Businesses are always looking for top grade people to hire. One characteristic of top hires that is more important now than ever before is curiosity. Honesty and integrity are also foremost in the minds of corporations. The desire to do great work is also high on the list of new hires.
Curiosity is more important now than ever because the advances in technology are coming so fast that only the truly interested people can keep up with whatever is new today and gone tomorrow.
Newness in Every Industry
Every industry, no matter how big or small, is undergoing technology-driven changes as fast as the eye can see. Fast food is changing as the big chains introduce digital order takers. Some have already experimented with robots to flip hamburgers.
A short few years ago, there were few online bloggers. Today there are millions and soon there may be billions. Every new blogger needs a hook to get internet surfers interested enough to open their blog even once. Many blogs do well once people open them but getting a new reader to open a blog is a great challenge.
The online casino industry is only about twenty years old. It has gone through many changes in that time. One of the big changes relates to the types of games they offer. Whereas blackjack, roulette, and poker haven’t changed much, online pokies have changed dramatically in twenty years.
Every month, online casinos have to bring out a new slot game because players demand it. The games have to be innovative, well-drawn, and have to play both fast enough to maintain players’ interest yet slow enough to allow gamers to immerse themselves in the storyline. Online slots are not just about spinning reels anymore.
Characteristics of Curious People
So, people in every industry are looking for curious people either to hire or to provide goods and services to. What are some of the more prominent characteristics of curious people?
Passion to Learn
In the past, people might graduate from college, get a job, and stay there for decades. This attitude is no longer acceptable in the modern business world. Companies are looking for people who have seemingly contradictory passions: the passion to do great work at the job at hand and the burning desire to move on to even greater challenges.
Curious people show their passion to learn by being unafraid to say that they don’t know. In the past, it was considered a cause for being fired to say that you didn’t know something. Today, curious people will say that they don’t know but they commit on the spot to finding out and reporting their findings as soon as possible.
It is the immediate commitment to finding out what separates the merely ignorant employee from the curious employee with a burning desire to find out.
Look at Things from a Different Perspective
Often, an employee will look like he or she is daydreaming. When asked what they’re doing, the curious ones will say that they are trying to see an issue that has perplexed the company for a while from a different angle. Looking like this may not prove profitable; they may not be able to learn anything new from this thought experiment. But the modern executive will appreciate the effort being displayed by the employee.
Awareness
A lot of people float through life. Curious people are always on the lookout for something different. It doesn’t always have to be something new; it can be a different way of looking at something old. Awareness is the ability to pay attention when no one else is.
Sometimes, awareness is called thinking out of the box. The box is the walled-in mental state we are in most of the time. Chefs are notorious for being aware of the possibilities of combining ingredients in new and interesting ways.
In business, a company that encourages awareness will also encourage innovation and looking for something different. Sam Walton of Walmart fame did this in a very big way. He had a glimmer of an idea: that he could establish a chain of stores so far under the radar that no one would know what was happening under their noses. So, whilst his three biggest competitors were all vying for the urban and suburban markets, he was looking at the exurban and rural markets.
Gratitude
This is one of the least appreciated characteristics of curious and creative people. Such people are grateful to their creator, their parents, their teachers, and the society in which they were raised. All this gratitude produces a kind of emotional and psychological repose that makes room for observation which is the raison d’etre of curiosity.
It is not old fashioned to feel gratitude to one’s heritage or background. It is one of the unsung elements in positive thinking.
Balance
Curious people have the mental freedom to look at things in fresh ways. This comes from an inner contentment that itself derives from being balanced in every facet of life. There needs to be a balance between exercise and rest or between eating to one’s content and eating to live rather than living to eat. In every way, balance leads to a mental state that is open to new ideas.
Einstein and Disney on Curiosity
Albert Einstein was curious about the anomaly that light seemed to have a constant speed. He performed what he termed “thought experiments” because he wanted to ferret out the reason for that anomaly. The result was the Theory of Relativity. In a great quote, he gave kudos to the value of curiosity, calling it a “holy” quality of humans.
Walt Disney spoke about the great success of his company by giving thanks to the curious nature of all of his employees. He said, “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, because we’re curious.”
Curiosity is a component of leadership, creativity, inspiration, innovation, and invention. We may be the most curious person in the world and show little for it but the most successful people never lose their “holy curiosity” in Einstein’s words.