Hire a VP of Curiosity, Even If It's Just You

“Stuck in an idea rut? Maybe you should hire a Senior Vice President of Continuous Curiosity!”

Merck’s First International Curiosity Study found that more than 8 in 10 people agree a curious person is more likely to bring an idea to life at work, and only 2 in 10 actually describe themselves as innately curious. Worse: 73% of people don’t feel comfortable asking more questions at work, and only 9% said their organization was “extremely encouraging” of curiosity at all.

That’s not a personality problem. That’s an organizational design failure. Most companies leave curiosity to chance, hoping it survives the org chart. It usually doesn’t, because nobody owns it, nobody protects time for it, and nobody’s job description rewards it.

So I’ve floated the same provocation for years: what if curiosity had a seat at the table? A Senior VP of Curiosity, whose entire job is to protect unfocused exploration time, ask the questions nobody else is allowed to ask in a status meeting, and turn wandering curiosity into channeled activity.

Here’s the practical question: what can you do to accelerate curiosity throughout your team and your organization? Start here.