The Engine that Drives Development

And I love that you embrace the power of curiosity because that’s my background. That’s what I talk about. But also think you’ve said something like people need to light up with the idea of curiosity and initiative and that those were two top skills that you need to cultivate.
So just because that’s my area, I’m very interested in, after spending years researching curiosity and looking at getting out of the status quo way of doing things. I think a lot of CEOs want to know how do they develop and encourage that level of curiosity that you show and get that in their employees? And also, I’m also interested in how do you cultivate initiative or does that stem from curiosity?

Yes. Well, first of all, Diane, this is one reason I’ve been so looking forward to this conversation because I’m hoping to learn from you as well from this. I’ll tell you where curiosity and initiative and this realization came from. Siemens has a fantastic network of academic institutions with whom we work.
And one day I had the privilege of sitting down with our researchers in Princeton, New Jersey, our Siemens technology team that does research and development for our future business. And they had invited in academic partners to talk about this key question of what are the core skills we should be looking for as Siemens as we prepare the workforce of the future.
And honestly, I had expected to come into a room full of science geeks who would talk to us about machine learning and artificial intelligence. And I was blown away when person after person made it clear that the key things you need to be successful anywhere at any time are simply curiosity and initiative.
And you go, curiosity, why that? Well, because if you don’t have that wonder about what makes things tick, what’s working, what isn’t, what could we be doing better, then you won’t be moved to action.
And then initiative, because it’s one thing to sit back and study it and admire the problem. It’s another thing to roll up your sleeves and get active. And I think maybe one of the core concepts that we need to be really promoting is this idea that the most powerful thing in the world is to want something. If you want something bad enough that you simply have to have it, then you’ll actually do what it takes to bring it to life.
And so this combination of being curious about what’s possible and then wanting something so badly that you actually get up and make it happen, this is the engine that drives personal development as well as the development of companies and enterprises of all kinds.