I’ve been very intellectually curious right from when I was a kid (or maybe all kids are?). I loved reading books like “Tell Me Why” and understanding how things work. I was the classic case of the kid who dismantled a pocket radio to see what was inside it. This tendency has continued into my adult life – I pride myself on diving deep to understand how things work within, say, the company I’m at and using that fundamental understanding in what I do. I’ve been recognised for it and it has helped me work relatively successfully in different industries.
However, some things I’ve read recently pointed to more ways I could harness this curiosity. I read this excellent essay on hiring well from Graham Duncan, “What’s going on here, with this human?”, and then came across this Ezra Klein podcast episode (might be paywalled) with Dr. Jud Brewer on dealing with anxiety. And while both of these cover much else, one thing that stuck with me was using curiosity as a tool with ourselves and other humans.
Graham talks about being able to see a person clearly and proposes tools and techniques for doing so while interviewing them. I think one of the things underlying these are curiosity – suspending your judgment and trying to understand who the person (as a multi-faceted personality) really is. Asking questions not to throw the person off balance, but to build a clearer picture of them in your mind so you can figure out how they can do the best they can, and how you can help them get there. This can be extended beyond the interview process – whenever I join a new company, I inherit a team, and it’s a critical part of being a leader that I understand them and help them do the best they can.
One gap I’ve seen with myself is that I’ve been really really good at diving into how the company works, but not as much in diving into how the people work. While for understanding the company, I’ve been good at doing the work to understand what’s going on and gotten better at suspending judgment while I do that, with people, I’ve been relatively less curious and jump to conclusions more quickly. This is not to say that I don’t try to understand people at all. I’ve built very close and trusting relationships with many of the people I’ve worked with. However, I feel like I have a tendency to be so task-oriented that I don’t do the work at a deeper level to understand the humans I’m doing it with. This can work fine for people who are self-starters and are doing well, but when it comes to people who are not ‘there’, I can tend to get frustrated. By being more curious about what’s going on with them, and helping bridge the ‘gap’, I hope I can be a better leader more broadly.
For sure, I’ve been on the other side of the fence on this too – I’ve been highly effective in some companies and roles, and not so in others. This has also extended across industries and roles. This makes me believe that pure capability is not my limiting factor. If I look back and see when I’ve done best, it was when my leader was able to figure out what I wanted, what I was good at, how I work best, and then give me the right role, environment and the space to do my thing. And then I flourished!
In the podcast I mentioned above, Dr. Jud talks about dealing with anxiety by injecting a little bit of curiosity into your experience of anxiety. So, when you’re feeling anxious, you start asking questions about how it’s manifesting in you, what part of your body is feeling it, what sensations you’re having, and so on. And this has a couple of effects. One is that you understand that anxiety is nothing but these bodily sensations and so you get better at dealing with it. The other is that by injecting curiosity, you don’t fight the feeling anymore, you just be with it. This is also the essence of Vipassana meditation – when a thought arises, don’t indulge in it, don’t try to push it away, just watch it with ‘dispassionate curiosity’ and see it dissipate.
I’ve gotten way more curious about my own brain and feelings over the last few years. And I think it’s helped me be a better person overall, at work and home. I can now see, many times, what’s going on in my head, be explicit about it and deal with it much better. I’m no where close to being ‘there’ but I’m happy I’m on the journey.
One gap I saw though is when I meditate – I still get very frustrated when I’m meditating and thoughts keep sweeping in and knocking me off the focus on my breath. So I try to push the thoughts out, grind my teeth, and start counting “1, 2, 3, 4… oh I should write about this… oh remember when I wrote that blog about… oh that person is such a good blogger… dammit, get back to the breath!” No, no more dammit. Whenever I notice I’m indulging in my thoughts, I’ll just try to look at them with ‘dispassionate curiosity’ and hopefully they’ll dissipate and let me get back to my breath.
I feel like extending my deep curiosity from things to people (including myself) will help me do and be better. As a people leader, whose success directly depends on how my team does, it’ll help broaden and maximise my impact. At a personal level, it’ll help me deal with emotions and distractions more effectively where I don’t get frustrated or avoid them, just understand better where they’re coming from.