by Evan Hackel

An excerpt from my new book Ingaging Leadership: The Ultimate Edition

Curiosity will be most powerful when you democratically reward curious people for the work they have done and the things they have learned. In other words, awarding a “Most Curious Employee” award will probably demotivate more people than it motivates. You want everyone to be encouraged to inquire and learn.

However, there is nothing wrong with rewarding your most curious people with new projects that will allow them to become even more curious and to learn and grow more. You can bring the leader of a research project into your office, for example, and say “Do you think the strategies you learned on your last project about improving customer service training could be used to improve the training we give to our service reps? . . . can you put on your thinking cap about that?”

The idea is to identify the team members who have shown the greatest aptitude for curiosity and find ways to keep the ball rolling.

Action to take: Privately, identify the people everywhere in your organization who have shown the greatest enthusiasm for learning. Without marginalizing other people, is there a way you can cultivate these top curious performers, so they express even more of their curiosity and draw other employees into the process?

Talk about the Results of Curiosity throughout Your Communications and Activities

In your town hall meetings with employees, talk about the results that curious people achieved. Do the same in the videos and employee profiles you post on your company website and elsewhere. Write about the results of curious activity wherever you can – in the newsletters you send to your customers, on your company blog, in the customer profiles you post on your website, and even in your sales materials.

Don’t hide your curiosity or what it has achieved. If you talk about it enthusiastically and openly, you can further help the power of curiosity spread company wide.

Also, reward curiosity and learning with awards, commendations, and other public shows of appreciation. You want everyone in your organization, as well as your clients, vendors, and others on the “outside” to know you are a curious organization. It is up to you to tell them . Who else will?