Why We All Need a Curiosity Check With Jeff Wetzler 7 | 41

Summary

Radical Candor Podcast: "Why We All Need a Curiosity Check" with Jeff Wetzler

Hosts: Kim Scott | Guest: Jeff Wetzler
Date: November 19, 2025
Episode: 7 | 41

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Kim Scott welcomes Jeff Wetzler, author of Ask, to discuss his widely shared article about preparing for high-stakes workplace conversations. Together, they unpack what it truly means to prepare—not by hardening positions, but by tuning into the essential mindset of curiosity. The conversation explores the spectrum of curiosity, practical steps for cultivating it, and the integral relationship between curiosity and Radical Candor. The episode presents a lively, practical, and personal roadmap for anyone wishing to communicate and lead more effectively at work.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Inspiration Behind the "Curiosity Check" (01:22–03:36)

• Jeff shares his inspiration: High-stakes professions have checklists for safety; why don’t we do the same for conversations?
• Conventional preparation is often about "arming" ourselves with data, not about opening to others.
• The curiosity check is about ensuring genuine openness before engaging.
  • Quote:

    "Quite often, we forget the most important check, which is to check how curious we are going into the conversation." — Jeff (02:37)

Over-Preparation & Its Pitfalls (02:50–03:41)

• Kim reflects: Over-preparing can turn conversations into monologues.
• Jeff clarifies: It’s not how much you prepare, but how you prepare.
  • Quote:

    "It's not so much the volume of preparation, but the nature of the preparation." — Jeff (03:19)

The Arc of Curiosity Model (03:41–11:32)

• Step 1: Notice your current level of curiosity; everyone is somewhere on the “arc.”

• The Arc of Curiosity:

  • Self Righteous Disdain: “They’re bad or wrong, and I can’t stand them.” (04:22)
  • Confident Dismissal: “I’m right, they’re wrong. I won't consider their perspective.” (06:16)
  • Skeptical Tolerance: “I doubt them, but I’ll hear them out.” (07:55)
  • Cautious Openness: “Maybe they have a point worth finding out.” (09:17)
  • Genuine Interest: “I genuinely want to understand their views, even if I disagree.” (10:16)
  • Fascinated Wonder: “I’m fascinated, and there’s so much I want to learn from them.” (10:46)

• Most of us sit in the “Zones of Certainty” (Self Righteous Disdain, Confident Dismissal, Skeptical Tolerance), especially in high-stakes conversations.

• Just moving one step up the arc can open up conversations significantly.

  • Memorable exchange:

    "I feel like we are in the era of self righteous disdain. I feel like there's something about social media." — Kim (04:47)
    "The more that we surround ourselves with people who tell us we're right, the more self righteous we feel." — Jeff (05:00)

The Value of Changing Your Mind (11:32–13:45)

• Fascinated Wonder is rare but exhilarating; the goal isn’t to always reach it, but to aim for progress up the curve.

• Kim offers a parenting example—making a big deal when her teenage twins change her mind, to encourage engagement and openness in her family.

  • Quote:

    "Now that you have a word for it, like when you change your mind about something profound…that is an exciting and cool experience." — Kim (11:32)

The Three Steps of a Curiosity Check (13:45–14:04)

1. Notice where you are on the arc.
2. Decide where you want to be.
3. Choose methods to move yourself up the arc.

Methods for Moving Up the Arc of Curiosity (14:05–26:26)

Head-Based (Intellectual):

• Ask:
  • "What story am I telling myself about this person?"
  • "What information might I be missing?"
  • Use AI as a thought partner to challenge your perspective.
• Reference to John Stuart Mill’s advice: Even if you’re certain, debating with those who disagree is valuable.
  • Quote:

    "A belief that goes unchallenged becomes a prejudice." — Kim, paraphrasing Mill (15:31)

Heart-Based (Emotional):

• Empathize: Connect to the other’s humanity (“Just like me…” exercises, visualization, or meditation).
  • Example:

    "Inhale curiosity, exhale connection." — Kim, on her meditation practice during a workplace conflict (23:06)

• Elevate: Recognize and explore your own frustration or confusion as a window to curiosity.

Hands-Based (Actionable):

• Enlist: Seek help from others (colleagues, mentors, or AI) to uncover what you might miss.
• Experiment: Act “as if” you’re more curious than you are (e.g., restate the other’s argument before presenting your own).
• Exhale: Use breathing or physical cues to calm your nervous system and enable curiosity.

Practical Experiments & Role Models (26:26–34:09)

• Practical experiment: Try restating the other person’s position before making your own case ("the Rogerian argument").

• Share the downsides of your own recommendations to demonstrate genuine consideration.

• Countercultural move: Presenting with curiosity, not certainty, leads to better influence.

  • Quote:

    "The more curiosity we present with, the more they are open to influence by us." — Jeff (28:42)

• Leaders should be explicit about their certainty levels; faux openness wastes everyone’s time.

  • Example:

    "One of the worst things that I think leaders sometimes fall into is having a clear agenda but acting as if they don’t." — Jeff (30:46)

Curiosity, Influence, and Power Dynamics (33:08–40:32)

• Ask others to share how certain they are about a decision on a scale (e.g., 1–10).
• Help leaders clarify whether they’re open to influence or not, saving time and energy.
• Use numbers to help both parties understand where a genuine conversation can happen.
• Openly discuss the underlying conditions that must be true to change someone’s mind.
• Sometimes confidence is just being measured by how you "stand your ground," so surface those expectations early.

Curiosity & Radical Candor (40:33–44:31)

• Curiosity and candor are inseparable: You must care about what others think for your candor to be effective.

• Curiosity helps manage defensiveness—both when soliciting and receiving feedback.

