If you’ve ever spent time with a toddler, you’ll know that our questioning of “why” is innate. The impulse to be curious starts early. Still, as we age, and get bogged down by work and other worries, we can lose touch with that desire to understand the world around us and encounter new ideas.

That’s not always a good thing. At work, it can lead to feeling like a simple cog in the machine. The good news? You can exercise your curiosity muscle to get it back in shape. This article shares several strategies for those wondering — how curious of you! — how to cultivate curiosity.

Ask questions — even the dumb ones

Many of us at this point have endured schooling that teaches us to regurgitate facts and mark the correct bubbles on standardized tests. Work can feel comparable. There is a way things are done; it’s your job simply to do it that way. Only without knowing the why, or truly understanding the how, you might miss opportunities for improving processes or innovating new approaches.

Being confident enough to ask what might be deemed a “dumb question” could reap rewards such as:

• Putting a project on a fresh path to success by uncovering a new approach
• Expediting a process by uncovering wasted steps or other inefficiencies
• Helping you better understand your role, which improves your productivity and passion for the work
• Prompting someone else to explain their thinking helps them to recognize flaws in their approach

Ask questions — especially the divergent ones

Why are we belaboring the questions point?

What if we’d just moved on to the next paragraph without telling you about divergent questions?

I wonder what divergent questions are?

You’ve just seen three divergent questions. You can probably see how these questions open up many possibilities. Instead of pointing you in a particular direction (as what, when, and where questions do), the why, what if, and I wonder questions prompt you to imagine alternatives. This is critical thinking at its best, and it can put you on a whole new path to discovery.

Find answers IRL

How many times a day do you think, “let me just Google it” when you need to find an answer. In our digital age, we don’t allow ourselves to struggle long to remember something or find a response to a question. Yet, we can open ourselves up to new perspectives and new ideas by avoiding the instant gratification of getting so many search hits back in just moments.

By going into a physical bookstore or a library, taking a walk to think about a problem, or getting up from your device to ask someone else in your work environment a question, you open yourself up to serendipity. Instead of having a question and deciding which of the 20 answers Google spits back at you is best suited to your needs, you’ll give yourself an opportunity to think more about the question, why you’re asking it, and what else you might want to know to understand that concept or solve that problem.

As journalist Ian Leslie writes in his book, Curious: The Desire to Know and Why Your Future Depends on It, “The more we outsource our memories to Google, the less we are nourishing the wonderfully accidental creativity of our unconscious.”

Listen more

We typically associate curiosity with questions — a lot of them. But you can also learn new things and encounter fresh ideas by keeping your mouth shut. Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.”

By listening actively to others we can take in information we might not hear otherwise. If you go into an encounter with someone planning to simply have your say and move on, you’re closed to curiosity. If you listen to someone else thinking only about getting the information you need and already anticipating what you will say in response, you’re too focused on your objectives to be open to a new point of view.

Read widely

Reading in general can help cultivate curiosity. But you’re likely to see even more benefits if you read widely. When branching out from your normal fare, you’re more likely to encounter something new that can ignite a spark in you to learn more.

American psychologist B.F. Skinner is said to have observed, “The feeling of being interested can act as a kind of neurological signal, directing us to fruitful areas of inquiry.” Curiosity is a “neurological signal” we need to learn to heed. And it’s one we’re more likely to trigger when we read about new and different things.

Being able to think about your work drawing on an interest in all sorts of things, even things that seem unrelated, can improve your collaboration and communication skills. For example, if you’re trying to persuade two different colleagues of the same thing, you might put it to one in terms of sports to connect with one but refer to something you’ve read about the animal kingdom for the other.

Abandon routine

If you go into the office every day, you probably take the same route without even thinking about it. Even if you work remotely, you may have the same habits daily. We tend to establish routines because it makes life easier. But shaking up our patterns can open us to the novel and trigger new thoughts.

Take the drive to work. If you take a different route in you might see a new business being built. That could inspire a thought about a new collaboration you might try or a different product line you could introduce.

Sometimes our routines set us up for boredom. Or, at the very least, for doing things on autopilot. But it’s when we experiment and encourage our minds to both “wander and wonder” that we tap into something we can be passionate about.

Surround yourself with curious people

Put yourself in environments where people around you are looking to learn, expand their world view, and answer questions. This will encourage your curiosity. You might try one of the following:

• Attend a speaker series
• Go to a lunch n’ learn
• Join a book club
• Volunteer
• Take classes
• Visit other offices in your company (even different departments)
• Participate in networking events

Be curious about you, too

Curiosity doesn’t have to only face outwards. Being introspective and exploring your own self is another form of curiosity. Considering your past choices and thinking back over past experiences can enhance your self-awareness. Reflection can also help you counter the Dunning-Kruger Effect.

What’s the Dunning-Kruger Effect? So glad you’re curious to know! 😉 It’s a cognitive bias named after social psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger. In 1999, they had study participants perform tasks that tested grammar, humor, and logic. The ones that thought they would do the best actually scored the lowest. This is taken as evidence that having just a little knowledge of something can make us overconfident. So, the better you know yourself, the more you’ll recognize where you can benefit from curiosity.

This introspection can also extend to examining why you want to know something. By learning your own motivation for challenging, questioning, or pursuing more information, you can tap into the ever-powerful intrinsic motivation.

Wondering what’s next?

Of course we’re curious to know what you’ll do with this information. Or which of these strategies you’re most likely to try to prompt your own explorations. But we’ll have to leave those questions unanswered.

Fortunately, if you are curious about what those around you are thinking, we can help you ask the questions. Work with Sogolytics’ experts today to shape a survey that meets your needs.