1025 words / 5 min read
Leading with curiosity almost didn’t happen for one travel-industry client — here’s the case for listening before you decide, told through three household names.
Years ago, in my corporate travel days, I pitched an idea to a client. At the time, they were getting everything they needed piecemeal, through a steady stream of emails. Updated preferred suppliers, travel policy changes, duty of care information, travel alerts, passport requirements, the login for their online booking tool, everything and everything that had to do with their business travel program. Every time something changed, it meant another email to track down later.
So, I proposed something different: pull all of it into one place. An online hub, live on the client’s own intranet, that they could check whenever they needed it instead of digging back through their inbox or other parts of their intranet. This was their dedicated space.
The client didn’t need convincing. They said yes almost immediately — it was a problem that was time to address as their travel program continue to grow.
Internally was a different conversation. My company had not been involved in building something like it before. It meant real investment — design, development, the ongoing upkeep of something with no track record to point to. Nobody could hand over a case study proving it would work, because there wasn’t one yet. The hesitation wasn’t about whether the client wanted it. It was about whether we were willing to bet on an idea before we had proof it would pay off.
They said yes anyway. They listened, and the client was willing to invest.
I don’t know if that specific hub is still running today — the players change, the technology moves on, and if so, it most likely built internally by the company’s own resources and not the travel agency. But the decision to build it is still the one I think about. Not because the hub itself was revolutionary. Because someone chose curiosity and listening to my ideas which was rewarding especially since it paid off.
When “prove it first” becomes the default answer
Most workplaces are built to reward certainty. Show the data, prove the ROI before anyone signs off. That instinct isn’t wrong — it protects company resources. But it quietly assumes that every good idea arrives with its proof already attached. New ideas, by definition, don’t come that way. The whole reason they’re new is that no one has tested them yet.
That’s the pressure curiosity holds: leaders need to ask and answer to say no to plenty of ideas, and enough openness to recognize when “we’ve never done this before” is a reason to look closer, not a reason to close the conversation. The leaders who get this right aren’t the ones who say yes to everything. They’re the ones who ask multiple questions before they decide instead of deciding and calling it a question.
What it looks like when leaders choose curiosity anyway
Some of the most recognizable products on the market exist because someone, eventually, chose to get curious instead of staying certain.
Post-it Notes sat rejected inside 3M for nearly a decade. A chemist named Spencer Silver had invented a “failed” adhesive — too weak to be useful, leadership decided, and shelved it. It wasn’t until the company finally tested the idea in the real world, handing out free samples and tracking who reordered, that the demand became impossible to argue with. Almost 90% of people who tried it came back for more.
Play-Doh started as a struggling wallpaper cleaner a company was ready to discontinue. The idea to turn it into a children’s toy didn’t come from a chemist or an executive — it came from a nursery school teacher outside the company entirely, who noticed what her students could do with it. Someone had to be curious enough to take a teacher’s observation seriously.
And for the coffee drinkers: the Frappuccino wasn’t an obvious fit for a brand built on being a serious coffeehouse. It felt off. It got made anyway, and it became one of the biggest reasons people recognize the brand today.
None of these ideas arrived with proof attached. They arrived as a hunch, a complaint, an observation — and someone chose to stay curious about them a little longer than felt comfortable.
Four ways to lead with more curiosity when an idea sounds risky
Separate the idea from the ask. “I don’t know if this will work” and “this is a bad idea” are not the same sentence, even though they often get treated as one.
Ask what it would take to test it small, instead of asking someone to prove it will work at scale. Most ideas don’t need a yes to the whole thing — they need a yes to finding out.
Notice who’s already stopped raising their hand. By the time someone stops offering ideas, they’ve usually been told no more than once. Silence isn’t the absence of ideas. It’s often the result of them.
Let “I don’t know yet” be an acceptable answer — from yourself and from the people bringing ideas to the table. Certainty isn’t always available up front, and treating it as a requirement filters out exactly the ideas that need room to be tested.
Reflections
When was the last time an idea on your team got voted down in a meeting before anyone tested it in the real world?
Whose ideas get an automatic hearing, and whose get automatic skepticism — and is that actually about the idea, or about who’s bringing it?
What would it cost you, really, to say “let’s find out” instead of “no”?
Closing
I didn’t set out to make a point about curiosity. I set out to solve an annoying, recurring problem for a client. What made it possible wasn’t a brilliant pitch — it was someone above me choosing to be curious about whether the idea would work, instead of certain that it wouldn’t. That’s the whole difference. It’s rarely the idea itself that determines what happens next. It’s whether anyone in the room is still willing to ask questions instead of handing down an answer.
Want a hand reading the room before your next hard conversation? Download the free Reading the Room guide, or book a complimentary call to talk through what’s showing up on your team.
Until next time, — Michele Delgado, Founder Hartmetrics
Keep Exploring: Download the free Reading the Room guide for a quick-reference on what your team is telling you without speaking, or read When Loud Isn’t Angry-But it Lands That Way for what this looks like when a conversation runs hot.