• Aim for “fascinated wonder” even if you disagree, as you may find valuable nuggets of truth.

  • Quote:

    "Curiosity itself is an act of care. That can be part of caring personally." — Jeff (44:13)

Notable Quotes & Moments

• "Curiosity is not binary. It’s not just I’m curious or not curious…Can you move a notch up? That can feel more digestible and realistic than just to say, get curious.” — Jeff (18:33)
• "Praise really let me know what to do more of, because I felt like I had failed, when in fact I had done the right thing.” — Kim (28:58)
• "We’re trained to sound more certain than we are. We get rewarded for sounding more certain than we are.” — Kim (33:39)
• “Get curious, not furious!” — Kim, on responding to criticism (43:42)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:22] — Jeff’s article & the ‘curiosity check’ idea
• [03:41] — The Arc of Curiosity explained
• [09:17] — Moving from certainty to curiosity
• [13:45] — The three-step curiosity check
• [14:05–21:43] — Techniques for cultivating curiosity (head-based, heart-based, hands-based)
• [26:26] — Practical experiments and behaviors
• [30:46] — Authentic leadership and transparency in agendas
• [33:08] — Using numbers/clarity to align conversations
• [40:33] — Connection between curiosity and Radical Candor
• [44:13] — Closing thoughts on curiosity as care

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Recap & Takeaways

• The Curiosity Check transforms conversational preparation from defensive to open, enabling deeper, constructive dialogue.
• Everyone sits somewhere on the Arc of Curiosity—from self-righteousness to fascinated wonder. Progress matters more than perfection.
• Practical head, heart, and hands strategies can intentionally upshift curiosity in high-stakes or everyday discussions.
• In both feedback and leadership, curiosity isn’t just a nicety—it’s vital for candor, growth, and connection.

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Final Word

Kim Scott:

"If there's one thing I hope that everybody takes away from today, it's the power of shifting from certainty to curiosity." (44:59)

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Links Mentioned:

• Jeff’s article in Harvard Business Review
• Ask by Jeff Wetzler
• Radical Candor by Kim Scott

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For anyone looking to improve their leadership, conversational skills, or team culture, this episode offers a vibrant roadmap to replacing certainty with curiosity—step by step, click by click, question by question.

Transcript

[Jeff Wetzler]

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[Jeff Wetzler]

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[Kim Scott]

Hello everybody. Welcome to our LinkedIn Live. I'm here with Jeff Wetzler, who is the author of Ask and who wrote an incredible article that has, I would say, gone business viral. Do you think that's fair, Jeff?

[Jeff Wetzler]

I think that's fair.

[Kim Scott]

Excellent. So, Jeff, tell us about what was the inspiration behind this article? The right way to prepare for high stakes conversations.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah. Well, first of all, it's great to be back here with you, Kim.

[Kim Scott]

Yes. I love your rough ask.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Thank you.

[Kim Scott]

I was, I should have worn the hat on the show, but I was wearing your hat yesterday.

[Jeff Wetzler]

I love it. I love it. You were such an important contributor and thought partner in the book. So the inspiration or the impetus for the article was really this idea that in so many different professions, people have ways of preparing when things are high stakes. You know, a pilot would not, would not take off on a plane without doing a safety check.

[Kim Scott]

Yes.

[Jeff Wetzler]

A surgeon would not do surgery without checking all the different things that, you know, even a software engineer would not ship code without checking things. And yet we in our, you know, in our fields of people who talk for a living, basically, we go into all kinds of high stakes situations. And I think by and large we either don't prepare or we don't prepare. Right. Typically, if we prepare, it's usually we line up our arguments, we get our data set all, you know, we make sure that we put our armor on, we have all our ammunition. But I actually think that quite often we forget the most important check, which is to check how curious we are going into the conversation. So the impetus for the article was to really call attention to the, the value of checking our curiosity and offering some language and some tools for how we might check our Curiosity.

[Kim Scott]

Yes. And you know, it's interesting when you're talking about preparation because I wonder as you were talking about that. I think when my curiosity has totally failed me, it's often because I've over prepared. I go into a conversation with an agenda and that's not going to be a conversation, it's going to be a monologue in my experience. Is it just me or do I.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Well, I think that's a perfect example. Example of over preparing within a particular type of preparation.

[Kim Scott]

Yes.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Which is the kind of conventional, which is like line up our facts and the more we prepare, the more we're like, yeah, I do have a good point. And so this is trying to say it's not so much the volume of preparation but the nature of the preparation that I'm offering to say. What if we thought a little differently about what does it actually mean to prepare?

[Kim Scott]

Well, yes. Yeah. So how do you prepare to be more curious?

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yes. So the first thing to do, there's just three steps in the whole process of what I call a curiosity check. The first way is to actually notice what your current level of curiosity is to start with. And I would offer that whether we know it or not, we all have a level of curiosity that we're walking into any interaction or conversation with. But quite often we're not paying attention.

[Kim Scott]

Very optimistic. Is that true or do we.

[Jeff Wetzler]

I'm not saying we have a high level of curiosity. I'm just saying some level we somewhere on what I call the arc of curiosity.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

All right. So the arc of curiosity is basically to say anytime we're walking into an interaction, we're somewhere on this ark.

[Kim Scott]

Yes.

[Jeff Wetzler]

We are at the lowest level of the arc of curiosity. We are at a level that I call self righteous disdain.

[Kim Scott]

Okay. I love that there is some level of cure. I love that. That's not zero.

[Jeff Wetzler]

It's not zero. Right. And if you, if you hear yourself saying I can't stand them, they're the worst, they're mad, they're bad, they're, you know, chances are that you are somewhere in that, in that first level.

[Kim Scott]

Can we stay on that level?

