I have a friend who has been successfully battling cancer.  He is now free of cancer, but is receiving ongoing treatments to ensure it does not return.  He described the treatments to me…

“They basically inject tuberculosis into my bladder.  This shocks my immune system into overdrive so it attacks and kills any remaining cancer cells.”

What??  You have got to be kidding me?!

I have learned the treatment is called “Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) which is used to treat bladder cancer because it stimulates immune responses that can destroy cancer cells within the bladder. BCG may be used to treat early-stage cancer, but it is used most commonly to prevent the return (recurrence) of noninvasive bladder cancer. It is most often used after cancer has been removed from the bladder using transurethral resection (TUR) surgery”, according to webmd.com

BCG is a bacterium related to the germ that causes tuberculosis.  It is used in some countries as a vaccine to provide protection against tuberculosis.

When I learned about this treatment my first thought was that I wanted to meet the doctor/researcher who first thought of, then attempted this treatment.  Now that is curiosity!  Can you imagine sitting in an ideation session in the “health care board room” trying to come up with an effective means of combatting bladder cancer, and someone throws out…

“I’ve got an idea: why don’t we inject tuberculosis into the bladder to shock the immune system into overdrive so it will fight the cancer cells!”

Talk about thinking outside of the box!

I have no doubt curiosity was the catalyst for this creative and innovative approach to treating cancer.  “How can we do things better?”

Curiosity is the catalyst for creative, courageous, collaborative and committed corporate culture.  Without curiosity you will have complacency and cowardice with a command and control culture.

So, how can you inject some curiosity into your leadership and your organization?  What can you do to stimulate your team to create some exceptional results?

First of all recognize you don’t know what you don’t know.  Choose to be a learner: always ask questions of yourself and of others.  Think of a young child: they are always asking questions.  They seem to have an insatiable desire to learn…Why is the sky blue?  Why does it turn red sometimes?  Where did my sister come from?  Why do I have to wear shoes outside?  You get the picture…

The life of a child is all about discovery.  We need to become a little more child-like as leaders.  We can’t lose the wonder of discovery.  Those who live in the wonder of discovery accomplish exceptional results and inspire others along the way.

I remember a line from a movie I saw decades ago, “All over the word people are asleep, but the few who are awake live in a constant state of amazement.”

That is the wonder of discovery.

Buckminster Fuller “perfected” the geodesic dome.  He didn’t actually invent it, but he was the one who coined the term “geodesic” in 1948 and 1949.  Although he was not the inventor, he developed the intrinsic mathematics of the dome, which enabled popularization of the idea.  He received the patent for the geodesic dome in 1954.

A story is told of how Buckminster Fuller practiced curiosity: he would go to the magazine rack in a store, close his eyes and pick a random magazine.  Inevitably it would be about an area of interest in which he had little or no experience.  This would cause him to see from a different perspective and perhaps become more innovative in his own field of study.  Apparently it was while practicing this “habit of curiosity” he read an article on the eye of a fly in a nature magazine which led to his breakthrough work on the geodesic dome.

His simple habit of curiosity injected significant change into the world of architecture.

What simple habit of curiosity can you choose that will enable you to inject and encourage curiosity into your organization?

Start by asking more questions of yourself and of others: “Why?  Why not?  How come?  How?”. Live in the wonder of discovery.  Become more “child-like” – and maybe that’s a simple as spending more time with young children.

Yes, curiosity is the catalyst for change…and for greatness.