Childlike Curiosity in Leadership

Recently I watched a video on YouTube of a TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson on ‘Do schools kill creativity?’ The most fascinating part of the talk was a small little story, which he told about a 6 year old restless kid in a drawing lesson. This little kid hardly ever paid attention, but in a drawing lesson she did. The teacher was pretty surprised and went up to her and asked her “What are you drawing?”

“I am drawing a picture of God”, replied the little girl.

A baffled teacher said, “But nobody knows, what God looks like.”

Pat came the reply, “They will, in a minute.”

The little girl had absolutely no fear of being proved wrong. She was trying to do something that not many have done in the past. However she had no qualms of venturing into unexplored paths. In our Leadership Training Program, we encourage our participants to create a path for themselves rather than follow the conventional safe route.

As a child, we are open to new and innovative ideas and risk is seen as an opportunity. As we grow up, we become increasingly risk averse. We start classifying situations as good or bad, possible or impossible prompted by multiple factors - past experiences, fear of failure or complacency. What a tragedy!

When a toddler starts learning to walk, he falls multiple times. Each time he falls down, he picks himself up and starts trying again. He is undeterred by failure or pain. He is driven by instinct to walk. What happens to mankind as we grow up? We lose the ability to see each situation for what it is. No two situations are similar; hence we should have varied approaches for each one. But we start to store our past experiences and use the same approaches to similar situations thus losing our ability to innovate.

“Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious...and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” ― Walt Disney Company

When we are able to see situation as unique, we are able to generate new passion and novel strategies. This does not mean that we will not experience failures. But mistakes can be our best friend, and failures can be our best teacher. So stay hungry and stay foolish!

I leave you with a quote from Plutarch that magnificently summarizes what I have written: “The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”