[Jeff Wetzler]

Let's stay on that level.

[Kim Scott]

I love, I love how you say that. Self righteous disdain. I feel like we are in the era of self righteous disdain. I feel like there's something about social media. What is going on?

[Jeff Wetzler]

Well, no matter what you believe, where you fall on any issue or any political spectrum, the more that we surround ourselves with people who tell us we're right, the more self righteous we feel the more that we surround ourselves with people who say the other person's wrong, the more disdain we're going to feel as well.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

And so I do think that social media can contribute to us being in our, you know, our echo chambers to reinforce the sense of self righteous disdain.

[Kim Scott]

But I also feel like being raw, like why would you feel disdain for someone who's like, even if they are wrong, that doesn't mean they're a worthless human being, it just means they're wrong about that thing. Like, like why is it, why, why does being wrong trigger our self righteous disdain?

[Jeff Wetzler]

I think it's a really interesting question and it, and I think in some ways what you're describing is the distinction between self righteous disdain and what I, what I would call the next level up, which is confident dismissal. Because when we're confident, when we're confidently dismissing someone else, we're saying that they're wrong, but we're not necessarily saying they're bad. But I do think there are some things in our cultural DNA and in our human wiring that, that slip us from, you know, not just from that they're wrong, but that they're bad as well.

[Kim Scott]

Yes. Is it because when we're in self righteous disdain, we're unsure that we're right which is why we need that disdain to protect ourselves?

[Jeff Wetzler]

I think that's a very plausible theory. I also think that sometimes when we're in self righteous disdain, it triggers our, our fear and our fight or flight. And all of a sudden we think to ourselves, I gotta win this thing. And that's a very small distance from they're my enemy and from there our enemy, they're bad. And so that, you know, our, all of a sudden our amygdala gets hijacked and we move out of just their intellectually wrong to like they are a threat. So from threat it's not hard to get to disdain.

[Kim Scott]

Well, and it's also like, I think that when you're not confident, when you're in insecure dismissal, which is probably what leads us to self righteous disdain, you're in a fixed mindset.

[Jeff Wetzler]

That's right.

[Kim Scott]

So the self righteous disdain has a very like, if I'm wrong, that means I'm an idiot and therefore I can't be wrong.

[Jeff Wetzler]

You know, that's right. Right. And so there's an identity threat as well.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

One click up from self righteousness is confident dismissal. And so this is when you're thinking I'm right, they're wrong. You're not necessarily saying they're bad, but you're thinking they're mistaken or they're out of line or maybe they're incompetent. And if they say something that I disagree with, I will dismiss them relatively confidently.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, I'm not going to even bother to think about why, why, why might they believe that?

[Jeff Wetzler]

Exactly. Exactly. I just, I'm going to dismiss them. So then one click up from confident dismissal, I call skeptical tolerance. And skeptical tolerance is when you might be thinking to yourself, I'm pretty sure they're wrong, but okay, I'll hear them out.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, pretty sure they're wrong. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe confident dismissal is overconfident dismissal.

[Jeff Wetzler]

We're probably overconfident in all of these. We're over skeptical. We're over self righteous in all of these things, for sure.

[Kim Scott]

Okay.

[Jeff Wetzler]

I call these three zones the zones of certainty.

[Kim Scott]

Yes.

[Jeff Wetzler]

And progressively moving up, you're getting a little less certain, but you are still in the zones of certainty. I would argue that many of us, when we are heading into high stakes conversations, including feedback conversations, we are somewhere in the zones of certainty, maybe more than we realize. And what a lot of people have said to me is just having this visual, just having these terms starts to give me language to look in the mirror and realize that I'm somewhere in here.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. It's funny, the zone of certainty feedback that I have gotten my whole life is that I often sound certain when in fact I'm not at all certain.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yes.

[Kim Scott]

And so I think it's like probably a function of going to business school or you have to pretend to be like there's certain environments where certainty is rewarded.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Absolutely.

[Kim Scott]

And so you wind up presenting as though you're in the zone of certainty when you're not.

[Jeff Wetzler]

In fact, you may actually be more curious than you're coming across as.

[Kim Scott]

Yes, yeah, exactly.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah. I think that we could, we might come back to that and say, what, what can we do about that? Because I actually think there's some things we can do about that.

[Kim Scott]

Okay, good. All right, let's get to.

[Jeff Wetzler]

So the zones of curiosity just progressively are cautious openness. So when you're thinking to yourself, you know what, actually, maybe they do know something that's worth finding out. I'm not sure. I'm not gonna, I'm not saying they're right. I'm not, you know, whatever, but maybe they're, maybe they have a point here. Let me at least cautiously dip my toe in to being open to that.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, I love that. Like, at least you're like oh, that's interesting. In fact, when I was writing Radical Candor, there was a person who I had worked with for years who's. Who is brilliant, absolutely brilliant. And I kept sending her versions of the Two by two, and she was like, sure, it was wrong and she was right, as it turned out. And then I sent her a version of the one that I came up with. And when she saw it, she said, I would like to have a conversation with the person who wrote this. And I was like, I'm on something. So I got her to the. To the cautious openness.

[Jeff Wetzler]

The cautious openness. I love it. One up from cautious openness, I call genuine Interest. And so this is what you're thinking to yourself. I'm genuinely wanting to understand their views, their experience. Even if we disagree, even if they think my feedback is off, I'm genuinely interested. Or even if I'm confident in my feedback that they may have did something wrong, I'm genuinely interested to know how come they did it. Maybe, you know, to what extent did it seem like the right move from their perspective? Yeah, that all of that is our versions of Genuine Interest.

[Kim Scott]

Yes. Yes. Love it.

