Introduction to Employing Differences

[00:00:03] Paul: Welcome to Employing Differences, a conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

[00:00:08] Karen: I'm Karen Gimnig.

[00:00:09] Paul: And I'm Paul Tevis.

[00:00:11] Karen: Each episode we start with a question and see where it takes us. This week's question is: what are curiosity skills?

Series Overview and Today's Topic

[00:00:20] Paul: So this is the third episode in a six episode series. We're doing currently six. We'll see if we find more about the sorts of relationship and collaboration skills that we teach, what we talk about on the show, getting into them. We've talked on the past two episodes about listening and about speaking. And today we're gonna talk about curiosity. 

Defining Curiosity as a Skill

[00:00:43] Paul: And curiosity is a skill. How curiosity is different than listening. For me, I think sometimes curiosity is about knowing what questions to ask, so that we can then listen deeply for the answer.

The Importance of Asking Genuine Questions

[00:00:53] Paul: And for me, curiosity is very much about asking genuine questions, and that is to say questions that we don't know the answer to. These are non rhetorical. These are things where we actually don't know the answer and we want to know the answer. Like there's a sense of wonder or sometimes fascination.

[00:01:12] Paul: Like we know there's something we need to learn. There is a limit to our own understanding. 

Recognizing Our Limits and Expanding Understanding

[00:01:29] Paul: And so curiosity for me is about recognizing where those limits are, and then taking steps to expand our understanding by asking questions of the other person about what's going on with them, about what's going on with the world.

[00:01:35] Paul: We'll talk next week about introspection which is about asking questions of yourself. But for now, we're talking about this idea of the skills that we need in order to ask good questions. To learn about things we don't know about other people in the world.

Internal Training for Curiosity

[00:01:51] Karen: And a place I would start with this is, it's internal. Like there is, I think mental training that is different than probably what we grew up with. I feel like a lot of times in school we were expected to know the answer, to say the answer. I remember persuasive writing exercises where we were supposed to say, it is this way, not my opinion or my ideas, but it is this way, like this very definite, sort of definitive kind of thought space.

[00:02:21] Karen: And we really have to turn that around. And I think it begins with what's going on inside my own head of whatever I think I know, however well prepared I am, whatever background I have, I start engaging with another person with the assumption that there are things I don't know yet with the assumption that I'm likely to learn something with the assumption, like my base way of being is to be looking out into the world, saying to myself, what else is out there?

[00:02:51] Karen: What is there that I'm not seeing? That's that curiosity piece, not from an anxiety perspective. But from a, there is more, there is richness, there is complexity, there is difference, there is disagreement and it's not threatening to me.

[00:03:06] Karen: And we do have a, differences are threatening, kind of biological coding. So it takes effort and I think practice to get to a place that we can say there's differences. And I'm looking for them, not from a place of threatened safety, but from a place of richness, engagement, and relationships.

[00:03:25] Paul: Yeah, curiosity doesn't show up when we're in a panic. Like that's for me that there may be information we need to get, but we're not approaching it from a sense of curiosity. We're approaching it out of a sense of defensiveness in some cases. I also like, you know, something you said in there, right?

[00:03:40] Paul: You used the word assumptions. 

Assumptions and Curiosity

[00:03:41] Paul: That I'm assuming there are things that I don't know about the other person, about the world, about what's going on, right? And I wanna know those things. And for me, that's actually a fundamental skill of curiosity is recognizing what are assumptions that I'm making and then turning those into questions to either validate or invalidate them.

[00:04:01] Paul: I've been in situations before where talking with a person and I'm guessing, right? Oh, I bet this is what's going on. And so my curiosity shows up and I go, so I'm curious is, is the financial state of the organization such that if you took this course of action, this is what would result, right?

[00:04:19] Paul: And then the other person says, yeah, that's exactly the case. Great. Now it's out in the space where we can both work with it, or the other person says, no, that's not it at all. I said, oh, well, I was getting a sense of anxiety about this. If it's not coming from the financial thing, is it coming from somewhere else?

[00:04:35] Paul: Or am I just misreading that? And so what I'm doing there is I'm noticing these assumptions that I'm making. I'm noticing that I don't have a whole lot of data, you know, to back them up. Or I've got a guess, I've got a hunch. And then I turn that into a question to get more data, more evidence to sort of turn that into, yeah, I was correct to assume this, or, nope, it's something else.

[00:04:55] Paul: And to me that's, being able to do that from that relaxed space, right. Is one of the key pieces of curiosity.

