From the heart…intellectual capital & curiosity

I was having a conversation with a client and we were talking about how much we thought we knew about our fields.

He was really humble in his reply but he seemed to believe that the higher echelons of a company could not show curiosity unless they wanted to penalize their credibility.

I stopped him dead in his tracks (i.e.without going further) & asked what he meant by that.

He continued to explain that the executives in the company didn’t have a ” What can I learn today?” but an ” I know I know” approach to everything.

I asked if he felt this was productive for the company and he sighed and said “Of course not!   We want to move forward quickly but we always seem to have reticence and a wall to  climb over. This slows us down and makes us spend more energy on convincing upper management that there are a myriad of solutions as long as we keep an open mind. I just wish they were a little more….curious.”

CURIOUS!??!?I have been thinking of this word ‘curious’ ever since he said it. Wikipedia defines it as  a quality related to inquisitive thinking such as exploration, investigation, and learning.

How do we gain a competitive edge through expanding company knowledge and business training thus strengthening Intellectual Capital if the people that are leading don’t feel like they have anything to learn? Doesn’t a great, not good, leader need to be the most curious of all?

Just ponder the thought and let your curiosity run wild…it will be worth it!

Lem..xo!