When you are trusted as a senior communications professional with providing advice to organisations and senior leaders, ensuring the right people get the right messages and act on them in the way the organisation wants and needs, you have to be informed and aware of the currents eddying around your stakeholders, audiences and employees.
“I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious.” Einstein
In July Katie Bennett-Stenton and I spent a morning in conversation about curiosity and its benefits, particularly for communicators, for an episode of her podcast series #KatieTalks. In this series she uncovers the stories and strategies behind the success of industry leaders, influencers, and change makers, and shares thought-provoking business and leadership insights.
This article is an expansion of some of the themes of that episode.
Why in praise of curiosity?
What makes curiosity a valuable trait? I think it’s something to do with knowledge being not only power, but also the source of empathy, imagination, innovation, invention and creation.
As SxSW Sydney’s 2024 theme declares - The Future Belongs to the Curious.
Particularly in these polarised times it’s more important than ever, verging on a duty, to be actively curious - to understand the world you live in. Change the channel. Gather your news from a variety of sources. Listen to opinions which differ from yours – learn why people believe what they do. Explore other lives, other times and other places through literature, movies and podcasts.
Understanding your place in the continuum of history can be a comfort. A version of whatever is happening now has likely happened before. The technology may be more advanced, the social mores different, the scale may be either significantly magnified or more narrowly focussed, but there are examples we can draw from to provide different lenses and perspectives through which to think about our own situations. During the pandemic, Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics were (re)discovered by people experiencing the privations of lock-downs and restrictions. Their observations from two thousand years ago resonated with millions of people confined to their homes, and helped them reframe their own experiences. And perhaps, just perhaps, with more reference points to inform netizens’ worldviews there’d be fewer occurrences in public discourse of Godwin's law, which notes that the longer an online discussion grows, so does the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler.
In preparation for the podcast, and because I am surprised each time I encounter people who have little to no curiosity, or confine their interests to relatively narrow fields, I dove into some research to answer a couple of key questions.
What drives curiosity?
The first question was - do we become less curious as we age? The answer, somewhat surprisingly, is no. Studies have suggested that while we may experience cognitive decline as we age, our curiosity remains intact - and may actually increase. It seems the stronger variables in determining curiosity levels are the safety of our environment and the value the individual places on learning, regardless of age. Generations which grow up in a time of very low trust - uncertain or tumultuous times - are more likely to question things than generations which grow up in safer eras. In eras which feel more stable people typically trust their leadership, so the need for questioning and curiosity is less.
Communications practitioners are by default audience-centric, always evolving their understanding of those audiences. Knowing the demographics of your audience, and using tools such as the Edelman Trust Barometer, will help you accurately assess who and how much your audience/s trust. Decisions about which spokesperson you use, and what messages they deliver, will be informed by that knowledge.
Different kinds of curiosity
The second question I had was whether there are different kinds of curiosity?
There are, and they’re driven by different motivations. Understanding these and incorporating them into audience profiles allows you to craft messages to intrigue, capture attention and resonate.
Unfamiliar stimuli in our environment - sights, sounds, textures, or smells – or the discovery of something surprising, which doesn’t quite match what we know or think to be true, drive us to try to find out more information to get to the bottom of it. That’s perceptual curiosity and it can be driven by feelings that are uncomfortable or unenjoyable. Of course, it can also result in experiences and discoveries which are richly rewarding.
What drives a lot of scientific research, art, education and other creative endeavours is epistemic curiosity. This is driven by feelings that are pleasurable, associated with anticipated rewards. Epistemic curiosity is about levels of knowledge.
There’s also specific and diversive curiosity. Specific curiosity enquires into a particular area and is often aimed at resolving a problem. Diversive curiosity is a broader interest that’s about gathering new information or experiences, without necessarily an end-goal.
Curiosity – good or bad?
Traditionally curiosity had a bad reputation, and to some degree still has pejorative connotations. The expression ‘curiosity killed the cat’ warns of the dangers of unnecessary investigation or experimentation. It implies that being too curious can lead to danger or misfortune. This idea that you can be too inquisitive, too interested in things beyond your sphere, is still with us – ‘stay in your lane’. As one of the often few functions which works across an entire organisation, and is often bringing the perspective and therefore questions of the customer into it, communications practitioners have heard that phrase a time or two.
In fact curiosity was, for a long time, considered an intellectual vice, associated with hubris and original sin. St Augustine described it, somewhat unpleasantly, as “lust of the eyes”. In the early modern era, between the 1600 and 1800s, there was a rehabilitation of curiosity, but only the “good curiosity” of natural philosophers like Francis Bacon. Which, by definition, created “bad curiosity”, which was that of people interested in trivial, superficial or supernatural matters.
Gendered curiosity
The negative connotations attached to curiosity are more pronounced for women. Cultural narratives like those of Eve and Pandora inextricably link female curiosity to disaster and misery, making their inquisitiveness responsible for the woes of the world.
One of the many reasons in the past that women could be committed to an insane asylum included rigorous intellectual study – AKA curiosity. Unsurprisingly there was often a disproportionate number of female patients in asylums, institutions which had sometimes been used to control people within society who didn’t fit the appropriate moulds.
The idea of curiosity is captured in an allegorical image in a 1625 printing of Cesare Ripa's 'Iconologica'. It is of a “wild-haired, winged woman, head hungrily alert, with muscled arms outflung as if to seize all that she craves to know.” (Sarah Parvin) The accompanying text notes that "curiosity is the unbridled desire of those who seek to know more than they should." Again, present in this is the idea that there are acceptable parameters to enquiry and anything beyond them is bad.
