Curious Leaders Build Stronger, Smarter Teams

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0:55Hello and welcome to another episode of the Duct Tape Marketing Podcast. This is Jon Jantz. My guest today is Dr. Debra Clary. She's a leadership strategist, narrative scientist, researcher, and executive coach with more than three decades of experience leading and transforming organizations, especially Fortune 50 companies, including Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, Jack Daniels, and Humana. She holds a doctorate in leadership and organization development from the George Washington University. And we're going to talk about her latest book, The Curiosity Curve of Leaders' Guide to Growth and Transformation Through Bold Questions.

1:30So, Deborah, welcome to the show. Thank you, John, for having me. I love to explore people's words and people's bios. So what does a narrative scientist do? Storyteller. you like it well i do but where's the science in that well there's science in telling a story there's actually a formula on how you're able to connect with people you've had a i only read a bit of your bio but did i see somewhere that you were an aspiring stand-up comedian i actually started right out of school being a stand-up comic and my father came to one of my shows and after the show he said, well, I want to talk to you about it.

2:13And I thought, well, he's going to say, look, you know, you're in business school, you know, why are you doing this? And he said to me, you know, I love you, but you're not that funny, which was true. It was great training ground for to be able to get on my feet to talk to large audiences. Yeah, I picked up on that because there seemed to be a bit of a trend in the speaker world, in the consultant world of doing like improv and stand-up. And so I wonder if there's really a real tie to that actually being a great training skill instead of just something fun to do. Absolutely. You've probably have heard of Second City out of Chicago, right?

2:54Well, Second City actually has a division that goes into organizations and teaches leaders how to think on your feet, how to build other people up. And when I was at my last role, we brought them in several times to help us. Yeah, I think it isn't like half of Saturday Night Live's cast comes out of Second City. Yeah, it's a great training ground. Yeah. So let's get to the book. Curiosity is a word that actually got my attention because I've often said that's my superpower, is that what's really kept me in the game. I've been doing this for 30 years. So much has changed, all this new technology.

3:30And I always tell people, I'm just always curious about how stuff works. you talk about it as more of a mindset rather than necessarily something we're just born with. Would that be fair to say? Well, it's actually both in the sense that, you know, we are, we come into the world knowing nothing other than we're hungry or we're cold. And as toddlers, we ask 298 questions a day. This is based on work by neuroscience out of London. But by the time we're adults, we might ask five questions a day. And that might be, where are we going to dinner? Are we eating out? Are we eating in? Those types of things.

4:07And the reason is that we are taught to be incurious. We are taught that children are to be seen and not heard. Don't open Pandora's box. Curiosity killed the cat. All of those things that we're taught to be incurious. And then we go into the university and we get a degree. And then we come out and we're working in that field. And then we're being paid for that expertise. And oh, by the way, we have time constraints. And so all of those things add into like what happened to us. Yeah, yeah. Well, so if you're going to call it a skill, is it measurable? Yes. So when we originally did our research, I had commissioned a team of researchers out of MIT to study one thing for me.

4:54And that was, what is the relatedness between leadership, performance, and curiosity? And they said, well, we're going to have to go deeper on that. I said, let's start with that hypothesis. And when they came back and said, you know, there's a direct correlation between a leader's level of curiosity and the performance of their team. Then we started going deeper and we learned that curiosity can be learned. It can be taught. And so we created the curiosity curve assessment. So we can actually measure the current state of an individual, a team or an organization's level of curiosity because we know it can be improved.

5:32So one of the things that even worse, the higher you go in leadership is that there tends to be a mindset, not all, but with some of like, I have to have all the answers. That's why I'm here. Right. They look to me to have all the answers right or wrong. I think they take that approach. Is that one of the biggest hurdles to at least acting curious? Yes. So it's an outdated model where leaders have to have all the answers. You know, most leaders arrive there because they've probably come out of those roles and they know what to, you know, they become an expert in that, but now they're in a leadership role.

6:09And if we, when somebody comes in and has a problem, we are prone to tell them what to do, right? That's efficient. And by the way, we need to have all the answers, but the best leaders are those that focus on the individual and not the problem. And so you're asking them a series of questions that leads them to understanding how they can solve it on their own. You're building their confidence and you're building their critical thinking skills. So leadership is about playing the long game, not the short game. Yeah. I mean, it's the phrase that comes to mind to me is instead of just giving people the fish, right?

6:46You're going to teach them to fish by just stepping back and saying, I don't know, what would you do? I mean, is that, can you start that simple? Well, I probably would say something like, well, tell me what you've been thinking about, right? And get them to have a conversation. And then things like, are there other problems that are similar to this that you've solved and what worked in that situation, right? Is helping them dig deeper in understanding that they can solve it or together you can solve it. But I'm not going to give you the answer because I don't have all the answers. Do you have or do at least obviously every business, every situation is maybe a little different, but particularly in kind of a like status type of meeting, do you have a formula for how you should restructure that?

