My 20 year old day-planner continues to offer insight into my own personal styles of learning and management. I look at it several times throughout the day to check my short term goals and actions but sometimes I sit back and think ok, so what strategic thing have I initiated, or even more worrisome, completed today? I realized the saying “the cure for boredom is curiosity and there is no cure for curiosity!” has special meaning to executives. Dorothy Parker coined phrase this many years ago and perhaps a little late in life for some of us. I think it’s never too late to become curious and more valuable.
When we are in traditional employee roles and working for large corporations it’s very easy to get into an operations rut where one understands the role well enough that the weekly disciplines fall into predictable and safe patterns. This can be the beginning of boredom and the onset of stagnant periods in one’s career and often triggers long-term career progression issues. As consultants, we frequently run into this when leadership has lost the appetite for challenging staff or providing stretch goals for executives to move strategy forward into action. So what should one do in this situation? Start by getting more curious about a particular process or project you are involved in and try and determine how it impacts the company strategically. In competitive sailing we call this getting one’s head out of the boat! Dig a little deeper and see how the entire project (depth and breadth) works and you will quickly determine issues or plans where you can affect strategic change. This behaviour is part of the Managing Improvement (MI) process or transformational change, a much more powerful improvement strategy in the world of process improvement. It is very much the cure for boredom in the business world today and can spawn a genesis of value. Curiosity directed towards improvement and change is indeed a valued quality that renews your interest and, from an organization’s perspective, your value.
So when you have a minute, reflect on that project you are working on; sit back from the tactical work and look up and out of the boat! You will see all kinds of strategic value you can add to your organization!
