How can you maintain curiosity levels on innovation-driven projects for remote or hybrid teams?

1 Create a curiosity culture

One of the first steps to maintain curiosity levels is to create a culture that values and encourages curiosity. This means setting clear expectations, providing feedback, and rewarding curiosity behaviors. You can also model curiosity yourself by asking open-ended questions, sharing your own learnings, and inviting diverse perspectives. A curiosity culture also requires psychological safety, where team members feel comfortable to express their ideas, ask questions, and admit mistakes without fear of judgment or punishment.

3 Design curiosity challenges

A third way to maintain curiosity levels is to design curiosity challenges that stimulate team members to explore new topics, learn new skills, or apply new methods. Curiosity challenges are short-term projects or tasks that challenge team members to go beyond their comfort zone and discover something new. For example, you can ask your team to research a new trend or technology, learn a new tool or technique, or experiment with a new solution or prototype. You can also provide some incentives or rewards for completing the challenges, such as recognition, feedback, or prizes.

4 Encourage peer learning and mentoring

A fourth way to maintain curiosity levels is to encourage peer learning and mentoring among your team. Peer learning and mentoring are effective ways to foster curiosity, as they allow team members to share their knowledge, skills, and experiences with each other, and to learn from each other's insights, questions, and feedback. You can facilitate peer learning and mentoring by creating online spaces for knowledge sharing, such as forums, blogs, or podcasts, or by organizing online events, such as webinars, workshops, or hackathons.

5 Review and reflect on your progress

A fifth way to maintain curiosity levels is to review and reflect on your progress and learnings regularly. Reviewing and reflecting can help you and your team evaluate your innovation outcomes, identify your strengths and weaknesses, and celebrate your achievements and learnings. You can also use this opportunity to ask yourself and your team some curiosity questions, such as: What did we learn from this project? What surprised us? What challenged us? What can we do differently next time? These questions can help you and your team generate new insights, ideas, and questions for future innovation projects.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?