Good thinking – 7 – intentional curiosity

Good thinking is not about answers; it’s about questions. And where do we discover our great questions? They are triggered by our curiosity.

And therein lies the problem for many adults — we “lost” our curiosity as we progressed through our formal schooling. As kids we were curious about EVERYTHING. But as we progressed through school we were rewarded for answers and, over time, our questions and our curiosity atrophied.

Is that a problem? YES! IT’S A PROBLEM!

Why? Because we will be unprepared for the future unless we are curious about how it might be different from, or the same as, today.

We are in the midst of developing a webinar and a hybrid course focused on preparing leaders for the future so they will not being taken by surprise. And, quite naturally, the opening phase of the process is the old and obvious advice of “scan the horizon.” The tough part comes with addressing how you might do so.

Our answer is that you have to become intentionally curious. How might you do that? One recommendation is to change your thinking by intentionally changing your vocabulary. Here are three examples.

• Instead of asking “What is that?” you might ask “What could that be?”
• Instead of asking “What should we do?” you might ask “What might we do?”
• Instead of asking “Why did that happen?” you might ask “What does that signal?”

Do you have recommendations about becoming more curious? Please send them to bill.welter@mindprep.com. I promise to respond. Thanks for the help.