Stay Curious

What sparks your curiosity?

Do you see part of the job of a leader as staying curious?

I've been working at staying curious as much as possible instead of choosing to judge. Our backgrounds might make it easier to judge, but as high performance leaders we get much more value out of staying curious. Curious about:

How people react to our goals
What people are looking for
Our customer's needs
The emotions behind a position
The position behind an emotion
How our team members can bring their whole selves to work
The real causes of the problems we work to solve
The best steps to take to achieve our goals
Why people say what they do
Why people believe what they believe...

The list is endless. We can choose at any moment to stay curious. If the need to judge emerges ("does that make sense? Is that good for me?") we have plenty of time to make that choice as well. Staying curious keeps our possibilities open and dramatically improves our influence because once people know that we are open to their ideas, they become much more open to ours.

It doesn't matter how passionate we are about our ideas if no one adapts them. We need more than our own energy on an idea, on a goal. We need the energy of others.

Curiosity is often more useful than passion.

Why not practice a bit more curiosity today? Are you curious about how it will work?

-- Doug Smith

Front Range Leadership: High performance leadership training

doug smith training: how to achieve your goals

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