[Jeff Wetzler]

And then the final one, which is to me, like the pinnacle of the curiosity zones I call fascinated Wonder. This is really when we're approaching someone with a mindset of I am fascinated. There is so much I want to learn from them, with them, about them. Yes. How amazing. And I'm not, by the way, suggesting that we all need to get to fascinated wonder all of the time. I do think there's, you know, it's a beautiful human experience to be able to be there. But it. But even if, you know, even if you're. If, let's say you're at confident dismissal, if you can get yourself one or two clicks up the curve, you're better off. So you don't have to get all the way there. Just, you know, every step up the curve that you can get to is a little better. Gives you more degrees of freedom in a conversation.

[Kim Scott]

I love it. I think the really great thing about fascinated wonder is when you've had that experience and now that you have a word for it, like when you change your mind about something profound. Yes, That's. That is an exciting and cool experience, I find. Anyway, it's a rare thrill.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Life becomes more interesting.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. Yeah. And it's much easier to sort of default at least to cautious openness or genuine interest if you're eager for the possibility of fascinated wonder.

[Jeff Wetzler]

I agree. I hold it out for myself as, like, A North Star. I may not always get there, but it's kind of. If I can orient myself in that direction.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Everything is just lighter and easier and more and more interesting and more fun.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. Yeah. I think especially I have twins who are 16 years old. And I think when they convince me that I'm wrong about something, I try to make a really big deal of it because it helps. Not only does it help me stay engaged in conversations that might be easy or tempting to dismiss, it helps them stay engaged too, because they know it's possible to change my mind.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah. And not just to say, to change my mind and say I was wrong to, but to say how fascinating, how fascinating I learned.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

And I think as a parent or as a leader, modeling that kind of curious fascination.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Can help bring it about in a culture as well.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. I think it's like, in some ways it's like a positive spin on negativity bias. Like, we do pay more attention when we get things wrong. And if, and if we can pay attention with excitement and fascination instead, like with the growth mindset instead of with, oh, I was wrong, that's bad. Like, oh, it's awesome that I learned something new. The world opens up just the same.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Way when you see a kid on a playground fall down and they, and they just sort of like laugh and they're like, that was so interesting.

[Kim Scott]

That was so cool.

[Jeff Wetzler]

You know, so fun. Like, if we can reclaim some of that and bring that back into our own space spirit in our, you know, in our workplace conversations, I think it all goes better. That's all. Step one of the curiosity check is just notice where you are on the curve.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. Okay.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Step two is very simple, which is to say, decide where you want to be on the curve. So if you notice that you're at self righteous disdain, decide. Do I want to get to skeptical tolerance? Do I want to get to cautious openness? Just, just use it the same way. A pilot might look at this as a dial on the dashboard to say, this is where I am right now. Where, where do I want to be operating on this?

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

And then, and then there, there are many different ways to move yourself up the curve. There are some ways that come from the, the mind, the heart and the, and the body, and maybe I'll just say a word. If you want to move yourself up from the mind using an intellect based way, you can just ask yourself some questions to say, for example, what's the story I'm telling myself about this person or this situation? What assumptions am I making about this person, what information might I be overlooking? What, what data might they have that I don't have? There are lots of questions that you can just ask yourself. I find AI is an incredible thought partner from this intellect perspective. You can, you can dump your whole, you know, this self righteous rant into AI and just say help me get more curious about what I might be missing. Yeah, yeah is fascinating.

[Kim Scott]

It's incredible. And it never gets, it never responds emotionally right or sometimes it pretends to, but it, but you never have to worry about offending it, which is one of its virtues. Exactly what, what was coming up for me as you were talk, talking is some advice from John Stuart Mill. So when I am in self righteous disdain, which I try not to be, but I find myself sometimes, I recognize it in myself from time to time and here's what's what I try to do tell but I want your feedback on this strategy. There was, there's a line from John Stuart Mill about the importance of discussion and he said even if you're certain that you're right, 100% certain that you're right, there's a lot of value in arguing with someone who disagrees with you because it will deepen your convictions, it'll help you. And then what he said is a belief that goes unchallenged. He said it more eloquently. But a belief that goes unchallenged becomes a prejudice. And so if you're not, even if you're sure you're right, if you're not open to discussing the beliefs, then you've got a prejudice. And that helps me enter into conversations with people who I, I know I'm not going to change my mind on some topic.

[Jeff Wetzler]

I love that quote and I think that to me what one of the things that is cool about that is almost that quote itself can shift you up from self righteousness staying at minimum to confident dismissal. Because you're probably not going to even have a discussion with someone that you feel disdain for. But if you can say to yourself there's value in a discussion with this person, even if I'm sure I'm right. Yeah that's going to get you one click up there and then I imagine and this might be part of the Mill's brilliance, sometimes you might actually see something you hadn't thought of in their point of view. Yeah, it might actually get you even one more click up the curve.

[Kim Scott]

I think it can get you to genuine interest. But maybe my interest is not in changing my opinion, but my interest is in deepening my thinking. And so I'm using this person who I disagree with, and they're using me because they're probably not going to change their mind either. We're using each other as thought partners to deepen our thinking about something that we have no intention of changing our mind with. But there's still value in discussion.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yes, 100%. And maybe this connects back to the point that you made earlier around. Sometimes we're more curious than we present as well.

[Kim Scott]

Yes.

[Jeff Wetzler]

And I think a lot of people. And this, you know, this. This is also the case in organizations. If there's any power difference or differential in terms of levels of safety, if we try to use somebody else to sharpen our thinking, but they don't feel safe having that sharp discussion back and forth with us, that may not work out so well because they will just agree with us or they'll shut down or they'll walk away.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

And so if we can get ourselves a little bit to the place of. Actually, I'm interested in what you have to say, not just to prove myself right or deepen my thinking, but because you might be onto something. I think that can be one of the ways to help overcome some of those differences in terms of how safe people feel as well.

