How a curiosity guru will help you get more of the 3-Ps: Purpose, Promotion and Pay

If you really want to transform the skills of your team and embrace a continuous learning culture, then take a leaf out of the book of one of my favourite CEO’s.

He’s one of my best clients and also one of the wealthiest individuals I’ve ever worked with, though the money is the least interesting thing about him. It’s his innate curiosity that makes him stand out as a truly inspiring and visionary CEO. He wants to learn. Is desperate to learn. From me, his closest advisers and the gaggle of young go-getters he surrounds himself with. All of us have been chosen because we’re not from his world, have skills that he doesn’t and backgrounds that are different from his senior colleagues. We’re outsiders.

Sometimes it feels as if my CEO is not just leading, he’s training. Himself and others. And yet so many leaders don’t realise how important training is.

Recent figures from CYPHER Learning suggest that more than three quarters of staff are more likely to stay with an employer that prioritises training and development. 麦肯锡 consultants believe that if you upskill – learning new techniques from outside organisations – your productivity will increase by up to 12 per cent and your salary by as much as ￡25,000 .

In our always-on, AI-fuelled working arenas, we need to develop the kinds of softer ‘human’ skills we take for granted. We need to be more strategic and empathetic, offer tailored recommendations based on what ChatGPT and others tell us, we need to be more culturally aware and ask smarter questions. And, most of all (though I would say this, wouldn’t I?), we need to find, make and tell better stories. We are drowning in data and we need to communicate those insights in a way that seduces, engages and excites the brain. That’s what stories do. And that’s what outsiders bring: new storytelling perspectives.

So I’m looking forward to Learning at Work Week (May 13-17) run by the Campaign for Learning because it’s a chance for HR and learning teams to reassess how they lift their colleagues by offering them new skills through coaches and mentors. I read a recent piece in The Times in which LinkedIn ’s UK country manager Janine Chamberlin and the director of the CIPD David D'Souza both spoke about why it’s so important that companies invest more in skills training.

I’m looking forward even more to next month’s Storytelling Conference , organised by the Market Research Society (MRS) and which I’ve been asked to Chair. Curiosity is going to be the red thread running through so much of the day and if you click on that link above, you'll be able to secure an invite. How can people who work in the insights and research industries learn from other professions so that they can be even more valuable to their clients?

One of our most valuable talents has, ironically, been dulled by decades of systemic thinking in which corporations have prioritised methodologies over our innate ability to ask: ‘What else? So what?’ and myriad other questions. In particular, learning from outsiders to more fully serve our stakeholders’ constantly-changing needs.

My company EveryRung is upskilling FTSE-350 companies by bringing the newsroom into their organisations, showing them how journalistic techniques can bring them closer to customers, elevate their influence and help them stand out from the crowd. And in my experience it’s those companies which place a premium on curiosity – that are willing to challenge themselves – that truly understand what skills training means.

It’s not about a refresh, it’s about learning something new.

If your CEO is doing it, then why aren’t you?

So please come along to the conference, where there’ll be presentations from Boots UK , Close Brothers , Triumph Group , Chivas Brothers , Sky , 百安居 , Just Eat Takeaway.com and others about how storytelling has transformed their brands.

And I’ll be running my own session alongside some storytelling pioneers who I want to learn from: Ian Hudson from Bloomsbury Publishing Plc who is one of the industry’s titans, Chris Hides who runs one of the country’s most innovative communications companies The Academy , Sophie Meyer who has been part of the team behind films like St Trinian’s and Rye Lane, and Emma Wicks , head of analytics at The Telegraph .

I might even tell you who the super-wealthy CEO is.

(Spoiler: I won’t.)