Page 106 - Harvard Business Review, Sep/Oct 2018
P. 106
The Business
Case for Professor, Harvard
FRANCESCA
GINO
Business School
Curiosity
ost of the breakthrough deeply and rationally about decisions and range of firms and industries, only about
discoveries and remarkable come up with more-creative solutions. In 24% reported feeling curious in their jobs on
inventions throughout history, addition, curiosity allows leaders to gain a regular basis, and about 70% said they face
from flints for starting a fire to more respect from their followers and barriers to asking more questions at work.
M self-driving cars, have something inspires employees to develop more- In this article I’ll elaborate on the
in common: They are the result of curiosity. trusting and more-collaborative relation- benefits of and common barriers to
The impulse to seek new information and ships with colleagues. curiosity in the workplace and then offer
experiences and explore novel possibilities Second, by making small changes to the five strategies that can help leaders get
is a basic human attri bute. New research design of their organizations and the ways high returns on investments in employees’
points to three important insights about they manage their employees, leaders can curiosity and in their own.
curiosity as it relates to business. First, encourage curiosity—and improve their
curiosity is much more important to companies. This is true in every industry
an enterprise’s performance than was and for creative and routine work alike. THE BENEFITS OF CURIOSITY
previously thought. That’s because cul- Third, although leaders might say they New research reveals a wide range of
tivating it at all levels helps leaders and treasure inquisitive minds, in fact most benefits for organizations, leaders, and
their employees adapt to uncertain market stifle curiosity, fearing it will increase risk employees.
conditions and external pressures: When and inefficiency. In a survey I conducted Fewer decision-making errors.
our curiosity is triggered, we think more of more than 3,000 employees from a wide In my research I found that when our
48 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2018
