your full creative potential. They help make you more creative and resilient. Let me break it down for you:
Perpetual curiosity
Sometimes your curiosity is just that basic “Whoa, what’s that??” reaction to something novel catching your eye. That’s perceptual curiosity.
Like when my husband and I were backpacking through remote Bolivian villages years. We stuck out like a couple of sore thumbs with our blonde hair and blue eyes. The locals couldn’t help but gawk at us. And even the little kids shyly maneuvered their way close enough to touch our skin because we looked so wildly different from anything they’d ever seen before.
Their curiosity was firing on all cylinders!
But that perceptual curiosity usually fades quickly once the newness wears off. If we’d stuck around that village long-term, people would’ve stopped batting an eye at us eventually.
Daniel Berlyne described perpetual curiosity as “being triggered by unique or ambiguous sensory inputs”. It’s what makes you do a double take when you see a quirky painting or your ears perk up at a mysterious sound. By tapping into the new and unknown, you welcome more possibilities and opportunities, one curious moment at a time.
Epistemic curiosity
Then you’ve got epistemic curiosity, that deeper drive to truly understand the whys and hows behind stuff. Like when you’re so engrossed in a book or puzzle that you completely lose track of time. This curiosity to comprehend things on a deeper level is a can’t live without for real growth and innovation. Einstein himself said his genius came from being “passionately curious” in this way, not because he had any special talents that you and I don’t have.
For example, in Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, each hero or heroine left their comfort zone because of a quest. Yes, they had a burning goal in mind. Righting a wrong, usually.
But there’s still a strong element of curiosity involved in every one of them. Curiosity:
- To understand why the villain did what they did
- In learning how to become better people themselves
- Of what a better world could actually look like beyond their limited imagination
This curiosity is key to our growth and understanding as humans. It kickstarts innovation, drives discovery, and keeps us locked into a lifelong journey of learning.
Specific curiosity
Alright, let’s talk about specific curiosity for a minute. This is the type of curiosity that really laser focuses you in on finding out one particular thing. It’s that targeted, pinpointed curiosity that zeros in on filling a very specific gap in your knowledge or understanding.
You know exactly what I’m talking about here. It’s like when you’re having a conversation with someone and they use a word you’ve just never heard before. It completely throws you for a loop and starts bugging the heck out of you until you look that weird word up and finally understand what it means. Or maybe you’re chatting about history and someone mentions a certain event like the Battle of Waterloo. Suddenly, you can’t let it go – you’re possessed with needing to know every single detail about what went down at that battle. You’ve got to Google that sucker and dig up all the facts to satisfy your curious craving for more intel.
That’s specific curiosity in a nutshell. It’s that overwhelming urge to find that one specific missing puzzle piece of information that’s eluding you. And it doesn’t let up until you go out and hunt down those particular answers your brain is yearning for. That’s why we turn to knowledge sources like Alexa or ChatGPT and fire off those hyper-focused questions – “Alexa, when was the Battle of Waterloo?” or “Hey ChatGPT, can you explain how to properly fold flour into a cake batter?”
Specific curiosity is a powerful little motivator, constantly nudging you to tighten up those lingering gaps in what you know and understanding. It pushes you to dig and dig until you can finally put all the pieces of your mental picture together and have that “Aha!” moment of clarity. And let me tell you, few things are as deeply satisfying as that sense of closure you get when your burning specific curiosity has finally been quenched.
Diversive curiosity
Diversive curiosity is where it’s at if you really want to unlock your creative superpowers. This is the curiosity that makes you crave experiencing every weird, wacky, random thing life throws your way just for the fun of it. Not because it’ll help you ace a test or nail a work project, but merely for the novelty and pure joy of embracing the unfamiliar.
You know those friends who are always signing up for bizarre adult education classes just because they sounded vaguely interesting? Conversational Tagalog, Goat Cheese Making 101, you name it – that’s diversive curiosity in action right there. It’s the drive that pushes you to spontaneously pick up new hobbies every other week, even if you know you’ll inevitably get bored and move onto the next shiny novelty soon after.
And while all that erratic dilettantism may seem a bit much, nurturing your diversive curiosity makes you a frikkin’ creative genius in the long run. That’s because you’re constantly stockpiling all these unique bits of wildly different knowledge and experiences in your brain. Then your brilliant mind can start connecting the dots between them in innovative new ways that other people could never even conceptualize.
See, diversive curiosity is like giving your grey matter a super-charged supply of creative LEGO bricks to play with. Except instead of those basic red and blue bricks, your brain gets a kaleidoscopic spectrum of crazy shapes, colors and textures to intermingle. With that melting pot of influences, your neural paths can start forging fresh new combinations and solutions that you could’ve never dreamed up otherwise.
Let curiosity fuel your journey of innovation and creativity
Curiosity fuels the innovative mindset and creative ideas that can transform companies and industries. It’s not just icing on the cake – it’s a core business imperative in today’s crazy competitive landscape.
So here’s my challenge for you: Start taking curiosity seriously as a real strategic weapon for your career and company.
Get curious about curiosity itself!
Because losing that spirit of inquisitiveness and wonder? Well, just as Blockbuster, Kodak, and Myspace how well that approach worked out for them.
Ready to light your creative fire with curiosity? Email me and let’s talk about how to put curiosity into action in your organization.
