4 Phrases That Build a Culture of Curiosity by Scott Shigeoka

Author: Scott Shigeoka

Curiosity is a powerful practice to infuse into a company’s culture. Research shows that managers are seen as more communal and friendly when they recognize their beliefs might be wrong. Curiosity also reduces employee burnout and stress and is associated with higher levels of creativity and innovation. When you build a culture of curiosity, people feel seen and heard—in essence, they feel they truly matter. This kind of positive organizational culture does wonders for employees’ well-being, hiring top talent, retention rates, and productivity and fulfillment at work.

However, managers often get one major thing wrong about curiosity. They tend to limit its definition to a force to get information—something that powers our exploration or learning, for instance. Instead, we need to see curiosity as a more expansive practice. It’s more than just an intellectual pursuit; it’s a force for connection.

We need to move away from “shallow curiosity” and embrace “deep curiosity.” This is the kind of curiosity that gives us more than data points or facts. It’s a practice that centers on unearthing stories, values, experiences, and feelings. When conversations go beneath the surface in this way, curiosity can strengthen work relationships, foster a better understanding of yourself as a leader, and help you navigate conflict or anxiety in the office.

Curiosity is an exceptionally effective tool leaders have to guide diverse teams in our increasingly complex time of technological advancements and an ever-changing cultural pulse.

In my work writing Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World; researching curiosity at the University of California, Berkeley, Greater Good Science Center; and teaching groundbreaking courses at the University of Texas at Austin, I’ve uncovered four key statements that can intentionally build a curious culture in your workplace.

“I don’t know.”

Intellectual humility is a concept researchers define as, “the degree to which people recognize that their beliefs might be wrong.” Understanding the limitations of your mind and staying open to the wisdom of others is a critical tenet of curiosity. Many leaders fear saying, “I don’t know,” worrying that it makes them look ill-equipped for the job at hand. But research on intellectual humility shows that those who practice it are rarely perceived as less competent. In fact, the opposite is true—they’re seen as more competent and are viewed in a more positive light, as more communal and friendly. Team members prefer these traits in a leader as they are core ingredients to building trustworthiness. Saying “I don’t know” also indicates you aren’t arrogant about having all the answers and you’re open to the ideas of others.

It’s important to follow up this statement with a course of action, however, because leaders still need to impart a culture of learning and growth, as well as a sense of confidence about the future. Asking a team something along the lines of, “But how might we learn more?” creates the kind of curiosity that encourages participation, collaboration, and problem-solving.

Practicing intellectual humility can also reduce anxiety in the workplace. An astonishing finding from one study found that intellectual humility was negatively associated with anxiety and positively associated with happiness and overall life satisfaction.

“Tell me more.”

For decades, psychologists John Gottman and Julie Schwartz Gottman have explored how we can strengthen our romantic relationships. They’ve found that a fundamental ingredient to longer, healthier, and happier marriages is responding to your partner’s “bids” for your attention—a takeaway that can also be applied at work.

In other words, when your partner says, “I’m really enjoying this book,” or “I saw the coolest thing on my walk,” or “I had a tough day at work,” respond with something more than just, “That’s great” or “I’m sorry to hear that.” Turn toward them with curiosity: “Tell me more about the book. What are you enjoying about it?” or “Tell me more about what you saw on your walk,” or “Tell me more about what happened today.” When you fail to respond to them meaningfully in these moments, you’re missing a significant opportunity for connection.

At work, your team makes dozens of bids for your attention. They might say things like, “I’m learning a lot about generative AI, and it’s really exciting,” or “The timeline for this project feels a little too ambitious for me.” When you miss these bids, you miss opportunities to maintain or strengthen your relationships with those you work with. Instead of moving on to the next agenda item, respond with, “Tell me more.”

Strengthening our connections to others isn’t just a feel-good human act. It’s also good for business. Fostering a supportive environment can reduce employee burnout and stress, and positive workplace relationships are also associated with improved creativity and innovation.