[Kim Scott]

Yes, 100%. Carolina has. I hope I'm saying your name right. Carolina. Carolina. I apologize if I'm mispronouncing, but she says the arc of curiosity is helpful to see that there is a continuum of curiosity that can be experienced beyond answering the question, am I open or close to what I'm hearing? And I love that. I think that's true. Like, we do want to be open, but. But we can still have strong opinions and be open at the same time.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah. And curiosity is not binary. It's not just I'm curious or not curious. And I think sometimes, you know, we can say to ourselves or to other people, just get more curious. And that can feel like a big task.

[Kim Scott]

Yes.

[Jeff Wetzler]

But if you can look at this and say, all right, maybe can you move a notch up? Can you, you know, if you're in a confident dismissal, can you at least, you know, get to cautious openness?

[Kim Scott]

Exactly.

[Jeff Wetzler]

That can feel more digestible and more realistic than just to say, get curious. So I really appreciate that observation.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

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[Kim Scott]

So what are some other things we can do to move up on the arc of curiosity?

[Jeff Wetzler]

So the mental ones I call head, they're in our head. They're in our intellect. So one is to examine our own story as we were talking about and say, what, you know, what might be missing? What assumptions might I be making? A second is to try to envision other possibilities that we hadn't been thinking about. Like, for example, what might the other person be up against? What might their good intentions be? So we can actually use our imagination to envision our way into curiosity.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

And then a third way, what I call expose ourselves into curiosity. And so this comes back to the point that we were making earlier around. Typically we don't expose ourselves to differing points of view. Yeah, you know, we expose ourselves to our own points of view. But can we deliberately expose ourselves to a different set of worldviews, to a different set of experiences? Who are we hanging out with? What are we reading? Who are we following? Those are, you know, those are kind of exposure ways to get ourselves into curiosity.

[Kim Scott]

The exposure that for me at least the one that feels lowest stakes is to go ask Gemini. You know, here's what I exactly who thinks differently and why and. And that is always instructive. And sometimes you can get them arguing with each other. Like Jim and I will say one thing and ChatGPT will say another and I'll ask them to have a dialogue.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love that. Absolutely. So those are some of the head based ways, some of the heart based ways. One I call empathize. And so this is more to try to connect to the other person's humanity. To say, you know, just like me, they are probably scared of something. Just like me, they're struggling. Just like me, they're trying to do something that we may not realize. And there are just different people access the empathy route different ways. Some people just feel it naturally. Other people can do it through some kind of meditations and visualizations and other ways that can really sort of center us in our heart. And for a lot of people, that empathy is a pathway up the arc into curiosity.

[Kim Scott]

You know, it's, it's interesting. I really like that when I, at one point I won't even say where I was working, but I was having a big conflict with someone and, and I used to do yoga in the morning and at the end I would do a brief meditation and I would inhale curiosity, exhale connection.

[Jeff Wetzler]

I love that.

[Kim Scott]

It was very helpful. When I would see her, I would be, all right, I'm curious and I'm going to try to connect. And even if it was just like we both have parents, like that's some common connection or we both like to walk or in the bay or whatever.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah, it's amazing. Sometimes I'll do this exercise with a group where we'll do something like, just like me and all these different things. And by the end, people are just, they just naturally get more curious because they feel more connected to the other person as well.

[Kim Scott]

Yes, yes.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Another, another one is to elevate. Elevate, which is to sort of notice what we're feeling and just elevate that. A really good one. And my son actually taught me this one is to elevate our confusion. Sometimes there's just a moment where like, you know, that doesn't make sense. And so often we just skip right over that.

[Kim Scott]

We refresh.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah. But if we could pause and say, let me elevate that confusion or that frustration or whatever that feeling is, and let me use that as a window into curiosity. Why am I feeling frustrated? Why am I feeling confused? What's going like that? And so instead of skipping over those, those quiet moments to actually shine a.

[Kim Scott]

Spotlight and elevate them and you're having a little compassion for yourself in those moments. Confused. And that's okay.

[Jeff Wetzler]

And that's worth Elevating, like my own internal experience has enough value that it's worth elevating.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

As well. And then there's also encouraging. And so this is. Sometimes people have said to me, like sometimes I'm afraid to be curious because what if I discover that I have the problem or what if I discovered that I am wrong or what if I discover that they really don't think I'm doing a good job? And so there's some encouraging to say, well, if they don't think I'm doing a good job, that's going to be true. Whether or not I find that out.

[Kim Scott]

It'S, you're better off knowing than not.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Let me give myself a little bit of courage and say, you know, whatever's going on, I'm going to be better off. And so there's different ways to encourage ourselves as well.

[Kim Scott]

I think there's two, two parts to this. Maybe, maybe they are wrong and you're better off knowing. Maybe they are right and you're. And in some senses if you are the problem, it's easier to fix that.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Right. Right.

[Kim Scott]

Like, although somebody told me that's a distinctly female approach. But I like, I want to know if I'm the problem because it's easier for me to fix me than for me to fix them.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Right. And usually they're, you know, it's somewhere in between. They're right about this, they're wrong about this, you know, and so it's almost like whether or not they're right or they're wrong.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Wouldn't we rather know so we can talk about it and actually untangle it together.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

And sort it out. We cannot do that if we're not curious enough to even have the conversation. So then finally the action based or the hands based way, one of them is enlist. So can we enlist other people to help us get so. So treating curiosity as a team sport. We've already talked about enlisting AI but can you enlist a friend or a coach or a mentor or a colleague and say, this is what I'm feeling. I'm actually feeling pretty confident and ready to dismiss the other person.

