it has a timer on it I didn’t buy the
toaster for the timer I bought it the
way you buy toasters which was for its
size in its color but when I got at home
I realized that toasters are greatly
improved by timers I don’t know about
you but there are times in my life I’ve
popped the bread early because I
couldn’t stand to wait another second I
didn’t know how long it was gonna be
felt like forever turns out when I know
it’s 23 seconds and the toast will be
exactly the way I want it I’m willing to
wait it’s a little bit of human
psychology that somebody at the toaster
manufacturer went to the trouble of
figuring out the timer on my toaster is
a symbol to me a reminder of the kinds
of innovation that businesses undertake
the really relentless pace of innovation
that businesses undertake and you know
businesses do this because they want a
bigger share of the toaster market they
want to charge more for their toaster
they want to make money but it doesn’t
matter why they do it because they do it
we get a better world we get better
products and better services all the
time but that timer is also a reminder
to me of something else something I
believe really passionately and that is
that that thirst to do better is
innately human it’s in all of us many
years ago I came across a chart of the
quality of human life over thousands of
years and for thousands of years the
quality of life for mankind didn’t
change much from one generation to the
next
it was basically a flatline and there’s
a moment in history when it started to
hockey stick straight up that moment
right about the 15th century the
Gutenberg press this clumsy device of
Gutenberg’s changed everything for human
beings because all of a sudden
information ideas experiences that
previously had been lost or forgotten
and literally buried we’re now stored
shared and here’s the best part
improved upon so from this moment you
got this galloping increase in human
prosperity and it became the norm for
one generation to give to the next the
gift of more better fast-forward to
today and you say okay well if
technology and information are the
secrets to wealth and and prosperity we
should be in great shape we’ve never had
more of either of those things
have you heard about the computer
they’ve created that’s basically human
it’s not so much that it reasons like a
human yet but when it makes a mistake it
blames another computer just to say
technology gets us so far but in the end
what we do with that matters and we fast
forward to today and we as you all know
stand poised as the first generation in
this nation’s history in danger of
breaking that chain in danger of leaving
our kids poorer than we are it’s not a
great story it’s not a good legacy it’s
not the one that I want to be my story
but I really believe as passionately as
I believe in our human thirst to make
things better that we don’t have to
accept that story we don’t have to let
that be how this unfolds we can change
it that innovation I started to explore
what is it and more importantly how do
we create an environment for it we know
we want it we like it when we get it but
how do we actually foster it so I
started asking business leaders who seem
to have figured it out in their
businesses what does that look like and
years ago a man gave me an answer that
changed my thinking forever
he said it’s just creating an
environment that allows for why and why
not and I thought that sounds really
simple why don’t why not think about it
a little longer and you realize it’s
actually terribly hard why and why not
are hard words they’re the hardest words
we have they ask us to think about
things we weren’t thinking about do
things we didn’t plan to do stop doing
things we did plan to do why and why not
run into the status quo bias in human
beings the status quo bias occupies the
reptilian level of our brain it’s that
part of us that says the thing I’ve
already done the thing I know how to do
it didn’t kill me I’m doing that again
that thing I don’t know how to do the
ambiguous it’s the psychic equivalent of
a dark cave I don’t know what’s in there
I won’t do it but then I thought what
why and why not what is that it’s
curiosity how do I know with a hundred
percent certainty that everybody in this
room is a natural-born innovator a
hundred percent of us because we were
all once two years old
spend time with a toddler lately
toddlers ask why
toddlers ask why for a living toddlers
ask why was such relentless pace that it
comes to define a stage of human
development we all did this and I
thought where did that go
how did we lose it because we did lots
of research showing that the number of
questions we asked as we age dwindles
dramatically and interestingly the
corresponding number of times we laugh a
day falls as well but where did it go
there’s research I found University of
Michigan Hawaii conducted a study and
they asked the question how does an
adult caregiver respond to a toddler’s
curiosity and some horrifying percentage
of the time the answer to the curiosity
is a variation of get lost
I don’t know I’m cooking dinner ask your
father and the researchers took the next
step to say why do the caregivers
respond that way they care for the child
presumably it’s because the adult in
that scenario sees the curiosity is a
negative trait attention seeking a
