Curiosity: An awesome problem of supply and demand (for you!)
Chapter 3, page 7.
That's where the gold is. This interesting nugget:
"More than eight in 10 (84%) of the more than 3,000 workers we surveyed told us that it is the curious person who is most likely to bring an idea to life at work, but the majority of these employees do not necessarily consider themselves to be curious workers. In fact, just 20% of all employees surveyed self-identify as curious. Survey respondents were more likely to self-identify other qualities, like being organized, collaborative, and detail-oriented." (Source: Merck State of Curiosity Report 2016, https://curiosity.merckgroup.com/docs/Curiosity_Full-Report_English.pdf)
Most people recognize curiosity as a critical trait. But we're often unwilling to claim it as part of our identity.
That's actually really really good news if you're curious. That means fewer people are trying to distinguish themselves that way.
It's also important because, more and more, businesses are looking to hire curious people:
"Curiosity is the number one skill I look for in new hires and current employees. People who are going to drive our business forward and challenge others to do the same." - John Swanciger, CEO, Manta
Not surprisingly, and echoing the insight above, a Forbes story suggests that "intellectual curiosity" is one of the most sought after traits when hiring new employees. In my own research, I found that new employees that were curious had better performance three months into their new job than their less curious counterparts because they were getting more information and using it in unique ways.
So, most people don't identify as being curious, but more businesses want curious people. This is a great supply / demand problem.
If you're curious about how to be more curious - and now is a perfect time to #catchcurious! - a great place to start is to dig into the Curiosity Report I linked at the top (I obviously really like chapter 3).
I'm writing this post as part of my involvement in the Merck Curiosity Initiative, consisting of science and technology-based opinion leaders. It was established by Merck to seek connections between scientific research and the underlying question: Why Curiosity? Merck is known as Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany in the United States.