7:33Yeah. And I actually write about that in my book, John. and it's one about, you know, you set the agenda and when you get your team together, you say, these are the things we're going to cover. Is there anything that's not on here that we want to make sure we cover? So you're leaving it open to what else needs to happen. The other thing is you, in those meetings, encourage people to ask questions and encourage people to challenge what's been said. Like get really comfortable with being challenged. That's when you have a culture of curiosity. Does it kind of change, not just change the way that the meeting goes and the way that people act, but does it have the potential to actually change the entire culture at an organization?

8:13Absolutely. Absolutely. So culture and leadership is synonymous. So goes the leader, so goes the culture. And so the work that I do is mostly around the senior executives, you know, the C-suite, because I recognize that when you make change at the top, then you can see greater change throughout the organization. Sure. If you want a curious culture, the C-suite needs to be modeling it. If you're a consultant, agency owner, or a fractional CMO who feels kind of exhausted from starting from scratch with every new client, well, this is for you. The fractional CMO plus certification is a three-day live experience built to help you stop being the bottleneck and start leading with clarity.

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9:35So what are some of the things you have to really fight against when you say, no, this is really the secret? Yeah. So when I started that way as being skeptical myself, I had the hypothesis that curiosity might be missing in the workplace, but it was a hypothesis. And as a scientist, I need data. So I brought the data together. And when I'm talking with CEOs, someone has recommended me to a CEO. And same thing, like curiosity, come on. And then I say, I thought the same thing. You know, and having spent four decades navigating complex systems. Yeah, I kind of have that doubt too. But now we have the data.

10:11And so I take them through the data. And then you can start to see like their eyes are lighting up. And they're like, they're starting to make connections. So for me, you know, I use, I move forward with data. So I find that curiosity takes empathy, takes self-awareness, takes compassion. And a lot, I'm sure you also have leaders who are like, I don't have time for that. Absolutely. And I would add something to your list of attributes. There is one around forgiveness. You know, when I'm asking myself questions and some us might start off like, wow, you should have known differently or you should have done something different.

10:49And then I say forgiveness and I'll say, okay, what would I do now? Like what's my next move in order to either correct it or to build on something? I suspect that it's going to be habit forming too, right? I mean, it has to just almost be a reflex in certain situations, start curious, right? So is there a training path that, you know, in the next 30 days, if you do these things, you know, you'll become, it'll become more habit forming. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, curiosity is a muscle. We all have it, but we've stopped using it. Maybe like our abdomens, you know, our stomach muscles there. We've stopped using them and you can get them back.

11:25So when I'm working with executive teams, I start with the curiosity assessment. I like to know what's our starting point, right? And so there are four factors that we measure on the curiosity curve. And when we get an understanding of at the individual level, but at the team level, that's when we can make real progress. But it does start with the intention of we want a culture of curiosity because we know it drives performance. So we're anchoring around performance and the intention of creating this type of culture. So are there a handful of bold questions that every leader should be asking their teams right now?

12:08I mean, are there any specific examples? Yeah, you know, it certainly depends on the situation. But for generic reason, I love questions that are like, what's not being said? Right. Right. What might we be missing here? Does anyone have a different point of view? You know, really creating an environment where people know I'm asking questions because your opinion matters. Your point of view matters to me. Of course, the other end of that, though, is you have to be willing to accept that the opinion might actually be good, bad, or indifferent. Right. I mean, you have to actually be open to to not just encouraging people to make suggestions, but actually seriously considering them and maybe even taking action.

12:54Right. Absolutely. In in the best environments I've been in, when somebody brings up something, it might not be quite right. But then somebody builds on it and somebody else builds on it, just like an improv. And then you've now have the collective thinking of that team. That's the beauty of someone coming up with something and you might challenge it. You might build on it, but definitely you're creating the culture of curiosity. Yeah. And we've probably all been in situations where a leader is not open to those. And so everybody just shuts up, right? It's like, why bother? I've got a great idea, but why bother?

13:28Right? Absolutely. Well, you might be familiar with last year, Gallup put out their engagement report. In the history of measuring engagement, they've never seen it so low. and particularly the millennials who make up 35 % of the workforce and they're from the age of 29 to 40, they're 65 % disengaged. Now, why is this a problem? Well, the obvious one is because they're not being productive. But the another one is this is the group of people that we would be developing to go into senior roles in the next decade. And they're signaling to us, we're not interested. So we brought together a group of millennials to do a focus group because we wanted to get underneath what's going on.

14:09And you know, the scientist asked it in a better way than I'm going to do it, but I like, what's your source of unhappiness? And what they said surprised us. They said, my leader doesn't know me and doesn't care to know me. And so the follow-up questions were like, they don't know your, like what you do personally, or like you have a dog, or you like to run marathons. They go, no, no, they don't know what I can contribute to the problem, you know, solving the problem. I have most of the information, but I'm least consulted. Now that can be solved by leaders shifting the way in which they interact with their teams.

