Published on the 11/11/2015 | Written by Donovan Jackson

‘Curious’ organisations more likely to see greater technological innovation and application in the workplace…

As an abstract concept, the definition and measurement of ‘curiosity’ surely presents difficult problems, but not ones that stopped Rackspace from commissioning a study which it said reveals a majority of New Zealand businesses do not place enough emphasis on it in the workplace. This leads to a loss of ‘technology potential’, such as greater technological innovation of products and services and technology application in the workplace; again, measurement of ‘technology potential’ is likely to be subjective.

The study was conducted by AMR and questioned white-collar workers, aimed at discovering drivers of personal, professional and organisational curiosity, their relationship with technology and how these factors can be combined to attain and enhance ‘personal and professional potential’.

iStart assumed Rackspace means ‘curious’ in the ‘inquisitive’ sense of the word, rather than the one which means ‘unusual’, though the study certainly struck us as that – but just how deep does the rabbit hole go?

Angus Dorney, ANZ GM at Rackspace, helps out. “We asked questions around organisations and the values that [individuals] consider being curious, how that applies in their personal and professional lives, and what drives them. We went through a long process to map a survey to get to the heart of curiosity,” he said.

Part of that was the establishment of 11 curiosity values; a total number of over 1300 respondents rated these values on a scale of 1 to 10 for their personal lives, and again for their professional lives. The mismatch between those scores, apparently, is what determines whether or not an organisation is curious.

“I agree that this is difficult to measure,” conceded Dorney, assenting that there are no readily available ethicometers, curiosity rulers or morality protractors.

However, he made the point that despite the challenges in quantifying values, they are nevertheless essential to business and society in general. “We’ve taken a thought leadership position on curiosity as we instinctively know that it makes a difference.

“We also know that companies tend to shy away from difficult measures, preferring to stick to those which provide hard answers; it is undeniable, though, that intangible things have a big effect on job satisfaction, new ideas, business performance and employee retention. This is the reason it should be tackled.”

Back to the research. Rackspace’s Curiosity Quotient questioned 328 New Zealand white-collar workers to find that 42 percent of respondents believed their organisation was curious (remember, inquisitive, not strange), while 72 percent agreed technology played an important role towards innovating new products and services. That latter number drops to 39 percent in ‘non-curious’ organisations.

In curious organisations, 85 percent of respondents agreed that it is essential to be curious about technology and its application in the workplace, compared to 64 percent in non-curious organisations.

Of the overall respondents surveyed:

• 80 percent said it was important to be curious in life generally
• 74 percent agreed it was important to be curious within their day to day job
• 63 percent strongly agreed that curiosity played an important role in driving increased revenues in the business
• 73 percent agreed it was essential to be ‘curious about technology and its application in the workplace’
• 67 percent agreed that ‘technology had enabled a greater level of professional potential for them at work’

There is, of course, a darker side to curiosity – an aspect typically noted by cat lovers.

More information on Rackspace’s curious study.