[Kim Scott]

Can you help me get a little more curious?

[Jeff Wetzler]

Can you help me get more open? And just enlisting other people can be, you know, can be incredibly helpful. Yes. Experiment your way up. The arc is basically to say, what if I were to act as if I'm more curious than I might even feel right now? So that means what if I'm at. What if I ask them a follow up question just to See what I learned. What if I ask them, how might I be contributing to this problem in ways I don't see? I'm pretty sure I'm not. But just experimenting with that to the point where you can actually test it and bring back something, you know, get some new information back.

[Kim Scott]

Yes. Yeah. So what is an example of that kind of experimenting? Like, what would you do? What would your hands do differently?

[Jeff Wetzler]

By hands, I just mean representation of any action that we can be taking.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

But, you know, to me, one of the biggest things that I was just talking about this with someone I was coaching a day or two ago, which is to say, if I'm having a conversation and I feel like I'm ready to debate the other person and show them why they're wrong. And it's like a very specific move that you can make would be to say, before I tell you what I think, I want to just check if I understood what. What you're saying and where it's coming from.

[Kim Scott]

Yes. Yeah, that. That's the Rogerian argument, right?

[Jeff Wetzler]

Exactly.

[Kim Scott]

I'm not saying I agree with you, but I'm gonna share what my understanding of your perspective is.

[Jeff Wetzler]

And in my experience, half the time I hadn't heard it quite right. Or when I play it back to you, you say, actually, there's more to it. And so for this person I was coaching, I just encouraged them to accept, experiment with. Just make that move. Make that move five times this week and treat it like an experiment. See what happens when you do that back? And, you know, I'm quite. I feel quite confident that some interesting, different response is going to come back when that person tries that.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, My. My husband and I were having an argument, and finally he explained to me what I was saying, and I was like, yes, that's what I mean. And. And then I realized, okay, and what you mean is this.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Right.

[Kim Scott]

And then we're like, okay, but, like, this is an interesting conversation now, you know? Exactly. Whereas I thought he hadn't understood. So I kept saying the same thing over, and he thought I wasn't understanding, and he. And then it was becoming irritating. And just by me saying what he thought and him saying what I thought. Now we're. Now we're talking.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah. It is that magic move which change. It not only gets you better information, it just changes the whole tone and the whole dynamic of a conversation. So I often encourage people to just experiment with that one.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, another. Another experiment. Another piece of advice I got from. From one of my managers once is to go in Even though you have a recommendation for something like, explain why you think, but explain also the problems with your recommend. Explain the other side.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yes.

[Kim Scott]

And, and that earns you credibility because it shows that you've really thought about it.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah. And ironically, the research shows that the more curiosity we present with, the more that we're actually coming at the other person with some curiosity, the more they are open to influence by us. So even if your only goal is to convince the other person that you're right, come in with curiosity, you'll be better off doing that as well.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. And. And it's funny because I, when I, when my, when my boss told me this, I felt at the end of the meeting like I had failed because I had argued both sides, even though I had one point of view. And I was like, ah, I wasn't strong enough in my position. And she said, no, that was the right. So that was an example of like praise really letting me know what to do more of because I felt like I had failed when in fact I had done the right thing.

[Jeff Wetzler]

But you made a countercultural move because so often people get the message, show up certain, you know, don't show any weakness, don't show any of this. But, you know, paradoxically, it actually works better when you show the full totality of your, your thoughts, including your own uncertainties.

[Kim Scott]

Yes. Yes. Okay. And how do we exhale?

[Jeff Wetzler]

And then the final one is really. And this comes back to the example that you shared, which is that so much of our curiosity can come when our whole nervous system is just so activated, you know, when we're back to that fight or flight amygdala response. And so by exhaling. And people have all kinds of different, you know, 4, 5, 7 breathing or box breathing or different ways of doing anything that can just kind of calm us down, can actually give us a little bit more space to just have that curiosity naturally, as opposed to being a victim of our own, know, overreacted nervous system.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, Yeah. I think also, I don't know if this is a hands thing or a head thing or a heart thing, but one of the things that I have found really helpful, especially in one on one, like in one on one meetings, is for me not to come in with an agenda. Like, for me not to have the dreaded list to let go. Like, how do you let go of, of your own agenda? And when should you not let go of your own agenda?

[Jeff Wetzler]

I mean, I think that one of the worst things that I think leaders sometimes, a trap that leaders sometimes fall into is Having a clear agenda but acting as if they don't.

[Kim Scott]

Yes. Yeah, bullshit is really never a good strategy.

[Jeff Wetzler]

If you're thinking to yourself, I got to come in with no agenda, even though I have one, you will see that that will leak out and your teeth will see right through that. So. And I think oftentimes leaders do have an agenda. And so then I think it actually comes back to say, where. Where on this arc of curiosity do I want to be in relation to my agenda?

