You can't hire curiosity
Oct 17
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In her first week she asked why everyone keeps a spreadsheet next to the system you paid for. You hired her for exactly that kind of question. Two months later you open her calendar to book a check-in. There isn't an empty half hour in it. She booked most of it herself. At the team meeting she reads out her status list and asks nothing.
Partners at McKinsey went through what US employers now ask for in job ads. They wanted to see which skills grow fastest as AI changes the work.
Ads that ask for resilience, curiosity and willingness to learn have tripled since 2022. It tells us what employers say they want. Most of them will hire curiosity and then give no room for it.
Ads that ask for resilience, curiosity and willingness to learn have tripled since 2022. It tells us what employers say they want. Most of them will hire curiosity and then give no room for it.
What happens to her questions
Most of our curiosity comes from a part in the brain I call Dreamy. He's the daydreamer, the storyteller who spins threads between unrelated things. Hippo, the brain's archivist, pulls out old files for him. Dreamy lays them next to each other and suddenly sees a link nobody planned.
Most of our curiosity comes from a part in the brain I call Dreamy. He's the daydreamer, the storyteller who spins threads between unrelated things. Hippo, the brain's archivist, pulls out old files for him. Dreamy lays them next to each other and suddenly sees a link nobody planned.
In a new job, someone's Dreamy has more to work with than he'll ever have again. Everything still looks a little odd, from the acronyms to the spreadsheets nobody mentions. That's where the questions come from.
But a new job also puts Amy, the brain's security guard, on high alert. She wants to know one thing. Is she safe in this group yet? Amy paces in circles and sharpens her ears at every silence. Did I say something stupid? Do I look busy enough? Dreamy takes his cue from Amy and starts to worry instead of wonder.
Each week Hippo files a few more of the team's habits under normal. The spreadsheet. The meeting that always starts late. By the second month the new one no longer sees the odd things that made her ask.
We test the person and forget the week
I understand why we hire the way we do. An HR director would tell you that curiosity is a stable trait. She's right. The trait decides what a person can do. The schedule the new hire walks into decides whether anyone ever sees it.
I understand why we hire the way we do. An HR director would tell you that curiosity is a stable trait. She's right. The trait decides what a person can do. The schedule the new hire walks into decides whether anyone ever sees it.
In an older study, researchers in California asked what kind of break helps creative thinking. Everyone first listed unusual uses for ordinary objects, like a pen. Then they took a short break. One group rested, one did a demanding task and a third group did something easy and dull. When they came back to the same problems, only the dull-task group did clearly better. Their minds had wandered more while their hands were busy.
In my book I call this state Float. It only happens when nobody needs you to look busy.
The line I often hear in management teams is a joke. "Must be nice to have time for a walk." Nobody means any harm. But every Amy around the table hears it. So the new hire learns fast what this team rewards. A calendar with no gaps in it.
Watch what happens to a pause
If you want to try this, watch your team for a week. When someone takes a walk mid-morning, does anyone comment? Do you? If a pause needs explaining in your team, the new hire won't take one.
Then give her one empty hour a week in her first month, booked with no agenda. Take one yourself and say out loud where you're going. At the end of each week, ask her what still looks odd here. Then do something about one of her answers. That tells her Amy that questions are safe in this team. If she has nothing to say by the third week, check whether she still takes the hour.
We put weeks into finding a curious person. Then we don't use her curiosity. When did someone on your team last stare out of a window without having to explain it?
We put weeks into finding a curious person. Then we don't use her curiosity. When did someone on your team last stare out of a window without having to explain it?
/ Maria