[00:05:04] Karen: And I think that when we arrive with that in us. And I do think it's practiced. It's not a thing you just decide and now you are that way. But when we arrive with that curiosity, others feel safer. Others are more likely to speak freely, others are more available to listen. Like I think all of that kind of goes together in a package. 

Demonstrating Curiosity Through Questions

[00:05:34] Karen: And I think there are things that we do that really demonstrate that curiosity. So your point about asking questions, not rhetorical questions, not, you know, like what are you thinking is different than what are you thinking about this. Like there's a whole tone thing. The same words can mean different things.

[00:05:42] Karen: But we're talking here about the questions that are genuinely, I am interested in you. I'm interested in what you're thinking about. I'm interested in what's going on here. I'm interested in what I'm not seeing. And I'm requesting of you to educate me, to inform me, to tell me the things that I'm not seeing.

[00:06:01] Karen: Not as a one-upmanship or a hierarchy thing, but just as a, we want collective information. We want as much shared collective information as we can get. And so if I am asking those questions, that really facilitates the other person sharing their breadth of background, knowledge, opinion.

[00:06:19] Paul: There's something that Alison Pollard and I talk about in the work that we do. When we teach this, we talk about curiosity. 

Balancing Curiosity and Interrogation

[00:06:26] Paul: Again, is kind of a threading the needle between, on the one hand, where we could fall apart is we could show up as the other person experiencing us as uninterested, right?

[00:06:35] Paul: We just don't care what they think or what they feel or what their opinions are. On the other end, we can show up as interrogating, right? Which is we care about it and we wanna know so we can use it against them. And in neither of those cases, do we generally get the information? Does it show up in that space between, so curiosity is how can we do that in a non-threatening way, right?

[00:06:57] Paul: In a way that the other person wants to tell us what it is that they're thinking or feeling or, you know, needing or this, that and the other thing. And that's where the tone piece, kind of really shows up. Like the other person needs to think that when they experience us as curious, they think we do really want to know the answer and that it makes sense for them to tell us.

[00:07:16] Karen: Yeah, and I just will say again, how much this is a piece of safety. But if they think we really wanna know, they are way more safe telling us than if they think we are avoiding, knowing or not open. 

Curiosity vs. Judgment and Certainty

[00:07:29] Karen: We've talked about kind of what's the opposite of curiosity, and I often say judgment is the opposite of curiosity.

[00:07:35] Karen: And I think that's fair. And Paul, as we were getting this together, you were saying that certainty is the opposite of curiosity. And I think that's true too. Although, I gotta say when I'm being really judgmental, my certainty is off the charts. They kind of travel together. But I think in either of those spaces that like if I'm feeling really sure I'm right and really judgmental and I've got kind of put downy thoughts towards another person in my head. I really need to work on cultivating curiosity.

[00:08:03] Karen: And if I'm rigidly certain, I know I'm right. I just have to figure out how to convince them I'm right. By the way, convincing them I'm right is more likely to happen if I get curious right back off of the rigidity. But also curiosity as a tool to show them I'm right is not ideal. We wanna be actually genuinely curious.

[00:08:22] Karen: But that piece about if I wanna stay in that relational space, being genuinely curious is so helpful.

Curiosity in Disagreements

[00:08:31] Paul: And one of the things that it can be really curious, useful, be curious about right, is this person's come to a different conclusion than you have, or you're in that spot where it could very easily go into debate, right? We could be in that place of I am certain that I'm gonna try to convince you.

[00:08:46] Paul: Right? It can be really useful. The curious move is to go, hmm, why is it? What is it about their experience or what's going on with them? Why does it make perfect sense for them to have come to the conclusion that they've come to. That's where I can turn on my curiosity and go, I'm gonna assume that they're not ignorant.

[00:09:06] Paul: They're not an idiot. They're not evil. Like, what's the missing piece that I don't have that leads them to believe the thing that they believe or conclude the thing they've come to conclude. It becomes like a puzzle. And when you can treat it that way, that's the way to move off that place of certainty.

[00:09:25] Paul: To go, ooh, what do I not know? And to then, as we kind of talked about on the last episode, and we talked about how it can be useful in these disagreements for you to kind of show your work, right? Of saying, this is what my experience is, this is the logic that I have around that, this is what sense I've made of that.

[00:09:40] Paul: You can do that to the other person, right? You can say, walk me through your thinking here. Like, I'd love to know a little bit more about how you came to this place. You know, what was the, okay. And this is where you turn on your listening. But curiosity is about asking that question about asking the other person to invite you into their experience and you stepping into it in a way that isn't judgmental, right?

