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The Power of Curiosity
The Questions We're Not Asking: Why Curiosity Dies in Corporate Culture
"I'm a person who learns by asking lots of questions. Is this a place where I can ask those questions? And are the people here willing to take time to answer them? That's the best way I learn."
My daughter Mary asked this in a job interview. She was 20 years old, interviewing for one of her first nursing positions, and she had the clarity and courage to screen them for psychological safety before accepting an offer.
I was incredibly proud. But I was also heartbroken—because the question itself revealed a harsh truth: Mary and her peers had already worked in places where their questions were shut down, met with impatience, or answered with a blunt "stop asking so many questions."
Think about that. Young people entering the workforce have already learned that curiosity can be a liability. They've already been conditioned to fear the very thing that drives learning, innovation, and growth.
How did we get here? And more importantly, how do we create workplaces where people like Mary don't have to ask that question—because curiosity is already woven into the culture?
The Foundation: Psychological Safety Comes First
"At the heart of great leadership is a curious mind, heart, and spirit." – Chip Conley
Psychologist Amy Edmondson, who pioneered research on team psychological safety, defines it as "a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk taking." More simply: it's the belief that you can speak up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes without fear of humiliation or punishment.
Without psychological safety, curiosity cannot exist. When people fear looking incompetent, being dismissed, or facing retribution for not knowing something, they stop asking questions. They stop exploring. They stop learning.
Edmondson identifies three core leadership behaviors that support psychological safety: frame work as a learning problem rather than an execution problem, acknowledge your own fallibility, and model curiosity by asking questions. Notice that last one—model curiosity. Leaders must go first.
But here's the problem: most corporate cultures actively suppress curiosity instead of encouraging it.
Why Curiosity Gets Shut Down
"Curiosity is the best remedy for fear." – Mario Livio, astrophysicist
There are predictable patterns to how organizations kill curiosity:
Time Pressure and "Just Get It Done" Culture
The lack of workplace curiosity is linked to unrealistic demands on individual and team responsibilities, with employees struggling under workloads that leave no time for exploration or questions. When speed is the only metric that matters, questions feel like obstacles rather than opportunities.
Leaders Who Feel Threatened by Questions
Some managers interpret questions as challenges to their authority or competence. They view "I don't know" as weakness rather than honesty. So they shut down inquiry to protect their ego, not realizing they're destroying the very foundation of team learning.
Fear of Looking Incompetent
Employees quickly learn which questions are "safe" and which ones mark you as someone who "doesn't get it." According to the Businessolver State of Workplace Empathy Study, recent data shows a decline in perceived manager empathy and curiosity toward direct reports, with people making less effort to see things from others' points of view. When curiosity isn't modeled from the top, it becomes risky from the bottom.
Rewarding Certainty Over Inquiry
Historically, corporate cultures have prioritized efficiency and compliance over exploration. We promote people who have answers, not people who ask great questions. We celebrate decisiveness, not thoughtfulness. We reward confidence, not intellectual humility.
The result? Senior leaders and employees both cite time pressure and disconnect between leaders and employees as top barriers to curiosity Karenferris. People learn to keep their heads down, execute the plan, and save their questions for after work—if they ask them at all.
The Cost of Killing Curiosity
What happens when curiosity dies?
Innovation stalls. Problems go unnoticed until they become crises. People disengage. Learning stops. Organizations that prioritize curiosity and learning are 2.5 times more likely to be among top performers in their industry.
But beyond the business metrics, we lose something more fundamental: we lose people's full potential. Mary shouldn't have to negotiate for the right to learn. No one should.
Creating Conditions for Curiosity: Is It Really True?
"Let's open the floor to questions. There are no dumb questions here. Let's brainstorm!"
How many times have you heard that in a meeting? And how many times has the very first question been met with:
"Well, if you'd read the document..."
"We already covered that."
"That's not really relevant right now."
"Let me finish presenting first."
We say "no dumb questions" performatively. We say it because we think we're supposed to. But do we mean it? Do our actions back it up?
Creating conditions for real curiosity—not performative curiosity—requires intentional practice from both leaders and team members. Here's what that actually looks like:
Make Space for Questions—And Mean It
Don't just invite questions at the end of a meeting when everyone's already mentally checked out. Build time into the agenda specifically for exploration and inquiry. When leaders frame work as a learning problem rather than an execution problem, they signal that questions aren't interruptions—they're essential to the work itself.
