Can someone do my Week 3 discussion 1 in BUS 637 Entrepreneur/Intrapreneur!?

The_Greenhouse_Approach_Cultivating_Intrapreneursh..._----_CHAPTER_FOUR_-_Curiosity__Did_It_Really_Kill_the_Cat_.pdf

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C H A P T E R F O U R

Cur io s i t y … D id I t Rea l l y K i l l t he Ca t ?

Unfortunately the highly curious student is a small percentage of the kids.

— Bill Gates

C H A R A N R A N G A N AT H I S a psychologist and researcher interested in why we’re able to retain some things and forget others. According to his research, our brain’s chemistry changes when we’re curious.* When our curi- osity is piqued, we experience a dopamine release, and we get an actual high.

When we’re curious, he said, there’s increased activity in our hippocam- pus — the part of our brain that helps us create memories. Furthermore, when we’re intrigued, we become better at learning, even bits of informa- tion we don’t really find interesting.

I am curious by nature. Frankly, I think most people are. Watch almost any infant anywhere and what do you see? Huge eyes staring wonderingly at the world. Who is that? What is that? Where did that come from? Where is it going?

We don’t question the natural curiosity of a child. We encourage it — even when, as a parent, we are weary to the point of tears hearing that question for the millionth time: How come?

* Mark D’Esposito and Bradley R. Postle, “The Cognitive Neuroscience of Working Mem- ory,” Annual Review of Psychology, no. 66 (January 2015): 115–42, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ articles/PMC4374359/.

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Anand, Chitra. The Greenhouse Approach : Cultivating Intrapreneurship in Companies and Organizations, Dundurn Press, 2019. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ashford-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5329791. Created from ashford-ebooks on 2024-07-12 00:41:41.

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Curiosity … Did It Really Kil l the Cat?

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When I brought my natural curiosity to my professional career, I quick- ly learned that the practice of asking questions was problematic. Why? Because if you ask questions, people believe that you doubt the worth of the explanations and ideas presented to you. Th ey feel threatened that their authority is being challenged. People who are curious are labelled as “dif- fi cult” or “high maintenance.” I’ve been there multiple times. During a performance review in a former job, a manager informed me that my peers thought I was high maintenance.

I was stunned. And hurt. “Why? What does that mean?” I asked him for examples.

Well, he said, I was always asking questions and challenging the way things were done. Instead of accepting the criticism as a compliment, I de- cided to conform. I stopped asking questions. I resisted querying colleagues about procedures and practices. I domesticated my instincts and muted my curiosity mode. I stopped sharing insights or ideas and never off ered any more opinions about anything. It was a horrible period. Eventually I left the company.

It took me a long time to realize that I wasn’t the problem; it was the company that was at fault. When they asked me for my opinions or in- sights, what they really wanted was my approval.

B U T … C U R I O S I T Y K I L L E D T H E C A T

No great innovation happened without someone asking a simple question: Why not? But we all have had our own experiences like the cat of the infa- mous proverb. It happened to me; it still does. Asking too many questions — being too curious — leads to trouble. Better to keep your mouth shut and your head down. Don’t make waves.

No! Where would we be if humans were not naturally curious? To be curious

means to question things. To be skeptical. To always be asking why. Without curiosity, we would have no penicillin, no space travel, no red wine.

Without curiosity, how would we learn? How would we have any in- novation at all?

Th is is why it’s so puzzling to me that in the corporate world curiosity is seen as a negative trait. If you’ve ever been in a meeting room, you know this

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is true. In art, science, and preschool, curiosity is seen as a positive thing. But in the corporate world, it is perceived as deviance, as an act of rebellion. For businesses to thrive in our current corporate climate, this must change.

I can’t help but be curious, so I keep drilling down to the issue and asking more questions until I truly understand the issue at hand — until I have all of the information I need to make a solid decision.

Th e ideal intrapreneur always questions the why. Intrapreneurs are al- ways asking why things are as they are, how things can be improved, and what there is to be discovered. Th ey are cultivators of ideas. What I mean by this is that because of their curious selves, they take seeds of ideas and they germinate them into sustainable creative plans. Th ey do all the re- search, analysis, deep thinking behind them, and cultivate them into plans that are executable within companies.