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

You know, if. If someone disagrees with my agenda, am I okay to be cautiously open to their point of view? Am I genuinely interested or am I completely closed? And then sometimes a leader, you know, a leader is in a position that says, here I am. I'm actually not open to influence, and I want to let us. I want to lay out where we're going to go. And I think teams appreciate that more than acting the other ways. But I think if you are genuinely interested to your point, people may not realize that then I think it's quite. It's powerful to come in with your agenda and say, I've got some thoughts. I'm holding them loosely. Either I'm not going to share them because I want to hear what you have to say first, or I'm going to share them, but I really want to know what I might be overlooking. Yeah, there's the other ways of looking at this.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. Yeah. You can really. If you really have a strong point of view, it's good to like, I remember there was one time where a new VP came into an organization where I was working, and he said, I'm going to go on a listening tour, which meant everybody had to spend hours and hours coming up with, you know, PowerPoint decks. And he already knew what he was going to do. Like, was a gigantic waste of everyone's time. And the worst thing you can do as a leader, I think, is, well, there are worse things, probably. But one of the most annoying things is to waste people's time and to pretend to listen when you're not.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yes. But I think it's perfectly fine to go in and say, I've got some hypotheses and I'm somewhere around cautious openness or genuine interest, because I want to test those with you, and I want to know which ones resonate and which ones don't and how come, and what am I. What else am I not thinking about? I think that's often a more genuine place for a leader to be than pretending as if they don't have any Thoughts on the situation.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. And often when my co founder and I are having a conversation, I'll say, here's a strong opinion, loosely held. Or here's a strong opinion and you're going to have to work really hard. Yeah, but, but I'll. But, you know, it's not like I'm shut down to disagreement, but I'm wide open to it, or I really believe this.

[Jeff Wetzler]

But you know, in our organization, sometimes we will say someone says something, we'll say like, you know, how strongly do you feel about that? Where are you on a 1 to 10? And you know, sometimes they'll say, well, I'm actually a four. It sounded like they were an eight. And so being able to ask that question or say about, you know, I'm actually at a. I'm at seven on this. And you know. Yeah, that can be helpful as well.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

[Jeff Wetzler]

You know, just to speak quickly to your point with. Sometimes we can sound more certain than we really are, I think.

[Kim Scott]

And we're trained to sound, we're trained.

[Jeff Wetzler]

To sound less certain.

[Kim Scott]

I mean, we get rewarded for sounding more certain than we are.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Absolutely. And socialized. And I think different groups get different messages about how important that is as well.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

One very simple way to just to, to partially overcome that is just simply once you say your piece, make sure there's a genuine question after that. That question could literally be, and I'd love to know what you think about that or and I'd love to know what I'm missing or what else, what else should we think about? But just adding a question on top of the statement can reduce the misconception that you're. That you're not open.

[Kim Scott]

Yes. LinkedIn user says, and I think this is a really good point. Dialectical behavior therapy. DBT offers some skills for interpersonal effectiveness that will be useful for preparing to approach conversations with curiosity as with an agenda. I think that's true. I really, I have thought about this often. I, I was in fact, for some reason thinking about this as I fell asleep last night. Like random thought. I was like, I wish that in middle school they just didn't teach history and they just taught dbt.

[Jeff Wetzler]

We would all be so better off if we, if we learned that. Yeah, I know.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, I'm a huge believer. It was like really helpful as when my kids were in middle school to do a little dbt. So huge plug for dbt.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yes, same. Yes.

[Kim Scott]

I wish I had done it when I was in middle school. I got the bullshit history lessons that I'm still trying to unlearn.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Exactly, exactly.

[Kim Scott]

Sorry, I interrupted you. You were talking about other things we can do. I think we have to start with you can't nudge someone else towards curiosity. Right.

[Jeff Wetzler]

You have 100%. 100%. These nine are essentially, you know, different pathways because different ones of us will gravitate towards different pathways. But I would argue that as a leader, one of our greatest kind of levers that we have is increasing our own curiosity. That opens degrees of freedom. And so we need to know what are pathways to do that. And also we need to know what are pathways to help our teams get more curious and our peers and our colleagues. And so my hope is that different ones of these pathways will resonate differently with different people. And ultimately it will be like a repertoire. And we might have three or four different pathways in our repertoire to do that.

[Kim Scott]

And so these are pathways to open our own curiosity.

[Jeff Wetzler]

That's right, exactly.

[Kim Scott]

But what, what if you're a person who is working for that VP that I was working for, who was coming in with a listening tour, but he clearly had a, an opinion that wasn't going to change. Like, how do I, can I get him to be more curious? Or do I just. What do I do?

[Jeff Wetzler]

This is the, this is the number one question that I get when I talk to people like curious. They say, well, I can get more curious, but what about the other person? Yes, you know, what if they're not curious? And sometimes I say, well, that's a different book.

[Kim Scott]

Or lead by example.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Even if you're exactly what I was going to say, the more that you're bringing curiosity to them, the more that they can relax. They don't have to feel like they are completely, you know, hammering their point home or trying to persuade you. And so there's, there is a growing body of research that shows essentially curiosity is contagious. The more that we bring curiosity to them, the more open they are to coming back to curiosity with us. So that's, to me, is my number one sort of thought on that question. I think there's also moves that you can make. For example, you could say to the other person, is there anything I could share with you that would influence your thinking? And sometimes that leads someone else to pause and say, actually yes or no. And if they say no, that's almost a moment of self reflection to say, there's nothing that would influence my thinking. Maybe I should get a little more curious. But, but sometimes it leaves them to surface to say, well, if you could show me that Our customers wouldn't leave us if we did that or if you could show me that this wouldn't cause us, you know, and so you could start to actually see them sort of get a window into where they might be more curious than they're presenting.

[Kim Scott]

So let me ask you about this strategy that I had with this vp. I said, let's imagine saying this to him. I, as far as I understand what you believe is that we should do this. Would you rather me spend the next week starting down that path, or do you want me to build a whole deck? Like, do you want me to do the work or do you want me to engage in this BS process of the listening to it? Like, I disagree with you, but if you're not going to change your mind, I'll just get, you know, I'll listen, challenge, commit, or should I really engage? Because it's tempting to want to skip over the challenge part if you know you're going to have to commit in the end to their way anyway.

