It pays to reward curiosity more than looking smart

Link: Flare Before You Focus, by Corey Ford at Point C

Corey’s advice on separating flaring and focusing is something I draw on every workday: it prevents self-editing, allows more creative ideas to flourish, and helps enforce a more rigorous creative process. But as he points out here, to encourage curiosity on your team, you’ve got to model it yourself.

I have been in this meeting so many times:

“Two people, both in Focus mode, talking across each other, each trying to prove they have the sharper analysis. Everyone in the room thinks they're having a robust debate. What they're actually having is two monologues masquerading as a conversation. […] They're asking themselves, How do I make sure everyone knows I'm smart?”

The thing is, when everyone is coming into a brainstorm with genuine curiosity, and when everyone has the right to share and ideate without the outcome being predetermined, it’s genuinely more fun. It’s certainly more inclusive. And when it’s both of those things, you get more interesting ideas. If you “yes and” those ideas and model what it looks like to build with curiosity, you get more of them. It’s a virtuous circle.

Conversely, if you’re coming in with predetermined ideas, or you set the tone of a meeting to be evaluative rather than collaborative, people won’t speak up. The output becomes monocultural. Or, at its worst, you get the kind of posturing that Corey described above: a culture where people want to be recognized for being smart rather than helping to get to the best possible outcome.

It helps to be genuinely curious; playful; maybe risk being a little bit unserious. Then people start to loosen up, and that’s when the good stuff starts coming.

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