Yet while curiosity was being rehabilitated, and some female philosophers were emerging, it has also been suggested that there developed an even stronger distrust of women, who were considered to be both more prone to (bad) curiosity and curiosities themselves. Because alongside the rehabilitation was a redefinition of curiosity along gender lines - natural philosophy and similar areas of enquiry were considered male curiosity and ‘good’, and as a result a much larger proportion of ‘bad’ curiosity was now female.
It is interesting to consider this lingering association in the context of the communications profession, which tends to be female dominated. Fortunately, we have (largely) moved on and the drive to enquire, to know and – yes - to be curious is generally regarded as a useful impulse, despite the occasional exhortations to ‘mind your own business’.
Benefits of curiosity
There are a number of distinct benefits to being curious, particularly if you’re a communications professional.
The curious tend to be better lifelong learners, which is useful if you’ve chosen a profession which requires you to stay abreast of current affairs, evolving practices and emerging audiences.
Research has shown that reading for five minutes a day increases empathy, reduces stress and improves mental health. My observation is that most communicators tend to be avid readers, appreciating a well-turned phrase and voraciously adding new words to their vocabulary.
Unsurprisingly the curious tend to have successful relationships. Partly because they show interest in others and have good listening skills, and partly because they are capable of more interesting and original conversations. In these chats ‘reciprocal self-disclosure’ makes the curious conversationalist seem warmer and more attractive, and easier to talk to.
The curious are more observant. They tend to accumulate and retain new information faster, more easily and at a wider scale. They’re also more likely to notice more subtle nuances, beyond the superficial.
Links have been demonstrated between levels of curiosity and higher intelligence levels, improved memory and problem-solving skills. The increased engagement and involvement in your work that curiosity drives may mean your effort is greater, and so are your achievements. The curious are also more likely to pursue novel experiences, through which discoveries are made and goals achieved.
Some of our basic survival is down to curiosity – keeping vigilant and gathering information about our constantly changing environment kept us alive. So important is curiosity, the brain evolved to release dopamine and other feel-good chemicals when we encounter new things, probably to encourage us to keep engaging rather than hide under a shrub. We may not be facing down hostile animals as regularly, but our environment remains as volatile as ever, and the gathering of information to synthesise and respond to - for ourselves and organisations - requires that same vigilance.
Happiness is also a lovely by-product of curiosity. Research has shown that curiosity is associated with higher levels of positivity, lower levels of anxiety, more satisfaction in life and greater psychological well-being.
‘Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts’ Mark Twain
Empathy is increased through curiosity. If you’ve seen, smelled, touched different places, know the flavour of different foods, these memories inform your understanding. Your response, for example, to an event occurring in a place you’re familiar with is coloured by your experiences. Hearing about someone doing something you’ve done recalls your memory of how difficult/enjoyable, exciting/nerve-wracking or taxing/easy you found that experience. And if you can’t physically travel, there are now innumerable ways to virtually experience different cultures and places and expand your familiarity with the rest of the world and its citizens.
Curiosity in strategic communications
“Research is formalised curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose.” Zora Neale Hurston
There is research to suggest that doctors who are genuinely curious make better decisions, increasing the effectiveness of treatment, leading to improved healthcare. During this process their patients feel heard, cared for and taken seriously, meaning they experience less frustration and anger, which in turn reduces the physician’s stress levels.
Similarly, genuine curiosity can only be an asset to the practice of communications.
Communications practitioners need to be trusted strategic advisors and problem solvers. Theirs is frequently the function that brings humans to the forefront in organisations’ thinking, and by definition they are audience- and customer-centric. Not only external, but internal. It’s incumbent upon them to take an understanding of current affairs into those organisations, to help leaders understand what employees might be feeling and experiencing in response to external situations, particularly in times of crisis, uncertainty and polarisation.
Innovative and creative, they must be able to translate complexity. To do this communications professionals need to have a broad perspective. Diversity of thought strengthens decision-making and problem solving, so expanding the lenses and perspectives through which you can examine an issue expands a communicator’s approach. There are many ways the curious can do this – through the more interesting conversations they tend to have, the reading they do, the travel they undertake and the breadth of information sources they seek out.
They also need to be capable of extending empathy to all their audiences, sometimes especially the ones who aren’t like them. They need to be aware of how shared problems and challenges are being interpreted and tackled around the world, and how different cultures and audiences respond. Cultural nuances and sensitivities can impact even fairly anodyne branding – think the stork imagery on nappies in Japan confusing consumers unfamiliar with that Western folklore, or Parker Pens' slogan, 'It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you,' translated for Spanish-speaking countries as 'It won't leak in your pocket and get you pregnant'. Alternatively, another market may have taken an innovative approach to an issue, which may never have occurred to you but you can also implement.
It’s vital for strategic communications professionals to really understand their operating context. Without that understanding they won’t be able to interpret for the organisation what their horizon scanning throws up. To be truly strategic we need to see the whole map, not fragments.
And ultimately, to be curious is to be human – asking questions to help form and cement the social connections which provide us with an important part of our identity.
Listen to the podcast episode 'In Praise of Curiosity' here.
Susannah Goddard
August 2024
Photo by Dariusz Sankowski on Unsplash
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