[Jeff Wetzler]

It's true. It's true. I mean, I think I, I, I think that can work. I think another, you know, an additional thing one could try is to say to the, is essentially check where the other person is on their curiosity curve. So to say to them, you know, let me just check. Are you at a kind of a 10 out of 10 on this? That, like, we're doing this no matter what. If we're doing this no matter what, do it, let's just go do it. Or are you, you know, or are there things that you're still curious about, or are there certain assumptions that if I could, you know, help us examine, you'd be open to that because that will actually help me know what the best course of action is for me as well.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think trying to put numbers to certainty is really useful. Um, because then you're asking the other person, like, what's the point of conversation?

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah, yeah. And I, and you know, when I was in management consulting, we would often say to executives, what would have to be true for you to feel like this is the right decision or the wrong decision? Surfacing their conditions using a method called choice structuring. And quite often people had never realized, have never thought about, this is my condition. This is what I would have to, you know, to believe, to change my mind. And so then that allowed us to just zero in on, say, all right, well, then that's the thing we need to go investigate.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Based on that as well. So it can be a gift to the other person as well, to help them realize this is. This is the thing that my conviction turns on.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. And also I think helping the other person to understand, like how much time it's taking you to do what they asked you to do. Because they may be asking you to do one thing when they really want you to do another. And anything you can do to short cut that is useful for both of you.

[Jeff Wetzler]

And they may be unaware of what they're asking you to do and what it takes to do that as well. Transparent about that. Yeah, totally.

[Kim Scott]

And the other thing is sometimes, especially in this world where the bloviating bullshitter gets rewarded, they may be asking you to. To just demonstrate your confidence. And this may be a more efficient way of demonstrating your confidence than to argue a point of view that is. That is useless.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Exactly. That way it's a moot point. Totally.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Can I ask you a question?

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Can you share your thoughts on the relationship between curiosity and candor? How do you. How do you see those two things going together?

[Kim Scott]

It's a great question to each other. So the idea of, of compassionate candor, or radical candor, as. As the book is called, is, is that you are being open about what you. You think, but at. You really care about the other person and therefore you care about what they think. So curiosity is essential to candor. That doesn't fall into what I call obnoxious aggression. So. So you want to make sure when you are soliciting criticism from other people, when you get. Or when you get unsolicited criticism, that you. That you are curious about it. Like, curiosity is how you manage your own natural defensiveness. And, and it's okay that you feel defensive when you get criticized. It doesn't mean you're shut down to radical candor. It just means you're human. It's natural. And so first of all, extend a little grace to yourself. It's okay that I feel. And then extend grace to this other person and, and try to really take the time, use your curiosity to understand why they think what they think rather than just shut it, being shut down to it. Because that's your fight or flight brain. And we're rarely at our best when we're in fight or flight. So that's how curiosity can help you treat feedback like gold. And treating it like gold may mean separating the gold from the dirt, you know, or the wheat from the chaff. It doesn't mean you have to agree with all of it, but you do want to look for, even if you Disagree with overall what they said, there may be some nugget of truth in there that's very useful. And so it. You want to. You want to go into. You want to go into fascinated wonder. Even though overall I disagree with what you said, there's this one thing that you said that is very useful to me and it's going to help me improve. So I think that's important on the soliciting side of candor. And then when you're giving radical candor, when you're giving praise, you may notice that someone looks upset and like you had all these good. And like, how could my praise. You want to get curious about it. Or when you're giving criticism, somebody might yell at you. And that's hard. That's. It's really hard to care personally. If radical candor is about caring personally and challenging directly, it's very hard to care personally about someone who is yelling at you. And so you want to make sure that you are, you know, get that in that moment that you get curious, not furious, that you try to understand why this person is so upset. Like, could you have said it better and why, how you might have contributed to their upset, you know, or maybe there's something that has nothing to do with you. Maybe they're upset because their dog died that morning, you know, but you want to try to understand what's going on for that other person rather than shutting down or yelling back, you know, which is. Which is everybody's instinct, I think.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Yeah. I really appreciate that you elucidating the role of curiosity, both in the receiving and in the giving of candor to other people. Yeah, one of the end, you know, and how. And how when you were saying that part of caring personally is caring about what's their reaction about and what do they think and how do they see the situation.

[Kim Scott]

Yeah.

[Jeff Wetzler]

It reminds me of when I first looked up and learned the. The root of the word curious in Latin means to care. That's so good. I know to me it just underscores what you said. Part of caring personally is bringing curiosity. That curiosity itself is an act of care. That can be part of caring personally.

[Kim Scott]

I love it. I love it. Well, that's the perfect note to end on. I could talk to you for another hour, but I think we're at time. Ali said she's going to rewind and listen to it again. So I'm glad was helpful. Ally and Jeff, I just want to thank you so much for joining, for sharing your insights and thanks to everyone here for. For tuning in. If there's one thing I hope that everybody takes away from today, it's the power of shifting from certainty to curiosity. So thank you. Thank you so much.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Thank you for having me. I love our conversations.

[Kim Scott]

I always learn a ton of from every conversation. And we'll, we'll put out, we'll drop the a link to Jeff's article and Harvard Business Review into the notes and also a link to your book Ask.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Thank you. Great.

[Kim Scott]

All right.

[Jeff Wetzler]

Great to be with you.

[Kim Scott]

Great to be with you. Thank you. Take care. Yeah, bye. The Radical Candor podcast is based on the book Radical Candor be a kick ass boss without losing your humanity by me, Kim Scott. Episodes are produced with thanks to Podium production company with script editing by Amy Sandler. The show features Radical Candor co founders Jason Rosoff and me. It's hosted by Amy Sandler. Nick Persimi is our audio engineer. The Radical Candor podcasting music was composed by Cliff Goldbacher. Follow us on LinkedIn, Radical Candor the company and visit us at radicalcander. Com.