If someone asks a question, stop and actually answer it. Don't rush past it. Don't defer it. Don't make them feel like they're slowing everyone down. The moment you dismiss one question, everyone else learns to stay quiet.
Leaders: Go First
Leaders must acknowledge their own fallibility and model curiosity by asking questions themselves. Say "I don't know" out loud. Ask your team what they think. Admit when you're uncertain. When leaders demonstrate that not knowing is acceptable—even expected—it gives everyone else permission to be curious too.
Ask questions like:
  • "What am I missing here?"
  • "What would you do differently?"
  • "Help me understand your thinking on this."
  • "What concerns do you have that we haven't discussed?"
Team Members: Speak Up
You don't need permission to practice curiosity. Ask your questions even when it feels uncomfortable. When a colleague asks a question and gets shut down, support them: "Actually, I was wondering the same thing" or "That's a good question—I'd like to hear the answer too."
Champion curiosity in your peers. When someone brings up a challenging question, thank them for it publicly. Create the culture you want to work in, starting with how you show up in every meeting.
Test for Real Psychological Safety
Here's how you know if your "no dumb questions" policy is real or performative:
  • Do junior team members speak up as freely as senior ones?
  • When someone asks a "basic" question, how do people react?
  • Are questions welcomed in the moment, or only after the meeting?
  • Do people ask clarifying questions, or do they nod along and figure it out later?
  • Has anyone recently said "I don't understand" without it hurting their reputation?
If the answer to these questions reveals gaps, you have work to do. And that work starts with one thing: actually meaning it when you say "no dumb questions."
The Challenge: Can We Advocate for Ourselves?
"Let your curiosity be greater than your fear." – Pema Chödrön
Mary knew what she needed to thrive. She knew how she learned best. And she had the courage to advocate for herself by asking a question that most of us—even decades into our careers—still don't ask: Is this a safe place to be curious?
Imagine if we all did that. Imagine if, in every interview, every new project kickoff, every team formation, we asked: "Is curiosity welcomed here? Will my questions be valued or seen as a burden?"
Better yet, imagine if we never had to ask—because the answer was already obvious in how people showed up, how meetings were run, and how leaders responded when someone said, "I don't understand."
We can't wait for organizations to fix this from the top down. Curiosity is built from the ground up, in every interaction, every meeting, every moment when someone dares to ask a question and someone else chooses how to respond.
So here's the challenge:
If you're a leader: Model the curiosity you want to see. Ask questions. Admit what you don't know. Protect the people who speak up. Make "no dumb questions" mean something real.
If you're a team member: Ask anyway. Advocate for yourself the way Mary did. Support your colleagues when they ask questions. Create the culture of curiosity you want to experience.
If you're building a team or an organization: Make psychological safety and curiosity non-negotiable. Screen for it. Measure it. Reward it. Make it clear that learning matters more than looking like you already know everything.
Because here's the truth: Curiosity isn't just a nice-to-have. It's how we innovate. It's how we learn. It's how we solve problems we've never seen before. And it's how we create workplaces where people like Mary don't have to negotiate for the right to ask questions—because asking questions is already woven into the DNA of how we work.
The questions we're not asking are costing us more than we know. It's time to start asking them.
Resources for Deeper Learning
If you're ready to build a culture where questions are valued and curiosity drives innovation, here are resources to guide your journey:
Essential Reading
  • The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson – The foundational work on creating psychological safety that enables curiosity and learning
  • The Business Case for Curiosity (Harvard Business Review article) – Research showing that cultivating curiosity at all levels helps leaders and employees adapt to uncertain market conditions and come up with more creative solutions.
For Further Exploration
The journey toward a curious culture isn't about having all the answers—it's about creating space where questions are welcomed, learning is valued, and psychological safety makes exploration possible.
References
Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Amy Edmondson. MITSage Journals
Psychological Safety and Accountability: Three Insights From NLI’s Conversation With Amy Edmondson: NeuroLeadership Institute
The Business Case for Curiosity: Francesca Gino: Harvard Business Review, September–October 2018 Issue
Andrea Seitz is the Founder of CREST Collaborative, bringing 25+ years of HR leadership experience including 9 years at Amazon building inclusion programs that reached tens of thousands of employees globally. She holds a Master's degree in Conflict Management and a Bachelor's degree in Communication. She specializes in culture transformation, employee relations, and creating human-centered workplaces where people genuinely want to work.
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