Alison Strath
15.9K posts
@alisonstrath
Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Scotland @scotgovhealth Emeritus Professor @RGUpharmacy supporter of @dundeeunitedfc
On this day in 1987: An incredible night for Dundee Utd as they won 2-1 at Barcelona. The home team had Gary Lineker and Mark Hughes in their side but they failed to overturn their 0-1 deficit that they had going into this QF 2nd leg.
Curiosity is one of the most strategic capabilities that we need at times of profound change & uncertainty. For leaders of change, I would define “curiosity” as engaging with uncertainty: focusing on gaps in our knowledge, exploring them with others, seeking other possibilities & using what we learn to adapt decisions, relationships & systems for better outcomes. Uncertainty automatically triggers threat responses in our brains, narrowing attention and pushing us into “fight‑flight‑freeze” patterns that shut down creativity & collaboration. As leaders under rising pressure, we tend to seek quick closure, filter out disconfirming data & dig in with our initial interpretations, which is the opposite of what complex change requires. Curiosity creates a different pathway. When we become genuinely interested in “what is really going on here?” we recruit neural networks linked to exploration, problem‑solving & reward. Leaders who show interest, ask open questions & tolerate “not knowing yet” help teams move from defensiveness to discovery. In practice, that can be as simple as shifting the first question in a crisis meeting from “How do we fix this?” to “What might we be missing about this situation? Research on “information gaps” shows that curiosity is triggered when we become aware of something important we do not yet know; the gap itself generates energy to learn. People often feel most curious at moderate levels of uncertainty—enough ambiguity to stimulate interest, but not so much that the situation feels hopeless. For change leaders, this means uncertainty gets reframed as a shared learning agenda: “Here is what we know, here is what we don’t, & here are the questions we need to explore together.” This approach treats ambiguity as a resource rather than a personal failure of leadership & invites collective sense‑making instead of people waiting for instructions or answers. How to build a culture of curiosity in uncertain times: 1. Model visible curiosity every day: Regularly say “I don’t know yet”, “Tell me more” & “What am I missing?”, signalling that questions are welcome, not a weakness. 2. Design meetings around questions, not updates: Start sessions with 2–3 priority questions (e.g. “What’s the most important thing we don’t understand about this issue?”) instead of long slide decks. 3. Actively encourage questioning & learning: Publicly thank team members who raise awkward issues or ask clarifying questions, & link this to your values/behaviours framework. 4. Create simple learning & experimentation routines: Encourage small, safe‑to‑try tests of change & make it explicit that “failed” experiments are successes if they generate useful learning. 5. Bring in diverse perspectives by design: Mix roles & disciplines in problem‑solving sessions & deliberately ask “who else needs to be in this conversation?”. Building a culture of curiosity is not about adding extra components on top of an already overloaded change agenda; it’s about changing the way we pay attention. In an uncertain world with shifting demands, shared curiosity is no longer a “nice‑to‑have”; it can be the difference between repeatedly coping & continuously improving. See e.g., performancefrontiers.com/insights/curio… Performance Frontiers. Post by inspired by this graphic from by @tnvora
