The Curiosity Gap

Over the past couple of months, I’ve attended seminars like the Watermark Conference where I heard incredible women speak like Dr. Brene Brown, Author of Dare to Lead, and Sally Helgesen, the first to focus on what women have to contribute to organizations, rather than how they need to change and adapt. This has made me think a lot about why so many talented and smart leaders - men and women - find themselves unable to break through to the next level at their organizations or in their careers. These are people who really ought to be taking on bigger roles and more responsibility to move their companies and teams forward. 

Yet when that next opportunity opens up, it goes to someone else. Why?

There can be a lot of external factors that make people rise to the top, just as there are those that make them fail. Much of it is based on hard work and putting in the time, but soul-crushing politics and being in the right place at the right time can also play a role. Then, there are things that keep people stuck in one place; a self-defeatist attitude or spreading toxicity out of frustration and resentment. The lack of a good structured mentorship program also influences change, as well as the different standards placed upon women and men in the workplace that impact our lives in substantial ways.

When I look at the biggest career killer for a lot of talented people, it’s the Curiosity Gap; a way of thinking that creates a self-imposed impediment to leadership growth. You limit your curiosity about other subject areas because you believe you *need* to be an expert in one area only to get ahead. Recruiters and hiring managers make the same mistake when they become too limited in their search.

Curiosity bridges the silos in the marketplace. When hiring managers and prospects bridge this gap, people can push past the barriers they face to advance their careers and foster the desire to learn more, and become more well-rounded leaders.

What people with a Curiosity Gap have in common is a reluctance to take the risk of jumping into a new role, with new responsibilities, until they believe they have amassed all the expertise they need for the new task. As a result, an individual will spend an inordinate amount of time methodically building up specialized knowledge of today’s job, instead of tomorrow’s.

While there’s nothing wrong with expertise and knowledge, the danger is that the process becomes so all-consuming that there’s no room left for asking questions about your next role. When you keep building for what you already do, instead of being curious about what you will do next, you keep yourself from leaving what’s comfortable to take some risk. 

Think of your skill set as a box that you fill with what you learn in your career. You can fill that box entirely based on what you do today – or, you can leave 20% of the space to be curious. To think about what you’ll need to learn next. To imagine yourself there and activate upon it. More importantly, to connect that curiosity about the future with the things you already know and the experiences you’ve already had that will give you the ability to succeed. 

Walt Disney – who made the concept of “imagineering” famous – once said, “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” Leaving yourself the space to bridge the Curiosity Gap can give you the tools and confidence to take risks, seek out the next challenge in your career, and lead you down the path to become a better leader. Just don’t forget to do a kickass job with the one you’re in now, before hitching your wagon to the next star. How you leave your current role is always more memorable than how you came into it.