“I understand that you’re more than your job.”

There’s so much going on in an employee’s life, be it a family member’s cancer diagnosis, a new baby, a dissolving marriage, moving to a new house, preparing for a volunteer fundraiser, or a set of challenges their child is experiencing at school. Employees are also impacted by what’s happening in the world—for example, a hate crime in their community or the threat of a natural disaster that causes anxiety or fear.

When you ignore what’s happening in employees’ personal lives, you miss the chance to identify possible work-life conflicts. Researchers describe this phenomenon as the demands of someone’s job (travel, irregular or late hours, occupational stress) clashing with those of the family (taking a child to swim class, attending an important event for a partner, caring for an elderly parent). Research has found that unsolved work-life conflict has a consequence on employees’ productivity and job performance, leads to higher turnover, and negatively affects psychological safety.

Alleviating work-life conflict starts with simply acknowledging that we’re all impacted by our personal lives and relationships and by world events. What goes on outside of work will, undoubtedly, ripple into one’s professional life.

Creating organizational policies like parental and sick leave and providing mental health support or comprehensive health care alleviates some of the pains associated with work-life conflict. Acknowledging work-life conflict as a leader also cracks open the door of deep curiosity. Recognizing an employee’s life outside of work allows your team to share more specifics about their home struggles (if they choose), in turn giving you a better idea of how to offer support. If you’re successful, it doesn’t just strengthen your relationship and improve their personal lives but also plays a role in the success of your organization.

“Who else?”

Contemporary work culture prioritizes answers over questions and is biased toward who has the answers. Fueled by assumptions, we often disenfranchise certain people from contributing their insights or solutions because we believe that only the developers—or leadership team or engineers—have anything of value to contribute.

The best leaders know that insights and solutions can come from unusual suspects who are rarely pulled to the brainstorming or decision-making tables. When I was bringing curiosity practices to the staff of Pixar Animation Studios, one animator shared a moment that shaped his views of how to develop films. The director pulled him and a group of Pixar team members into a room to review a scene from a forthcoming movie. When the director asked for feedback, one person raised their hand and said, “But I’m just an accountant.” The director replied, “You were hired to work at Pixar because your voice, thoughts, and ideas matter. . . . You can make this film better.”

After years of creating arguably the best animated movies the planet has ever seen, directors at Pixar realized that pulling feedback from a truly diverse group was going to give them more and better perspectives. By being curious about perspectives from those who didn’t have the title “writer” or “animator” in their name, they were sourcing wisdom from a truly expansive and interesting group. They avoided homogenous groupthink.

No matter your company size or industry, you can bring this kind of curiosity to your organization by asking, “Who else might have unique insights or solutions to offer? Who else can we ask?” For a nonprofit, it might be a diverse group of people who are benefiting from your work, like the communities you work alongside. For a small business, it might be your vendors or customers. Or maybe it’s just walking into a different department in your own organization to find someone who can bring a new perspective, such as the accountant at Pixar. Brilliant insights and solutions can come from the most unlikely people—so long as you continue to question, “Who else?”

Incorporating these four phrases into your daily work will fast-track you, your team, and your organization to deep curiosity. But their impact doesn’t stop there. Research shows that when more of us model and see curiosity as valuable by using these kinds of phrases, it’s more likely that others will adopt the practice, too. Curiosity is contagious. The more you practice it in a visible way with your teams, the more likely it is they’ll follow your lead—and that’s how culture is built.

SCOTT SHIGEOKA is an internationally recognized curiosity expert, speaker, and the author of Seek: How Curiosity Can Transform Your Life and Change the World. He is known for translating research into strategies that promote positive well-being and connected relationships around the globe, including at the University of California, Berkeley, Greater Good Science Center, and through his popular courses at the University of Texas at Austin. He implements his curiosity practices with leaders in the public sector, Fortune 500 companies, Hollywood, media organizations, educational institutions, and small businesses.