In this curious podcast, Amit Garg speaks with Stefaan Van Hooydonk, Founder of Global Curiosity Institute, on intersection of curiosity and learning at workplaces. Stefaan and Amit talk about why curiosity matters and how L&D can support creating a more curious workforce.
Stefaan defines curiosity as ‘the mindset to challenge the status quo; explore, discover, and learn’. Workplace curiosity needs to be productive – start with a question, focus on getting the answer, and be disciplined enough to get there. Productive curiosity often leads to better exploitation (scaling up successful existing ideas) as well as new exploration (new ideas).
He believes that there are people in organizations who are natural learners and curious. But the challenge is that such people, whom he calls ‘A’ players, are only 10-15% of the entire workforce. On the other hand there are ‘B’ players who want to learn but miss that chance of learning due to some challenges. Stefaan talks about the impactful role of L&D in turning these ‘B’ players to ‘A’ players.
Stefaan also highlights the choices that L&D is generally split between. They can either be aligned with innovation or with compliance. He feels that companies need to be intentional about their curiosity and exploration, to avoid dilution of their learning efforts.
The talk primarily revolves around the following points:
- Achieving a balance between exploration and exploitation
- Curiosity is a ‘state’ and not a ‘trait’
- Measuring curiosity at workplace
- Training people to be curious – An L&D approach
Listen and watch this podcast for more interesting insights on curiosity and learning in the workplace.
Listen to the audio version: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1830336/9359905
Access all our podcasts here: https://www.upsidelearning.com/podcast-season1/
Connect with Stefaan
Email: stefaan@globalcuriosityinstitute.com
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/stefaanvanhooydonk