T H E F O R C E T H A T D R I V E S I N N O V A T I O N

After dropping out of college to save his parents the tuition costs, Steve Jobs decided to enroll himself in a class on typography. Sounds like an odd thing for a college dropout to do, but Jobs was curious about calligraphy. He wanted to learn more about what makes some typefaces so great, and others so boring. Was it the spacing? Th e size? Th e boldness? Serif? Sans-serif? So he started studying the topic of typography.

Ten years later, Jobs designed the fi rst Mac computer, and guess what? It came with a variety of fonts — something the average computer user was not used to. Th is became a key diff erentiator for Apple, and it literally changed the way we write.

Leonardo da Vinci, best known as a painter of masterpieces, had an insatiable curiosity that extended far beyond the conventional world of art. He conducted autopsies, created sculptures, invented fl ying machines — he even improved on the design of the clock by using springs rather than weights. He was a man deeply interested in science, technology, and art. Da Vinci didn’t identify as a scientist, an inventor, or an artist. He lived with the belief that everything is connected, so therefore, all subjects are related.

Individuals who follow their curiosities are naturally able to solve prob- lems by making connections between the issue at hand and things they’ve learned along the way.

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Curiosity … Did It Really Kil l the Cat?

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Einstein said, “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” When you encourage your people to be curious, you will have more

creative teams. When we are curious, our brains are constantly trying to make connections.

If you’re not encouraging a climate of inquisitiveness, you might be losing your da Vincis and Einsteins — your best talent. Your most curi- ous employees are likely being viewed as troublemakers. Th ey’re probably not being taken seriously or given promotions. Your curious employees are most likely miserable and looking for new opportunities.

Whenever curiosity is welcomed in a society or a company, open-mindedness tends to follow. Any company that welcomes curiosity will be a successful company. After all, curiosity is the path we follow to navigate the unknown … it’s the path that leads to innovation.

When I talked to Steve Forbes, he mentioned that we need some- thing called positive anxiety to remain curious. We are used to thinking about anxiety in a negative sense. Th at familiar feeling of being tense and uncomfortable, where we get those butterfl ies in our stomach when we start a new job, enroll in a new course, or have to deliver a pitch or presentation. Healthy anxiety motivates us to do our best work. It forces us to prepare, to dig deeper, and it keeps us on our toes. Th is type of anxious feeling is natural and pushes us to do our best. It makes us stay ahead of the curve.

Th is also forces us to always be thinking. When we are thinking, our radar is on, we see things happening, we are observant of changes, and this all keeps us grounded and in tune with our environments.

Bill Gates and Warren Buff et are two of the wealthiest and best-known entrepreneurs in the world. And both men cite curiosity as their most import- ant quality. Gates encourages people to continue learning throughout their lives. He’s been quoted as saying, “A lot of people lose their curiosity as they get older, which is a shame.” Buff et reads at least fi ve hundred pages of a book each and every day. “Th at’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”

People are afraid of not looking smart when they ask too many ques- tions, but Gates says, “Smartness is not single-dimensional and not quite as important as I thought it was.”

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How can you foster a culture of curiosity in your teams?

1. Be observant. Ethnography is the study and recording of human cul- ture and behaviour. I urge you to become an ethnographer. Th ere is great power in observation — observing the world around you can lead to creative breakthroughs. If you want true data points, you must be observant. Watch people. Study how they eat, how they work, how they interact, how they communicate. Go into a coff ee shop and see how people are using technology, how they are working. Go into a retail environment and see how people are using their smartphones when making purchases. Go into a restaurant and see how people are interacting. Be curious. Th e more curious you are, the more you no- tice. Become a walking ethnographer and take the information you’re learning and apply it in meaningful ways in your business.

2. Engage with people and stay in the moment. When is the last time you zoned out during a conversation? How often do you end up dis- tracted by your phone during a meeting? I fi nd this is happening more and more often because we are so unfocused. If you make an eff ort to stay engaged with people, you will soon realize that we have a lot to learn from each other by simply listening. In my last place of work, we had a “no cellphones in meetings” rule. When you put away the phones you eliminate distractions and raise engagement. With more engagement, you have more interest and questions fl ow organically. Be in the practice of active listening. Be curious about the experiences and thoughts of others. Th is will bring new insights and new creativity.

