Michael Bungay Stanier shares why you should nurture your curiosity, and it's about to get educational

"There are significant personal, organizational and strategic benefits to staying curious, even for just a little bit longer." In this week's You've Got This, speaker and WSJ bestselling author Michael Bungay Stanier shares why curiosity is key, how he's using video on LinkedIn, and a key idea he recommends everyone incorporate into their day-to-day. Read on for his answers below - and be sure to tune in for our next guest, SVP of Academic Partnerships at InStride Michelle Westfort Ed.D.

Victoria: "Your mission statement in The Coaching Habit is that "curiosity-driven cultures are more resilient, innovative and successful." Can you share a recent example or two of ways that being driven by curiosity has helped a company or organization adjust around COVID-19, and how would you recommend individuals think about using these principles on a personal basis?

Michael: "The brain is wired to love certainty. It’s been a key survival strategy for tens of thousands of years: 'Know what’s going on! Avoid dark caves!' In a time of crisis, that hunger for certainty only increases. One of the reasons that COVID-19 is so difficult, is that we’ve lost our grip on so much we thought was set: our jobs, our health, the economy, even the small and big rhythms of time. (When does my working day start and end? Are we going back to school yet? Is this summer?)

"So it’s harder than ever to stay curious, even when September is officially Curiosity Month. There’s one part of your brain saying, “Don’t be curious! It’s just asking for trouble! Give advice! Stay busy!” But there are significant personal, organizational and strategic benefits to staying curious, even for just a little bit longer." 

On an organizational level, curiosity frees up some of the potential within that enterprise. With one of my clients, we saw that training in being more coach-like saw a 44% increase in belief that coaching helps create autonomous teams. What that means on a daily basis is that when you have people on a team that feel more confident, competent and self-sufficient, you’ll find a more engaged workforce focused increasingly on the work that matters.

But it’s not just the person being coached who wins. The person staying curious and asking questions wins as well. For example, one Clinical Director I worked with remarked that, having gone through The Coaching Habit program, her 'schedule looks completely different. Where I spend my time has shifted significantly. It is such a relief that I don’t have to solve every problem — I just have to listen and be more coach-like so others are empowered to solve their problems.'

And that curiosity contributes to organizational resilience and an increased ability to adapt to difficult times. My teammate Dr. Shannon Minifie feels that 'the way we change and adapt is by starting with curiosity: asking good questions (of ourselves and others), holding a space for people to be inspired by their inquisitiveness and seeing the gaps in our understanding as opportunities to learn. Curiosity holds us in a liminal space. Like a threshold or a doorframe, its liminality is a feature of it being a vessel to another way of being.'"

Victoria: "You leverage video on LinkedIn to host conversations with your followers around topics like #MyBestQuestion. For others who are considering taking the plunge into creating video, where would you recommend they begin, and what have you learned interacting with your community here?"

Michael: "It’s true, I’m loving shooting video here on LinkedIn and it’s proving to be a delightful way to connect with people.

"The best place to start…is to start. Adapt an idea from the Lean Start Up, and create a MVV: a Minimum Viable Video. Your first videos will be not-so-great compared to your later ones, but you have to create the not-so-great ones first, it’s just part of the deal." 

I’d suggest a few things to begin. First, find one or two people whose videos you love, and figure out what they’re doing that makes it compelling. Borrow and adapt as appropriate.

Then, some basic technical lessons: camera at eye level. Don’t do the stare-up-the-nostril-laptop-camera thing. Face the best light you can find. Natural light through a window is terrific.

Then, when you’re ready to hit record, grab me with your first two lines. If you take 30 seconds to get warmed up … you’ve lost me. Finally, use a service like Rev.com to get subtitles burned into your video. A huge number of videos are watched without sound. Make yours one of them. 

"(But above all, begin!)"

I’m also really enjoying LinkedIn Live. It’s a great format to go solo but also to do interviews with other interesting people, and the level of interaction during and after the session can be significant. It seems to be that LinkedIn encourages interaction for 24 hours or so after posting, so book time immediately after your session to respond to comments. (You need to apply through LinkedIn to get access to LinkedIn Live. If you’re not approved after three weeks … apply again. Persistence wins out!)"

Victoria: "In one of your recent posts, you shared "Even in this time of disruption, find ways to see and celebrate progress." What's one idea like this you'd want to see more people embrace?"

Michael: "When our brains are hijacked by a crisis, everyone knows we move into Acute Stress response: fight, flight (and I’ve also heard “faint”). None of that amounts to progress.

"It’s reassuring on an individual, team and organizational level to see that you’re moving forward, even as you navigate this difficult terrain."

We’ve got two structural ways we try to make this happen. First, we work in 6+2 cycles. Six weeks with a specific, declared, #1 focus. And then two weeks for wrap up, decompressing, and defining the next key project. It’s an idea I first heard about from the team at Basecamp, and I’m seeing that six weeks is Goldilocks-esque: short enough to feel doable, and long enough to make real progress. It means we do six cycles (we call them “chapters”) a year.

One of the secrets, it seems, is doing a really good job at figuring what to focus on, and defining what success/progress after six weeks would look like. We started off being too lazy about prioritizing ruthlessly enough on what to focus upon, too ambitious about what we thought we could do in the time, and too vague about what success would look like. We now use the two week period to work and rework the possibilities so we prioritize and define as best we can.

We also do an end of day check-out, a five minute or less call, where we speak to one thing we’re celebrating from the day. It’s not always about a box that’s been ticked. It can be about a “being” goal, as much as a “doing” one. That’s proving to help us feel good about ourselves and those we work with, and also just to see the progress we’re making."

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Next week's guest: Michelle Westfort Ed.D.

I'm looking forward to our next guest on You've Got This, Michelle Westfort Ed.D. As SVP of Academic Partnerships at InStride, Michelle brings her more than twenty years of experience in higher education programs and partnerships to InStride's work helping large organizations provide strategic employee education programs, as well as leading development for InStride's global network of academic partners. Keeping Michelle's background in mind, here's what I'll be asking her in our interview this upcoming week:

• Your career has been at the intersection of higher education and online accessibility. With your focus on strategy, what do you see as being the next innovation opportunities in that space?
• What resources would you recommend for professionals looking to understand more about online education?
• If someone is looking to grow or increase their lifelong learning skills, where would you suggest they begin?

Have a question for Michelle? Please leave in the comments below, and thank you for reading!