4 Ways to Make Your IT Teams More Curious

3.  Prioritize curiosity in hiring practices

For those that do need to seek outside help, gauging curiosity in hiring practices can help IT leaders identify picks that demonstrate a learning mindset, adaptability, and proactive problem-solving skills, says Kholodenko.

“By assessing applicants’ interest in emerging technologies and their ability to ask insightful questions, IT leaders can build teams capable of evolving with industry trends and consistently driving innovation.”

Curiosity ensures potential hires not only keep their skills sharp but also remain open to learning new ones, behavioral expert and previous MBA program chair at the Forbes School of Business and Technology Dr. Diane Hamilton told Forbes.  “It’s what turns a good employee into a great one because they’re constantly looking for ways to improve and innovate.”

4. Encourage experimentation by exposing talent to emerging technologies

Stepping out of the box is a necessity when looking to grow curiosity and reap the rewards, and this means exposing the IT workforce to technologies and ideas they may not yet have experience with. 

During an AI summit last year, Jeff Chan, senior manager of enterprise innovation at TD Bank Group, compared this idea to giving someone a hammer for the first time. Exploration is a key factor in achieving growth and mastering a skill, especially within AI.

“You don’t know exactly how you might be able to use it …. Give them a chance in the sandbox, start playing with it to figure out what’s what,” he said. “Once they get to understand what the hammer does, then they can come back to us, and we can say, ‘How do we connect the dots between what you just learned on the hammer and to solve an actual problem?’ And then that’s where magic happens.”   

Learn how CPG and retail executives connect the dots of analytics curiosity and strategy at next year’s Analytics Unite event. 

Kholodenko stresses encouraging IT businesses and teams to experiment in different environments, access new tools, and participate in training allows them to explore, test, and discover innovative applications to turn curiosity into improvements and competitive advantages. The result is often solutions for real business challenges, optimized operations, and new analyses of consumer insights. 

“One question I like to ask is how many feel that generative AI will change how each of us works over the next one to five years. Most generally agree that it will,” says Kholodenko. “The next question is how many of us use generative AI daily — the answers here are typically mixed. So, if you think our jobs will evolve with AI, why are you not jumping in with both feet to be a part of this journey?”