Forget Teaching Hard and Soft Skills. Activate Employee Curiosity...

We have recently been taking great strides with learning and talent management initiatives at Gojek so as to raised support and grow our talent pool.

We have introduced online learning platforms and offline learning sessions, where employees can devour hard and soft skills for the workplace. We’ve also introduced GoXplore and GoIMPACT, which are structured programs to recruit interns and fresh graduates respectively. Our goal is to draw in and train bright young talent as full-time Gojek employees.

While new tools and technology have enabled us to organize, administer, track, and optimize our learning and development programs during a rapidly growing company, I’ve often wondered if these are sufficient to stay up with the ever-changing demands of the fashionable workplace. How far can we, as a corporation, attend make sure that employees are learning the proper skills within the most effective ways?

The more I feel about this challenge - my thoughts combined with past experiences in talent development - the more I realize that the maximum amount as we mention skills for the longer term and skill shortages, the workplace doesn’t have a skills problem. We’ve got a curiosity problem.

Why curiosity?

Employees attend learning and development programs within the workplace for several reasons: out necessarily, out of the will for career advancement, and out of curiosity. Of these, curiosity has perhaps the best value and maybe a higher predictor of enhanced performance.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines “curiosity” as an eager wish to find out about something. Curiosity drives individuals to enhance themselves, not just in their professional lives, but also in their personal lives. a possible product of curiosity may be a cross-pollination of ideas between our personal and professional lives.

The book Originals by Adam Grant quotes a current study by the Michigan State University, which discovered that Nobel prize winners were powerfully more likely to be involved within the arts than fewer skilled scientists. The study differentiates every Nobel Prize-winning scientist from 1901 to 2005 and located that engagement within the arts, like music, art, writing, and performing, increased their odds of winning the Nobel prize by up to 22 times. Another representative study of thousands of USA citizens showed similar results for entrepreneurs and inventors.

Pursuing personal interests outside of labor, like within the arts, not only reflects one’s curiosity and aptitude but also can function a strong source of creative insight at work.

Curiosity within the workplace

In the context of the workplace, I think that curiosity boils right down to three things. Curiosity is first, admitting that you simply don’t know everything, second, the assumption that there's never only one thanks to solving a drag, and eventually, the will to explore alternative ways to unravel a drag.

There is much talk among those in leadership roles to assist our team members to achieve their full potential. I think that activating a way of curiosity in them and cultivating an environment of openness, maybe a good place to start out.

I moved to Indonesia about four years ago. I had been working in developed countries all my life and knew that moving to an emerging market like Indonesia will present an entirely different set of perspectives and challenges.

One of which is the belief that leaders have all the answers.

I remember a payroll manager during a company I used to be working with at the time arising to me with an issue about taxes. In my mind, I said, ‘One, I’m new the country. Two, I'm not a tax expert. And three, she’s been within the company for therefore long, she knows Indonesia, and she or he clearly has the talents to unravel this complex issue about tax’.

So I checked out her and asked, “What does one think? what's your recommendation?” I can always remember that look on her face. She checked out me and said, “You know what, nobody has ever asked me that.” I used to be surprised. I could hardly believe it. She went away to explore a spread of options, and that we solved the difficulty together, together with her ensuring the seamless implementation of the answer. I saw her grow through that incident and still grow in her career.

This story stayed with me throughout my schedule in Indonesia, even after changing companies twice. There are multiple reasons on why I feel to ask questions in situ of providing solutions are powerful. I think the question I posed to the payroll manager sent a couple of different messages, which are one - I respect your expertise, I feel you recognize the solution or have the power to seek out two - I, as a pacesetter, don’t know everything, and three - I’m not getting to offer you answers that I don’t think I even have the proper approach to. which becomes a strong thanks to transforming individuals to believe their own ability to seek out solutions to problems.

She came to me because she didn’t know the solution. I asked her what she thought it had been. She started brooding about the way to solve it then found ways to unravel it in ways she previously wouldn’t. That, to me, is operating the loop of curiosity.

This incident changed my perspective to acknowledge the facility of questioning transcends geography and culture. From this, I learned that the sensible step on behalf of me to activate curiosity in my colleagues and peers is to ask reflective questions.

I’ve observed that capable, intelligent people within the workplace, like this payroll manager, don’t lack the talents to unravel problems. What they could need maybe a gentle nudge within the sort of an issue, like ‘What does one think?’ or ‘How can we approach it?’ to activate them to hunt the answers on their own.

The changing role of talent development in organizations

If curiosity, not skill, is that the problem, then the way organizations believe talent development will fundamentally need to change.

Many organizations, Gojek included, currently take a more programmatic approach to learning. we've got a series of learning objectives, come up with a curriculum, and make a bunch of content to impart the talents we expect our employees need. But what if we could teach employees a skill which will activate them to select up of these other skills on their own? What if all we'd like to show employees are just the way to learn and be curious?

Changing the way employees learn also means a change within the ways we measure learning. Most learning KPIs currently reflect a really transactional approach to learning. We track things just like the percentage in fact completion, employees’ satisfaction rates with our courses, or the many pop quizzes. What we don’t track is whether or not these courses have activated employees to dive deeper into the subject of interest. If employees devour a course at work on topic A, are they curious enough to seem up related topics B, C, and D?

Transforming the organizational approach to talent development would require going back to elemental psychology and methodologies behind learning.

I particularly just like the Montessori approach to infancy education. Dr. Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was an Italian physician and anthropologist who, by scientifically noticing children everywhere the planet, located universal patterns of development found in children no matter era and culture. She distilled her findings into a way of childhood education for youngsters up to fifteen years old that's supported self-directed activity, hands-on learning, and collaborative play.

Montessori classrooms are thoughtfully-designed environments where every material supports a facet of kid development. Children can respond at any moment to the natural curiosities within the classroom, building a foundation for lifelong learning.

Many folks start our lives curious. Toddlers pick things up, smell things, put them into their mouths. Many lose that sense of curiosity along the way. How can we, as organizations, reactivate our employees’ sense of curiosity? Can we combine the knowledge domain of learning, like Montessori’s methodology, with practical applications within the workplace to rework the way we develop our talent?

I don’t have all the answers. But collectively, we will determine.