Last year, a colleague and I worked with a medium-sized software company to develop its values. It was a young company with young people, and the exercise was more of asking people what the existing values were rather than trying to find out what they should be. One of those that emerged was termed ‘curiosity’. The definition included phrases such as ‘always asking “why”’, ‘a sense of adventure in learning inside and outside of work’ and ‘always seeking alternative perspectives on work and life’. This is so much more human than the tired phrases about innovation and continuous improvement.

All children are characterised by curiosity, and some schooling systems – particularly in the 1970s and 80s – sought to harness this in their approach to the classroom; the UK term was, I believe, ‘active learning’. Because it did not appear to bring the desired levels of literacy and numeracy, the pendulum has swung in favour of the more systematised syllabus. As always, though, it is rarely a case of ‘either/or’ but more a case of ‘both’ being valuable.

Executive development has very much been in the camp of directed learning. At the personal level, people are told the universal competences for which they should strive and the behaviours that go with them. They may be provided with a range of development options to enhance their weaker areas, but most of them will be prescriptive: ‘Read this book’, ‘Attend this type of course’, ‘Listen to an expert’, ‘Do this activity’. True, the ‘active’ quadrant of the learning cycle is experiential, but only in order to test the theories and ideas that are being learnt. The business-specific subject areas will be supported by models and cases, to be absorbed and analysed.

Such direction in the learning process is not unhelpful. But is it enough? I am sure many trainers will be able to tell me of hundreds of activities they would describe as ‘exploratory learning’, or something similar. But at the senior manager level, apart from some variations on the outdoor learning theme, the focus is generally on ‘other people’s best thinking and practice’, with a great concern for relevance to the kind of organisation to which people belong.

Recently one or two of my colleagues in this field of executive development have been seeking to balance the more traditional learning with what we have called ‘discovery’. I suppose one could refer to it as ‘guided curiosity’. It involves providing participants with a completely different environment and just allowing their curiosity to run in exploring it. For example, on an event that is focused on managing people ‘in tough times’ we have looked for a range of organisations that have experienced difficulties to discover how they have come through them.

This has sometimes had a remarkable effect on participants. At an event in Stockholm, for instance, several ‘discovery’ parties were organised. A Dutch manager chose to join one that was visiting the local branch of Amnesty International, which had been having a tough time to maintain interest in Sweden in its cause. He had gone with this group because he knew very little about Amnesty, was vaguely opposed to what it did and genuinely chose it out of ‘curiosity’. At the later debrief of what we had learned, he told us of a phone conversation he had just had with his wife: ‘She cannot believe what I have done; I have just signed up as a supporter!’

A visit to a youth orchestra showed managers the sheer power of a compelling vision and passion that enthused and attracted players and sponsors. A hospice told people how solid business management could be combined with real care for both patients and carers, and a small family brewing company showed how many different stakeholders combined together to rescue them from a crisis. All of these experiences gave managers insights into people and their motivation that were truly outside of the ‘organisational box’ they knew. In one city, ‘because of the horrendous traffic problems of making outside visits’, the course organisers arranged for speakers to come in and speak to the course in the training room. It was not the same. What makes the difference is feeling, seeing and hearing the environment in which the story actually happened.

There are few organisations today that do not seek greater ‘innovation’. Techniques for continuous improvement and experimentation should be made available to everyone. But like so many values-related behaviours they must be driven from the inside. Every child is curious. Why is it that so many adults lose this sense of exploration and wonder, and therefore miss out on learning opportunities? (Answers on a postcard!) I even hear stories of ‘gap year round-the-world travellers’, young people in their late teens or early 20s, who spend most of their time in the Internet-publicised fun spots, and very little on real discovery – such wasted opportunities at a special time of life.

Professionals responsible for the process of learning surely need to work hard at tapping into this vein of inherent, if latent, curiosity with which we are born. Firing it, nurturing it and helping organisations to build a culture that supports it has to be one of the more worthwhile contributions we can make.

Andrew Mayo is a consultant, speaker, writer and facilitator in international HR management, with specialisms in people and organisation development. He can be contacted on +44 (0) 1727 843424, at andrew@mliltd.com or at www.mliltd.com

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