stalling tactic not what it is which is
a young brain learning about its world
our brains are wired for curiosity it’s
how we learn they also took the step to
say how do you stop the incessant whys
the answer heartbreakingly simple you
give the child an answer that satisfies
it instead we teach our children that
their curiosity is irritating unpleasant
they’re at the age where they can’t
repress their curiosity but they’re also
at an age where they begin to see the
effect they have on the people they care
about they see it bugs mom dad leaves
the room I was in an airport not long
ago and I saw a family running the other
way mother father two kids and I
overheard the father saying to his son
who looked to be about six because I
know if I answer it you’ll only ask
another one and I laughed and then I
wanted to run after them in stage an
intervention then we send our kids to
school house curiosity at school how was
it at your school I won’t say anything
educators don’t know our schools were
perfectly designed for the early
industrial era and they are absolutely
imperfect for a post
Industrial one the paradigm is the
teacher has the answer and she’s going
to give it to the students linearity and
speed begin to be rewarded and something
else teachers have been polled and asked
which students they dislike the most you
know what they say the disruptive ones
guess what those kids are doing a lot of
the time so at school were taught that
now our curiosity which was already
unpopular has real-world negative
ramifications it gets a seated at the
back it gets us called on last you know
there’s a really simple test that people
do innovators I think of them the
experts in this field of where you are
on the spectrum of innovation cast your
mind back to grade school close your
eyes and imagine being there where are
you comfortable there I don’t mean were
you a good student you might have been
straight a it doesn’t matter if you felt
slightly uncomfortable in that
environment you’re probably closer to
the step change end of the innovation
spectrum we’re all on the spectrum
somewhere if you really liked it you’re
probably more at the pragmatic end and
if you loved it you’re a teacher the
systems don’t change because the people
that enjoy them stay in them
incidentally we better wouldn’t be great
to think that as we rise up to higher
education that these problems resolved
that somehow curiosity and and why and
why not were more welcomed they’re not I
mean our universities with respect are
almost as outdated as our lower schools
why why do we have 300 students with one
professor it goes back to a time when
that professor had the only copy of the
book or hadn’t written it yet we’re
fixing all of this but by the time we
leave school and go to work we’ve really
have repressed our natural curiosity how
does curiosity at work how is it at your
work you know when I looked at
businesses and looked at the systems
that work for and against this culture
of innovation
two big culprits that can foster it but
most often kill it
HR and IT tragically two systems
designed to help us be better do better
but their systems driven and systems
rely on same status quo bias now its
organizational
but the good news about your curiosity
is your brain wants to be curious
so reawakening it is dead simple it’s
literally a matter of giving yourself
permission I am an innovator I am
curious it is okay because it feels good
curiosity is how you learn but it also
means you’re engaging you’re paying
attention to your life and that feels
good your own curiosity will come back
in a flash other people’s curiosity
still annoying be mindful of that
because you have to actually give other
people permission to be curious too it
can still feel like a challenge or
attention-seeking especially in an
organizational environment but getting
to the why and by the way it isn’t just
why and why not it’s the right question
of course that’s important because one
thing we learned in school is that
getting your answer fast is rewarded so
we rush to our answer and once we have
it we love it how many times have you
asked a question received your answer
and it doesn’t quite fit and instead of
saying if my answer doesn’t fit I ask
the wrong question nope we wrestle our
answer to the ground this has to work
it’s my answer you know one of the folks
who deals with groups to help them learn
to think innovatively to ask the right
question he does it by asking people to
pose a question of a personal nature
because we relate better to those in a
how-to form and he tells the story of a
man in one of his seminars who asked the
question how do I lose weight so they
started parsing out that sentence and
Claude Legrand is the man’s name he had
a few questions for this fellow how much
do you want to lose have you ever lost
weight before the guy wanted to lose
about 40 pounds he’d been successful
before 35 pounds once 28 another in the
end what they established is that the
right question for this man is not how
do I lose weight it’s how do I keep the
weight off why do I regain weight and
the difference between those two
questions is is not small it’s profound
how do I lose weight is what we would
call a complicated or linear question my
12 year old knows the answer its
scientific in nature if you ingest fewer
