Transcript
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Of course, you've heard that being curious and coach like will help in leadership, but sometimes the very thing we think we're doing well is actually getting in the way. In this episode, the kind of curiosity that leaders often miss. This is Coaching for Leaders, episode 760.
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Produced by Innovate, Learning, Maximizing human potential.
A (0:30)
Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I'm your host, Dave Stahoviak. Leaders aren't born, they're made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. A conversation that we have been having throughout the time this podcast has been airing as a conversation about curiosity. How do we do a better job as leaders of being curious? Yes, because we learn more, we discover more, but also because it actually helps our organizations to be more effective and to perform better. Today, a conversation on how we can do a bit better on an aspect of curiosity sometimes we miss. And I'm so glad to have an expert back who's right in the middle of helping organizations, teams and leaders do this better. I'm so pleased to welcome back to the show Shannon Minifi. Shannon is the CEO of Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps unleash the power of curiosity to create connected and engaged company cultures. They are the team behind the bestselling Coaching Habit book by Michael Bungay Stanier. Shannon and her team recently released a report along with the Harris Poll titled Navigating a Fractured Workplace, How Relational Curiosity Increases Engagement, Trust, and Productivity. Shannon, what a pleasure to have you back. Welcome, Dave.
B (1:54)
Thanks for having me.
A (1:55)
Yeah, indeed. And, you know, we've of course, had Michael on. Michael Bungay stand. You're on many times in the. In the past, we've. We've all learned so much from you and Michael and your team. As I was thinking about our conversation, I'm in Box of Crayons is one of the organizations that I have probably learned more from in the last 10 years than anywhere. And so when you all do something, I'm always interested in what you're finding. And you partnered up with the Harris Poll recently to do a little bit of research and look at just what's going on. We're going to get into some of the details of it, but what prompted this partnership to really look at this and get into some of the details of what's happening in the workplace?
B (2:36)
Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you. That's really nice of you to say. I think that we. One of our design philosophies is what's the least amount of information that's most useful? So we don't pump out a lot of new content all the time. But I think what we do do well is to simplify and make really clear and actionable some of the things that really matter for leaders. So anyway, thanks for saying that, Dave. Yeah, yeah, so, exactly. So we partnered with the Harris Poll last year to really to conduct some research on current workplace challenges and what could potentially solve them. And in terms of what prompted it, I mean, we had several goals for the partnership. We wanted to validate the distinction between two forms of curiosity. And we'll get into this. We wanted to really validate the distinction between two forms of curiosity that we saw, as well as their prevalence in the workplace, and to understand what role curiosity of either form could play in helping organizations overcome those challenges. And it was kind of an existential moment that might be too strong a way to put it. But basically, box of crayons is all in on curiosity. So we exist to unleash the power of curiosity for organizations. And we had this moment about a year ago where we thought, amidst all of macroeconomic uncertainty and geopolitical uncertainty and AI, and do organizations care about developing the skill of curiosity, this set of capabilities around curiosity? And we thought better to answer this question now and know it now. And so it was really prompted by that. And the findings really did give us a clear picture of the challenges that are weighing heavily on leaders and workers minds at that point in time. It told us whether leaders and workers saw curiosity skills as valuable and urgent to solving those challenges. And it also helped us drill down to this question of whether relational curiosity in particular is a valuable solution to those challenges. So that's kind of what prompted it.
