Need for Curiosity in a Team

December 1, 2020

I have always wondered why well-established companies and products get disrupted so quickly by newcomers. There are tons of reasons but the one I like the most is the new perspectives that the newcomers have.

It is easy for teams to get trapped in a conventional mode of thinking. That is why I believe frameworks have such a fan following. I tried many frameworks and blamed myself when some of these didn’t work out in certain situations. This conversion of a framework into dogma is what destroys the curiosity and creativity of many teams out there.

When a particular framework or simply a thought process works out, there is a tendency to stick to that. A low level of innovation in many industries might be due to this. Also, the level of adoption of these “successful” processes is very high. Once Apple comes up with a design other major companies try to adopt that design. What's stopping them from thinking differently?

In ancient times it was prophesied that whoever undid the Gordian Knot would rule the land. The “proper” process was trying to untie the knot. Alexandar did a small hack. He drew his sword and cut the knot in half, the prophecy was fulfilled. Alexander became “the Great”.

The promotion of flexible processes and hacks within teams can ensure better creativity. This culture should begin at an individual level. Each team member should be encouraged to experiment. The experiments may or may not fail, but the freedom will help them to find new hacks or solutions which will ultimately improve the outcome.

A candor culture like Braintrust in Pixar can help each team member to find a new perspective that challenges their existing notion about something.

The Braintrust is a group of trusted colleagues that gets together periodically to review the progress of a Pixar film that is in development: the characters, the story, and the design. According to Ed, the job of the Braintrust is to “push towards excellence, and root out mediocrity.”

“The Braintrust is valuable because it broadens your perspective, allowing you to peer — at least briefly — through others’ eyes.” ~Ed Catmull

When new perspectives are constantly introduced, it will lead to more thinking. The probability of strengths turning to dogma is very low. The team will discover new paths or hacks based on the needs of the product or the company. They won’t end up having a hammer as the only tool, so they won’t treat everything as a nail.

In practice, we can try creating an environment like Braintrust. There is no hierarchy in Braintrust and everyone is free to share their ideas and opinions. From an intern to top-level executives. I also think premortems will be a great addition.

In ‘Delivering Happiness’, Tony Hsieh talks about setting up a book recommendation for all the people at Zappos. After five years, it ended up becoming a library available for all the employees and visitors. Many of these books became required reading for the employees for their growth and learning. They also set up classes to go over these books.

Be it a book reading, a fireside chat; anything that helps the team members get new insights and challenge their existing beliefs will do the job. (Expect more thoughts on this…this author has to get more experience on the practical side)

While this looks good and easy on paper, it will take time and effort to create such a culture. Since this is an upstream effort the results won’t be instant. The team under such a culture won’t be perplexed when the problem is “out of their syllabus,” they will simply dance with the problem and find a way around it.

An insightful essay on Independent Thinking by Paul Graham.