While curiosity has been around since man first discovered fire (or perhaps, since Eve bit the apple), I have been seeing more articles focused around this concept and how important it is to have a curious workforce, led by even more curious leaders. While the talents and skills organizations look for change frequently over time, curiosity reigns supreme as it is a staple quality.

Why is a culture of curiosity important for an organization?

• It guarantees sufficient information to do all the other things, such as acting decisively, promoting innovation, and knowing how to renew and reinvent stale products and services.
  
  
• It implies constantly asking questions… Why? What’s behind that? What’s new? What are competitors doing? What else is out there? What other possibilities exist?
  
  
• It is the impulse guiding great strategic thinkers. They want to know what’s around the next corner. They imagine and test scenarios. They are ready to incorporate new information and make changes. It also produces the exploration that allows for constant improvements and breakthrough innovations.

What does a business without curiosity look like?

• The absence of curiosity stifles innovation and squelches inquiry;
  
  
• Top executives without curiosity can dismiss disruptions as fleas on an elephant, too trivial to be bothered with, and later find themselves surprised by new developments; and
  
  
• Without curiosity, executives can be blind to anomalies in financial statements or defects in products. Otherwise, how can we explain the number of CEOs who say that their CFOs never told them about trading excesses or errors on the income statement? Not to be curious is to invite trouble.

Top innovators and successful historical figures cherish the notion of curiosity and ultimately see it as the driving force behind their successes:

• “We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths” – Walt Disney Company
  
  
• “I think, at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy godmother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift would be curiosity.” ? Eleanor Roosevelt
  
  
• “I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” ? Albert Einstein
  
  
• “Curiosity is more important than knowledge.” ? Albert Einstein
  
  
• “I think I benefited from being equal parts ambitious and curious. And of the two, curiosity has served me best.” ? Michael J. Fox

getAbstract challenges you to include the notion of curiosity when speaking to both colleagues and clients!

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