The Cultivation of Curiosity

 

Sequel to "Knowledge And The Clash Of Cultures"

The cultivation of our own curiosity is one action that each of us can take to build bridges to knowledge that resides in other people and in other cultures and, thus, to enhance our understanding of others. Curiosity is an innate ability that we all have. I would like to explore how we can bring this ability into our current work and personal life.

In a world where it often seems we do not have much control, the one thing we do have control over is our ability to be curious. We each have unlimited ability as far as I can tell to be curious. As babies, we were all likely incredibly curious. "I wonder what this block would look like if I turned it around, if I put it in my mouth, if I dropped it?" The world undoubtedly was a fascinating place of constant discovery. Curiosity is an ability that we all have and that we have been really good at during the course of our lives.

Our local neuroscientist will tell us that as we get older, the pathways in our brains get more hard-wired, other pathways become unavailable due to lack of use, and we get used to certain ways of thinking and doing things. Yet, we do have a few more skills than we did when we were very young. Our wills are stronger. Our values are stronger. We have a greater ability to understand and make sense of the world. We know how to create self-motivation in ourselves. We certainly are in a position to be curious even when the act of taking in the new knowledge will be more challenging than when we were younger.

In my workshops, I often ask people to be consciously curious. I ask them to push the boundaries of their curiosity. I suggest that they:

• Use each of their five senses to see where each route will lead in pursuing a given topic.                  
• Look at things from various points of view to break away from the perspective from which they started.                                                                                                                                       
• Try to understand the world as the other person or organization sees it.                              
• Understand how the other person defines the words that they use.                                       
• Understand how the individual, ethnic, societal history or the discipline or organization of the other shapes their view of things and why what they are saying is important to them.

The value of knowledge management systems, tools, social networking is limited if we are not curious about the people and ideas we encounter through use of these systems. These systems will then be underused, superficially used or not used at all. At the same time, the upside potential of these tools becomes greatly enhanced if used in the service of our curiosity. Formal norms of collaboration can remain abstract guidelines when not motivated by the curiosity of what we can learn from each other and through working together. I appreciate that in pursuing this enhanced curiosity we may run head on into organizational norms and cultures or an archaic perception of mission that prizes secrecy over collaboration or maintains the assumption that progress can only be made by dampening curiosity within prescribed limits.

On an individual level, I appreciate that in pursuing this enhanced curiosity, we each may run up against a contrary desire to be passive or even a bit (dare I say) lazy. We may run up against the fear that the effect of our inquiry will be to undermine our identity. We may run up against our own sense of the sources of power in which standing firm and unyielding is equated with strength and being open to others is equated with being weak. We may perceive curiosity as on the path to a kind of intimacy which may for a variety of reasons be seen as threatening. These are not simple things and often require a period of internal effort to address. Sometimes, only the wisdom that comes with age serves to address these. On a more mundane level, we run up against our schedule and all of the things we need to do in a very short span of time.

What I suggest is that each day we cultivate our ability to be curious. One suggestion is that each day we identify some idea, concept or person at work or outside of work and allow ourself to be curious. Pursue this curiosity through talk, Googling, Wikipedia or other wikis, in person, on the Internet, by phone and via active and conscious use of our senses. Be conscious of what we are seeing, hearing, smelling, touching, tasting as well as experiencing. At the end of the day, see if we can articulate at least to ourself the result of our curiosity and how that has impacted us. Find someone who we trust and are comfortable with and share some of this curiosity and what we have found out. This is building our curiosity muscles just as at the gym we are building our other muscles. Given the advent of the variety of social networking tools and the resulting ability to connect, communicate  and learn from others, bring actively curious should go a long way to building bridges to knowledge and understanding.

I welcome your comments.