3. Question everything. Th ere are usually two kinds of people in a meet- ing: those who believe there’s no such thing as a dumb or bad question, and those who play it safe and are scared to talk. Th e greatest creative minds — think of da Vinci, Einstein, and Jobs — question everything. Creative entrepreneurs and leaders foster environments that encourage creativity and exploration of confl icting viewpoints.

4. Read. I am constantly reading. Whether perusing articles or scanning books, I pursue ideas — ideas that open my mind and help me see things from a diff erent perspective. I minimize reading the news be- cause it depresses me, but I read articles — academic, business, cul- ture. I carve out one hour a day in the morning to read.

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Curiosity … Did It Really Kil l the Cat?

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Raja Rajamannar summed up the role that curiosity plays in driving innovation beautifully when he said, “We are never in a state of perfection; we need to fi nd new and better ways of doings things.”

Th e world is ever-changing. We are in a state of disruption and com- panies are being displaced. So, this pursuit of constantly fi nding new and better ways makes total sense. “Try something new,” Rajamannar says, “it will not always be perfect, but part of this process is failing and learning.”

Th e quest for perfection can be paralyzing. It won’t happen. Good is better than perfect, right? I will discuss this idea in more detail in a later chapter, but for now I would like to stress that it’s crucial for businesses to get past the idea of perfection. It doesn’t exist, and businesses need to also approach innovation from a point of view of fl uidity, to understand and embrace the fact that the world is ever-changing. Nothing is constant. Nothing is perfect. It will always need to evolve.

Steve Forbes said that we need to rise and fall in order to discover. Our human nature makes us want to stay in our comfort zone, but we must rise to achieve and discover. We are wired in such a way to stay with what is familiar, but we all know that it is within unfamiliar territory where learn- ing happens most.

Rajamannar reinforces this point by saying, “Anything new makes you uncomfortable, but the danger is to be complacent.”

Many pundits have cited complacency as the main reason for some failed businesses. When complacency takes root in a company’s culture, it is often fatal.

We have seen this over and over again with the rise and fall of many great companies: Sears, Danier, Blockbuster Video, BlackBerry. All failed be- cause they didn’t anticipate and embrace change. Th ey became complacent.

It is always good to have nervous energy — to be on your toes, to maybe have some healthy anxiety when it comes to the business; complacency silent- ly chips away at companies. Rajamannar states, “We should never be married to an idea or thought. You need to let it go when things are not working.”

As much as we have to focus on what we are doing, we need to also make informed decisions on what we will stop doing. Companies often become focused on what they should do, but they should also focus on what they shouldn’t do.

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“Now you see companies going back to their core competencies,” Forbes said in an interview. He mentioned Microsoft as a perfect example.

Microsoft was the most valuable company in the world, but then it lost focus in the marketplace when it tried to be everything to everyone. When Microsoft jumped the phone market, for instance, the company foundered. It bought Nokia, and things went downhill. Its eff orts to go into devices failed. Luckily, management recognized the problem and reversed course. It went back to the basics and refocused its eff orts and reinforced its position in the software market. It reclaimed relevance by being among the fi rst to exploit cloud technology. It got back to and strengthened its commitment to its core competencies (software and smart offi ce products).

Admitting defeat took guts. But it was the right move. Th e company had lost track of its North Star. Charlie Munger, a partner with Warren Buff ett for many years and a stunningly successful investor in his own right, talks about the need to understand a “core competency.” Basically, he knows what his is and never strays outside it. Innovation isn’t only about doing something new. It more often can be all about doing something you are already doing, but doing it better.

Th e fact that Microsoft abandoned new areas of its business and re- turned to its core competencies may not seem to be an example of creative thinking, of intrapreneurship. But it is. Microsoft had evolved into a large, ineffi cient, and increasingly less profi table company. It took creative think- ing to look at the situation, determine what was working and what wasn’t, and envision a new, leaner company, one that focused on its strengths and built from those. Microsoft changed itself in order to better succeed in a changing marketplace. You must be willing to do the same. Remember what Rajamannar said, “Don’t be married to an idea. If it isn’t working, let it go.”

Imagining something new, even a new version of old, requires looking beyond the obvious, beyond the now. It requires curiosity, an interest in what is and what could be. Curiosity is the heart of all of this — it is the soul of what drives these behaviours. If you are curious, that means that you are “never settling for the status quo.”

But what if you do settle? “If this is the case,” said Raja Rajamannar, “then you are at risk of obsolescence, which will require you to be future proof.”

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