[00:10:05] Paul: That isn't just waiting to jump out and spring the gotcha on them. But to really experience that from a sense of like, I don't know these things. I need to know this in order for us to move forward together. And that helps you both make better decisions because you understand each other's worlds a little bit better, but it also builds the relationship, right?

[00:10:24] Paul: That when someone else demonstrates they're interested in your perspective, your feelings, your experiences, those things. That strengthens the relational bond. Like, and we've kind of touched on that a couple of times, but I really wanna underline it. That it's not just about the intellectual aspect of this, of getting as much shared information out of on the table as possible, which is true, but also that doing that in that way is what strengthens the working relationship and that sense of partnership that we've talked about a couple of times before.

[00:10:55] Karen: Yeah, I think that's so true. 

Building Trust and Connection Through Curiosity

[00:11:00] Karen: And I think that when we can do that, the level of trust and connection just really blossoms. And we don't do it all day every day. This is a keep learning, keep reminding, keep practicing it. It does take intentionality for this one. Because I think so much of what's around us pushes us toward the judgment, toward the certainty, towards the self-confidence and who I am and all of that.

[00:11:23] Karen: And finding that space where I can be confident in who I am and still curious about who you are is really golden.

Practicing Curiosity and Extending Patience

[00:11:31] Paul: And one of the ways to build that, this comes from Michael Bunge Steiner in I forget if this is in the coaching habit or the advice trap, both of which are excellent books. Where he talks about how can you stay curious a moment longer, right? That it's like you're noticing like, I really want to say the thing that I'm trying to say, or I really wanna give them some advice, or I wanna do this.

[00:11:52] Paul: Right? And he says, practice extending that feeling just three seconds longer, right? And then three seconds longer. And so it's how long can you build up that tolerance? For not being the one who's talking, for not being the one who's sharing. That's often the thing that gets in the way of being able to express curiosity is that we have an anxiety about needing to express what we're thinking.

[00:12:20] Paul: And so the skill of building that up, of being able to use those listening skills that we talked about a few episodes ago for just a little bit longer, right? Because you are gonna get a chance to say the thing that you are holding. I think sometimes we don't get curious because we're worried about not being able to say the thing that's actually mattering deeply to us and the skill that we can build is the tolerance for waiting, for not having to be the first person to share.

[00:12:51] Paul: Right. 

Inviting Others to Share First

[00:12:55] Paul: Sometimes it makes sense for us to be the first person to share, but if we have the skill to be able to say, you know what? I've got some ideas about this, but I'd love to hear your ideas first. If you are in any sort of authority position, that can be really useful, to be able to hear what the other person is thinking before you share your own ideas.

[00:13:11] Paul: To turn up that degree of curiosity can be really, really useful. And so just being able to sit with that, right? To be able to say, yeah, I'm gonna share, but it doesn't need to be me first. Would you like to go first? And to be able to do that, to invite the other person to do it can be really useful.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[00:13:26] Karen: So we're tackling curiosity today as part of our series of relationship skills that we teach a lot of. And really with curiosity, we're saying we wanna start with the internal attitude, like really inside our own heads, overwriting the thoughts about I'm right, I know what I'm doing, and all of that.

[00:13:45] Karen: And replacing them with, I know there's stuff I don't know. I know there are pieces of this I don't have, I know there are other ways people are thinking about it. And those differences are rich, valuable resources for me to explore. They're not the threats that my biology might be screaming at me that they are, they're actually useful and getting interested in that, and then to communicate that.

[00:14:06] Karen: So mostly we communicate that through asking questions and asking really good, thoughtful, intentional, and authentic questions. I would like to know more about, or I think I'm making this assumption, I wanna check it out with you. Seems like maybe this would be true. Is that the case? Or you didn't quite say this, but it sounds like you're thinking, is that what you're thinking. And or how did you get there?

[00:14:29] Karen: Or, I'm not quite tracking how you got from here to there? Can you help me catch up with you? All that kind of stuff is hugely valuable. And just keeping track of where am I in my own head? Am I starting to get rigid? Am I starting to get that sort of certainty judgmental thing that's the opposite of curiosity and just keep bringing it back because this is a skill we build over time.

[00:14:50] Karen: And if we can stretch that ability to stay present and curious for just a little bit longer and just a little bit longer, we build up that skill. And if we think if we do that, then we really support our relationships over time and get a lot more, especially if we're in a position of authority, we get a lot more input and a lot more sense of collaboration with the people that report to us.

[00:15:14] Paul: Well, that's gonna do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Paul Tevis.

[00:15:18] Karen: I'm Karen Gimnig, and this has been Employing Differences.