Culture of Curiosity
As a creative design agency it is important for us to form, discuss, and model our values for many reasons. Values help guide us and make sure we are aligned with each other and our clients. At Neon Carrot our values are diversity, positive impact, curiosity, empathy, and optimism and simplicity.
Curiosity is critical to being a good problem identifier, designer, and ultimately a good problem solver. For us, curiosity is framed in this way:
We believe that curiosity is an essential part of finding innovative solutions, and we surround ourselves with creative, curious thinkers who strive to learn and be a valuable part of the world.
When looking at our values, curiosity is interesting because it has direct ties to the other four values:
Diversity - diversity of background and thought makes us better people, and better creative problem solvers. Curiosity drives that discovery of diverse people, thoughts, and solutions.
Positive Impact - improve the world we live in. Curiosity has been proven to improve people’s quality of life, performance, and happiness.
Empathy - taking the time to learn about and understand others makes us better employees. Curiosity is at the core of learning and understanding others in order for us to design for others.
Optimism & Simplicity - work with the attitude that anything is possible, and challenge the status quo. Curiosity empowers us all to challenge conventional thinking and not settle for the first solution to a problem.
Curiosity is essential to our business and the success of our clients because it creates deeper engagement, and better solutions. When we practice curiosity, and surround ourselves with curious people, it actually makes us more curious - it’s like exercising a muscle - the more we use this “seeking system” the better and stronger it gets . Curiosity releases the feel good chemical dopamine.
There are five dimensions to curiosity:
Deprivation Sensitivity - need to satisfy that gap in our knowledge
Joyous Exploration - consumed with wonder, pleasurable, positive emotions
Social Curiosity - talking, listening, and observing others to learn
Stress Tolerance - willing to accept the anxiety associated with novelty
Thrill Seeking - taking risks to acquire varied, intense experiences
For business, the first four are important and social curiosity and stress tolerance are most important. Novelty can make us anxious, and we have to push through that anxiety to get to deeper levels of knowledge and understanding.
We spent some time researching best practices around creating curiosity. At Neon Carrot we look to foster curiosity in eight ways:
Hire for Curiosity - emulate the IDEO model of hiring “T” shaped employees with deep skills and a predisposition for collaboration across a wide range of disciplines .
Change the Environment - get away from our desks and get out into the world to become informed, inspired, and re-energized.
Model Inquisitiveness - as leaders and team members, model curiosity for each other, our clients, and our people out in the world.
Emphasize Learning Goals - as part of our quarterly reviews we set and monitor employee goals related to learning.
Let Employees Explore & Broaden Interests - as a creative agency we have a lot of space to explore our interests because almost anything is related to what we do.
Ask “Why?” “What if…?” and “How might we…?” - we ask “why” often, and build a culture of imagining, and challenging the status quo by asking questions.
Shift Our Perspective - make sure we are being empathetic to end users and put ourselves in their shoes, literally or figuratively.
Build Psychological Safety & Trust - make Neon Carrot a safe space to fail, and reward curiosity.
Because curiosity is so important to our success, we actually aim to carve out nearly a quarter of our week to being curious. Time that can be spent on education, reading, store visits, discussion, and out in the world activities. Having active minds makes us more creative, and drives business growth. This is time well spent, investing in our future.
We hope this brief overview on the importance of curiosity has inspired you or at least piqued your curiosity. Take a moment to Imagine what our culture of curiosity can do for you then reach out to us so that we can leverage our curiosity for your brand or organization.