Stay curious by asking lots of questions

I’ve become a big fan of the Apple TV+ series “Ted Lasso.”

Not only for its humor, which is always great, but for the insightful and poignant moments that let us learn about ourselves.

At a recent breakfast meeting with Sue Ebner, GBS training manager at Gallagher, a global insurance brokerage firm, she told me about a new leadership training program she designed called, “The Subtle Genius of Curiosity.”   

Then she showed me a brief clip of Ted Lasso playing darts. If you’re a fan, you might remember it.

Ted accepts a huge bet and purposely falls behind in the game. But at the very last, he flings two bulls-eye darts and crushes his opponent.  

Then he proclaims: “Guys have underestimated me my whole life. I never understood why. One day I passed a sign with a quote from Walt Whitman, ‘Be curious, not judgmental.’

“All those guys used to belittle me. They thought they had everything figured out.  They prejudged everyone with no real knowledge. They underestimated me. If they were curious, they would have asked questions.

“Questions like, ‘Have you ever played a lot of darts, Ted?’ And I would’ve answered. ‘Yes, sir, I have.’ And that dart game probably would’ve never happened.” 

The point of driving parents crazy

When we are young, we are innately curious, almost to the point of driving parents crazy.

Ebner’s premise is, how do we integrate that innate sense of curiosity into our companies and our leadership brand/strategy? How do we become grateful for questions from employees who ask why?  

Isn’t that how we learn? How do we create an environment of curiosity?  

For the longest time, I believed in the maxim that we should either lead, follow or get the heck out of the way. And that we are all either part of the solution or part of the problem.

But after my three-hour breakfast with Ebner, I now think differently.  

I don’t want people to get out of the way. 

Instead, I want to encourage them to be curious. Same for myself.

Put into practical use, I’d encourage leaders to host an innovation workshop based on, “what if we did this?” and, “what else can we try?” 

Even, “how can we make this worse?”

This question counterintuitively leads to, “what can we do to make it better?”

Ask your employees if you owned this company, what would you start, stop and continue? 

Consider having each attendee first journal their ideas before sharing as a group. You’ll hear the unique perspective of all and be amazed by the insights that emerge.

And make sure everyone has a voice in the process.

How often do we break into small groups to have the final report reflect the outspoken voices while the insights of the quieter attendees go unheard? 

Ask open-ended questions, and it’s OK not to have all the answers. 

Keep thinking about important issues

A curious culture encourages employees to keep thinking about important issues and potential solutions or alternatives.  

How often do solutions pop into our minds when we are driving or walking? 

It’s our subconscious working at its best.

We also need to commit to listening differently, and to a broader and more diverse audience. Interdisciplinary collaboration needs to become the norm.  

Invite someone from marketing, IT or finance to your team meeting to gain their perspective and leverage their contrasting and complementary strengths.

Make it a point to end team meetings with questions like, “what did we learn to help us be better?” and, “what’s your No. 1 takeaway?” 

As leaders, we need to ask the kinds of questions that get our team to think out loud.  

We also need to be better supporters of our upper management. How do we make them more curious about issues they’re dealing with?  

How do we get them to “think out of the box”? 

The subtle genius of curiosity needs to flow both up and down the corporate ladder.  

As it flows, we’ll all be better off for it.  

Blair is co-founder of Manpower Staffing and can be reached at pblair@manpowersd.com.