then you expend an energy you lose
weight why do I regain weight well
that’s what we would call a complex
question it’s not linear your past
experience is often useless to you other
people’s experiences are often useless
we do not like complex questions and by
the way the minute we touch a complex
question it starts to change we much
prefer to live over here in this
scientific we were trained that way our
brains are wired for it but we’re also
adults and we can choose to slow down
enough to get to the complex something
occurred to me though even when we go to
this trouble we re awakened our natural
curiosity we get the Y right we bring it
back into our lives and we use our
mature adult brains to slow down enough
to make sure we get the right answer
we still don’t do anything with it we
don’t like change often we have an
answer and we don’t do anything in fact
I would say everybody in this room has
one or two things you want to do and
don’t and I don’t mean think you should
do I mean you’ve literally want to do it
and you still don’t Harvard Business
School did a study of at risk patients
patients who were engaging in behaviors
like smokers in danger of emphysema
diabetics who were eating badly and gave
them all kinds of tools and training to
help them stop doing those things and
live 87% of them couldn’t do it 87% of
us would rather die than change so what
is that well it turns out it’s also
biological it is also neurological we’re
wired against change because we’re wired
for efficiency to do the thing we
already know means we can do it faster
we can do it by rote we do not like the
change and what we feel about change is
in the weakness neurologically the
discomfort the intolerance we feel for
that is real but we also know just by
looking around but some people get it
some people have cracked the code that
that discomfort is the secret that you
can actually learn to enjoy it as a
signal that something real and important
is about to happen so I went to find
some of these people
their stories are arranged some of them
chose change some of them have changed
thrust upon them but they have
strategies that they used for the how
how do I manage this I think of them as
the three ms mindfulness mindset and
meeting mindfulness cos actually just
paying attention to what you feel Rob’s
it of its power this comes from
addiction research which is colliding
with neuroscience in a way that’s really
useful for the rest of us if you pay
attention to a craving or a discomfort
you feel you’ve robbed it of its power
you can also by being mindful pay
attention to why you want to do the
thing or not do the thing you’re doing
we don’t do much of that in our lives
mindset is as you know a growing field
of research
gratitude changing how you perceive
something we don’t think much about our
emotions we don’t measure them we’re a
measurement crazy society and yet we’ve
put no metrics around happiness or
sadness there’s a company based in
Waterloo called plasticity and they have
a desktop tool to engage with employees
the thing I like about this tool is it
actually puts a rubric around your
feelings so you sit down at your desk
and it says how are you today on a scale
of 1 to 100
and you might say traffic was lousy I
yelled at my 12 year old this morning
I’m late for my meeting I’m a 65 you sit
down the next day and you just found out
your mother has cancer now I don’t know
what your number is that day but were
you a 65 it starts to actually give us
ways to measure and put perspective
around emotions and having the right
mindset to tolerate the discomfort can
make all the difference you see it in
research after research meaning is a big
one we know it intuitively if we
understand the why the real import
behind something we’re much more likely
to do it you know one story that I love
which came from a friend of mine who
helped organizations change but for
years was a he’s a psychologist who was
a marriage counselor
he realized that he was a change agent
he tells the story of Mike and Kathy it
was a couple Mike had a big day wanted
to go to bed early but Kathy wakes him
up after
a little wild Mike I’m really cold so he
gets up and gets her a blanket it was
kind of cold goes back to sleep a little
while later Kathy wakes him up again
like I don’t know what’s going on it’s
freezing in here
goes and gets her a hot water bottle she
wakes him again a little while later
Mike I don’t know what’s going on he’s
like I got a good I’ve got to sleep so
he goes downstairs and gets her warm
milk and he brings it up to her and she
says you know Mike when I was a little
girl and I told my mother I was cold she
would hold me and Mike takes a deep
breath and he says look Kathy you said
you were cold I got you a blanket I got
you the hot-water bottle I’ve got the
whore milk here I’m not driving across
town and getting your mother but we do
this we talk across each other we think
we’re making ourselves clear and we’re
not and we do it to ourselves to if we
don’t actually absorb the meaning of the
change we have no hope of doing it but
when we marry the why which is the fun
part to the how that adult
thoughtfulness around this discomfort
that comes naturally to us we get to the
best place of all it’s the place that
toaster timers come from why and how gets us to now what thank you