14:46It's about asking questions of what do you think we should do? Do you have any experience that's parallel to solving this problem? I would love to hear what you have to say. So I'm curious in you're doing this work, has there been, of course, everybody wants the home run, right? Has there been like a single question that changed the outcome of an initiative that you've been a part of? It was in an executive meeting and the organization, I was a part of this organization and they were moving into a new territory, you know, a new discipline, if you will. So they were in an insurance company that now was going into actually delivering care.

15:28And the people that were in that room were used to the insurance company, a transactional company. And we had one individual that was starting up this division who came from that discipline. And they were arguing about the way in which it could get done. and I realized they weren't even using the same definition for what it meant. So I paused and I said, let's take a second here. You know, Brian, can you describe, define what your, what is the meaning of that word? And then I did for the other individual, they weren't even talking about the same thing. Now it's just, each of them were trying to present their case.

16:10So while, you know, why we needed to invest in this or why we needed to pull back on this. And I realized we're not even trying to solve the same problem. That was an opener. And that, you know, that comes for me, just I'm listening to what they're saying and realizing they're not, they're not trying to solve the same problem. Yeah. Sometimes being the outsider is the only way you can actually have that, that, hear that because you're like, I don't know what you guys are talking about. Yeah, absolutely. So let's flip that around then. Can you share maybe a moment when a lack of curiosity was clearly causing setback?

16:44We see that every day in organizations in the sense that, you know, leaders feel, I mean, first off, they have, you know, huge revenue goals to hear, clear objectives to hit, and they have time constraints on that. And what I see playing in and out every day is that leaders just go to do directing and not exploring. And because they think it's the most efficient way. And it probably is efficient in the short term, but not in the long term. And what happens is people begin to shut down and no longer offer opinions because it doesn't matter anyway. So was there a moment for you that you could describe where you decided it's so clear curiosity is the missing piece?

17:32I mean, was it the data that kind of flipped the switch for you? Well, my hypothesis started in, it was in a two week time period, three things happened to me that I think was like just a message coming to me to explore this. One was I was in Rome and I was sitting next to an Italian man and he said, you're American. I go, yeah. He said, I got the best American joke for you. What do you get when you ask an American a question? You get an answer, right now I was a polite American I nodded but I didn't get the joke right then I went back to work I'm sitting next to my CEO in the boardroom and he is watching and listening to someone present and he quietly says to me do you think curiosity can be learned or is it innate and at the end of that week Gallup released their report around low engagement and it was there that I just became profoundly sad, but also clearer on, I think I want to go do more research on curiosity.

18:34And so I did a little bit of literature search, and then I realized there's not enough data for me to actually go out into the world and tell people this is the greatest thing. This will solve all your problems. And that's where it came for me is just in that short window of hearing what's missing in America or what's missing in organizations. So I'm curious, is there a question that you maybe wake up and ask yourself every day that sort of starts your curiosity journey? Well, I start up with this, just this notion of, you know, abundance flows to me, like great things are going to happen to me.

19:12I start off with that mindset because when I wake up, I'm typically negative. Something has hit me or something from yesterday. And I have to say to myself, no, I have the mindset of, I have this amazing opportunity to share with people the power of curiosity. And so that's how I start my day with the mindset of, I may have an opportunity to impact others. So talking to leaders, is there a practice again, because I'm sure what happens to a lot of them is, you know, you get going, you got this meeting, you know, you're just like the pace picks up all day long. Is there any kind of curiosity practice that every leader could adopt or should adopt that would really get them in the right frame of mind?

19:51Yeah, it's about, I have a couple of suggestions. One is, you know, listen more than you talk. So that means you're asking good questions. And then the key is you're listening. The next thing is when somebody asks you a question, say, I don't know. Or I might know, but I'd love to have a conversation about it. In the sense of, wait, you're inviting people in. You're saying, I'm vulnerable. I don't have all the answers, but together maybe we can explore this. And that's where I begin with my leadership and when I'm working with my teams and then the teams that are in organizations. Awesome. And the Curiosity Curve assessment is, I assume, is found on your website.

20:34You can find it on my website as well as you can find it in my book, which is found on Amazon.com. It's called The Curiosity Curve. Awesome. Well, I appreciate you taking a few moments to stop by. Is there any where else you'd invite people to connect with you or, again, find out more about the resources you have to offer? I think it's just DebraClarry.com. DebraClarry.com. And on my website, I have multiple articles that have been published in the last year all around the topic of curiosity and how curiosity will save us. Awesome. Well, there's a banner for you. Again, Debra, I appreciate you stopping by and hopefully we'll run into you one of these days out there on the road.

21:12All right. Thank you, John.

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