Curiosity at Work — The Unsung Buzzword

The business world is ripe with trending buzzwords. Analytics, holistic, synergy, co-Opetition, and many others have all had their moments in the spotlight or the last few years. They all spotlight some way of thinking that for a combination of reasons, catches on in the moment. Pro sports has turned to analytics, making it cool in movies like Money Ball. Holistic rode the wave of yoga and Eastern philosophies reaching the mainstream.

So why is curiosity unsung? My theory is that when I used to think about the word curious, the first two things that come to mind for me are Curious George (who seemed to always have his curiosity result in trouble), and the fact that “just” is often the word that usually proceeds curious.

At Quantious we see curiosity differently and have elevated the word to become a key part of our ethos (sorry, another popular buzzword… they’re everywhere). It is not an accident that the word Quantious and Curious sound alike.

At Quantious, curious is synonymous with Growth Mindset. It underpins our work and outlook on life. The originator of the growth mindset concept, Carol Dweck, says:

“Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.”

― Carol S. Dweck, Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success

We’re doing our work and working on ourselves at all times. We even have team meetings that take us completely out of our comfort zones for the purpose of seeing what that’s like and thereby creating bigger comfort zones. This is us having our lunch-and-learn meeting in the middle of town in a public gazebo:

We literally sat in a new place to experience stretching ourselves. It felt weird — and that was the point. We sat in our vulnerability, then processed it with each other. Lisa’s yes and … post from earlier this week was another example of this curiosity and growth mindset at work. It’s an ongoing practice and process that our clients and our employees benefit from greatly.

At Quantious, curiosity is no longer unsung, it’s celebrated.