Have you ever been admonished with that old phrase “curiosity killed the cat” anytime you were poking around where you possibly shouldn’t have been?
That phrase has a lot to answer for. By hearing it, how many generations of children have been mollified against that asking questions? Warned against seeking answers to puzzling predicaments? Shamed into tolerating the seemingly inexplicable?
How many of those children grew into adults who on a deep subconscious level believed it impolite to dig deeper, challenge authority, speak their voice, or stand up for what is right? How many times has that idea prevented workers from asking the so called “stupid questions” for fear of looking, well, somewhat stupid?
That phrase needs to be cancelled, along with “be a good girl / boy”, “don’t answer back” and “children should be seen and not heard”.
Curiosity did not kill the cat – it made the cat do very funny things that are endlessly entertaining and provide countless hours of quality scrolling to millions around the world regardless of ethnicity, language, age or status!
In all seriousness, curiosity is an essential skill to staying not just relevant but effective at work. In fact, curiosity is listed as one of the top five skills in demand by employers over the next five years as artificial intelligence and smart machines take over more and more thinking or processing tasks that can be automated.
There are three key reasons why curiosity is an essential skill of the near future:
1. It helps us be more resilient.
2. It makes us better learners.
3. It is essential to the creative process, necessary to drive innovation.
In the coming weeks – I’ll be writing about each of these – so stay tuned, if you’re curious!
And by the way – curiosity also happens to be an essential quality in high performing leadership teams. If you know your leadership team is capable of more – reach out for a chat.