We are living in a messy, chaotic world that is changing at a faster rate than many of us can comfortably shift. It feels overwhelming sometimes, and that’s ok. It’s part of the process of change.

This reality isn’t getting better any time soon. Especially as we collectively recover from the impact of the pandemic and the process of “returning” or “getting back” to life. We’ll realize that the experience of the last 14 months has altered - perhaps permanently - our habits, our social rules, our needs and expectations. This will have significant implications for our workplaces – whether we’ve fully appreciated this or not.

Workplace realities have been shifting for a while, but the last year has amplified existing organizational and cultural barriers or beliefs that at best hinder, and at worst, harm. To be sustainable and agile, to make decisions effectively, keep diverse talent, and create thriving organizations in a rapidly evolving world, the skills, behaviours, and mindsets we’ve relied on - for decades - must to shift too.

Mission statements are no longer sufficient; the new leader must pose "mission questions”

Warren Berger

CURIOSITY is one of the most important of these skills to build. In complex times, curiosity is vital from executive to front line. Approaching challenges and decisions with curiosity can alter the experience and the outcomes, whether you’re deciding how to protect health and safety, streamlining your product line, or working through a conflict with a colleague. 

Leadership coach and complexity expert Dr. Jennifer Garvey Berger suggests that a key habit for leaders in times of complexity is to ask different questions.  A habit of curiosity, and the practice of asking meaningful questions (vs. a focus on having all the answers), can have substantial impact on our ability to understand issues, consider solutions, and move forward with confidence - even when we’re not sure of the outcome. Here’s more on what curiosity can help us do:

Have better conversations

Questions help leaders communicate with their teams rather than talking at them. Asking what could be done or how we’ll do it, rather than telling people what to do. Approaching challenges with curiosity and open-ended questions generates more thinking, more dialogue, and activates more and different parts of our brain. These types of conversations create the space to work through challenges collectively, inviting people to share ideas, which means more opportunity to hear diverse perspectives.

Listen to learn

By asking questions, staying receptive, and giving space for others to share, we create better conditions for listening to hear rather than to fix. We can focus on listening for, and deeply understanding, multiple view points. This helps us build a broader sense of our challenges and opportunities, and the needs of the people involved. Listening to learn helps us understand more nuance and possibilities, and surfaces more creative and viable solutions.

Build trust

Being curious with each other, embracing the wisdom of other’s experiences, giving people time and space to talk about how they think, and what’s important builds connection. It can literally shift chemical responses in our brains, which helps our brains assess whether or not to trust and be vulnerable with the people we work with. This determines how supported and connected we feel, and how resilient we’ll be as we go through change together.

The next few months will bring both expected and unexpected challenges as we navigate the return to workplaces, and hopefully, and more importantly, reimagine what our workplaces need to be.

Here’s some questions that can help you stay curious and connected as you tackle these challenges with your teams:

• What have we learned through this experience?

• What do we need from each other to make this work?

• What might we need to let go of, in order to move forward with what’s next?

• What’s a different way we can look at this?

• What possibilities have opened up for us?

• How might we do both X and Y?

• What would make this possible?

• What can we commit to for now?

• What if we give this a try? What if we don’t?

If you’re looking for ways to support change in your teams or organization as you reimagine work and your workplace, we’d love to start a conversation about how to activate meaningful, human-centred change, and how Vibrant Work might be able to help.

Sources:

Jennifer Garvey Berger, Keith Johnston Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders (2015) Stanford University Press, California.

Warren Berger The Big Book of Beautiful Questions, (2018) Bloomsbury Publishing, New York.