Inquiriosity
In February we talked about operating from below the line, in a reactive state. In March, we did a deep dive into why practicing awareness is the starting point when we’re here. This month we’re talking about where to go from awareness.
And where we go is toward curiosity + inquiry.
From awareness, moving into curiosity is foundational for navigating our everyday experiences, especially when stuff gets challenging and we’re feeling fired up or beaten down by either by stuff going on inside us or outside us.
Curiosity is a sincere openness to understanding and learning. Many leaders say of course they’re curious: they love to learn! They’re interested and interesting! They’re inquisitive! These things may be aspects of curiosity but they don’t define it.
These same leaders who say they’re curious will also bulldoze conversations, manipulate them to go their way. Ask self-serving, leading questions, fight to the death to prove their point.
Sincere curiosity means being open to what we receive. It requires letting go of our need to be right. It doesn’t mean we always agree but it has us holding our differences with others not as an affront or separation but almost neutrally, where we are open to exploring differences.
In this form, curiosity is a foundational mindset, a way of being. Inquiry is the form that curiosity takes—it’s curiosity in action.
Here’s how to pull them altogether when you’re below the line, in reactivity, defensiveness and fear:
Awareness (from last month)
When something happens you notice:
Physical contraction, heat, tension
Uncomfortable emotions like anger, fear, sadness, etc,
Thoughts running through your head that you may see as stories (mindfulness of the mind!),
Curiosity
You consciously choose to learn, understand and be open to others’ points of view
You notice when you’re “attached” to being right and you check it
You hold this dialog with neutrality and non attachment
(Watch this excellent short explainer video Choosing Curiosity over Being Right from the Conscious Leadership Group)
Inquiry
You give your curiosity voice by asking yourself/others:
What stories am I telling myself about what’s happening and what do I know to be 100% true? What assumptions am I making/are you making?What is your understanding of what happened?
What facts do you have that I don’t? And vice versa
How did you come to that conclusion/decision?
What don’t we know? What do we need to know?
Like that.
The 5th Discipline Fieldbook, a classic about how to become a learning organization, says the value of these qualities is most apparent “in their absence.” Double down on our rightness by not hearing or considering other people’s perspectives and ideas
Argue our position by talking faster, louder, more forcefully
Ask but don’t truly listen by shutting down others, talking over them, lining up our arguments for what we’ll say next
See our point of view as objective and others’ as subjective
We’ve seen ourselves or others go down this road and it’s a dead end: low engagement and collaboration, misalignment, unclear commitments, silos, not getting the results we say we want. And on and on.
The happier destination depends on inqueriosity. And now you have the map.
Next month we explore when we’re below the line and feel under threat, what’s actually at threat (Hint……. )