
The Business Case for Curiosity - dsr12
https://hbr.org/2018/09/curiosity
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crispyambulance
Curiosity is a great thing.

Sadly, to expect that mainstream corporations embrace it in any way is pretty
much a pipe-dream. You can't hire for it, it doesn't appear on the
"deliverables" time-line of derpy project managers, and it won't be recognized
during the ordeal of annual performance evaluations, EVER.

If corporations really wanted to act on "the business case" for curiosity,
they would have to do the one thing corporations suck the most at: let go--
ease off on controlling stuff.

That said, curious people are everywhere in spite of today's typical corporate
environments. They just exercise their curiosity in "out-of-band" ways on
projects or in the background during interstitial times. There are benefits
for the corporate overlords, they just don't recognize it.

I get the feeling, however, that there's going to be a comeuppance for the
ever-increasing data-driven performance management BS that seems to be out of
control these days. At some point, employees are going to be performance-
managed to the point where it is no longer possible to just satisfy your
project managers and then have the luxury of exploring stuff on your own. When
that happens, motivation will plummet among the most creative and productive
workers and they will either rebel or quit.

