The Power of Curiosity
Posted by admin in 3 Generations : 1 Workplace, Genera(lisa)tion Y, tags: baby boomers, curiosity, entrepreneurial spirit, Gen X, Generation Y, GenY, surviving the recession
In these times of survival there are going to be a number of skills, capabilities, characteristics or traits that are going to be needed to rely upon. There appear to be a number of ‘soft skills’ that will distinguish those with not only the survival skills but the ability to help carry their organisation and themselves forward. These may include for example: self awareness, ability to communicate and relate, emotional intelligence, ability to evaluate complex problems, passion, entrepreneurial spirit, positive thinking, and curiosity.
Curiosity can be described as the desire to learn or to know an object that arouses interest, an emotion that causes curious behaviour, or just being inquisitive or nosey!
Without curiosity what would we have missed or would have happened to these guys – Sir Walter Raleigh, Captain James Cook, Richard Branson, Akio Morita, Friends Reunited, YouTube, Dyson, the entrepreneurs of Dragon’s Den, Harry Potter or perhaps this guy:
“The important thing is not to stop questionning”, Albert Einstein
For GenY and those with ‘Y behaviours’ this may be part of what distinguishes them, and something that our baby boomers and Gen X need to encourage. But don’t forget that “curiosity is common to human beings at all ages from infancy to old age”, Wikipedia. So this is something we must share across the generations.
At a time when many are thinking about ‘taking up the drawbridge’, ‘buttoning down the hatches’, ‘cutting the budget’, ‘waiting to see what happens’ and ‘reducing risk’, the smart people are starting to think about where we need to be in two years time and are getting ahead of the game. To do that we need to bring out that entrepreneurial flair, and without curiosity in the first place, we won’t get very far.
“Curiosity killed the cat” ? Pah
Savvy cats don’t get killed, they have fun on the tiles and get home safe!
To all those boomers who remember the 1960′s ‘vanguard years’, think about it – originality, possiblity, idealism, thirst for change, willingness to challenge the status quo, positive participation, communal spirit, questionning our existence – sound familiar?
“To boldly go where no man has gone before”, Gene Roddenberry
Remember these – ‘if you don’t ask you will never know’, ‘try something new today’, ‘you don’t know unless you try’, ‘banish the fear and conquer anyway’. It’s time to shake things up again, throw away the rule book, explore those avenues, test out your theories and to experiment. Go and try out that new idea or concept, take a closer look at what you’re seeing or hearing, find the tiny chink in the doorway and see where it takes you. Don’t over analyse to start with, but peel back a few layers. Discover hidden depths of your colleagues, friends and partners; they might know things or someone that matches with your thinking or fits the missing piece of the puzzle. A whole new set of connections you never knew were possible may be there waiting. OK so ‘make love not war’ might be a little cliché but hey it’s the holiday season!
Seriously, it’s time to pull out the resources and to create new ways of doing things, new avenues to pursue into the future. Curiosity doesn’t have to cost a thing other than your willingness to push the boundaries. Be resourceful. Time to let those GenY creatives out of their boxes (offices cubicles or whatever) and see what you can do together.
Some final words of wisdom:
“Life was meant to be lived and curiosity must be kept alive”, Hyman Rickmer
“The cure for boredom is curiosity, there is no cure for curiosity”, Ellen Parr
“Only the curious have, if they live, a tale worth telling at all”, Alastair Reid
…and we say…
Let’s go for the adventure! Together
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