How a Culture of Curiosity Can Unlock Innovation and Inclusivity

We all have an innate sense of curiosity that drives our understanding of the world. It leads us to explore unusual ideas and perspectives, question assumptions, consider new approaches, experiment, and take risks. When we are curious, we listen closely and pay attention, so we’re more likely to develop products that better meet customers’ needs — even needs they don’t know they have yet. Put simply, companies that nurture a culture of curiosity are more likely to develop robust solutions for problems, fuel innovation, and foster inclusivity.

Growth and Silos Can Stifle Innovation

The spirit of curiosity and flexibility is common at the beginning of an enterprise. But as a company gets larger — especially in tech — many factors conspire to stifle that curiosity, and the entrenchment of some approaches is all but inevitable. We start rejecting outside ideas or anything that seems different from “how we do things” or was not created by us. We divide our work into specialized roles and departments, creating silos that isolate us from different perspectives and ways of doing things. 

The products developed early in my career at semiconductor company Actel (now a part of Microchip Technology), used a brand-new process and chip architecture to provide customers with chips they could program in their own labs, what were called field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). FPGAs allowed engineers to “fabricate” the chip in their labs in days rather than months.

At the time, these radical innovations were embraced. But Actel also embodied a classical engineering culture where there were painful divisions between hardware and software. Both groups were committed to doing their work as they had always done. That made it very difficult for software engineers and chip designers to come together and talk about future possibilities. In the end, Actel was only modestly successful. After going public in 1993, it was purchased by Microsemi in 2010. (Microchip Technology acquired Microsemi eight years later.) 

Fostering a culture of curiosity, one that counters our tendencies to do things “how we’ve always done them” or to become siloed in our approaches, might be just the ticket to keep the spark of innovation alive in your organization. This can be increasingly difficult in a large company, but great ideas can emerge from small, focused teams.

How Curiosity Expands and Diversifies Your Talent Pipeline

That same mechanism that makes curiosity a powerful driver of innovation also makes it a powerful driver of inclusivity. It allows people to get past their preconceived notions of the value some colleagues bring to the table. Every one of us has unconscious biases, and we often connect with people who look and think like us. We also reach out to the familiar when selecting leaders for key positions or brainstorming new ideas, even when we believe we are making objective decisions based on merit.

In 1992, I became a member of the Computing Research Association, which created a committee to celebrate women’s achievements in the field. Thus, the annual Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing was born. 

For the first few years, the conference attracted about 500 people, almost all women. For many female undergraduate and graduate students, attending a conference where hundreds of women were focused on technology was a foundational experience. By 2023, the number of attendees grew to 30,000.

Soon, companies discovered they could recruit at the Grace Hopper Celebration. But as competition for candidates heightened, so did the rigidness of the recruiting processes, especially those of the largest, leading companies.

They started screening candidates ahead of time and only interviewed those graduating from a handful of elite programs and universities in select locations. Talented, diverse students, many who had moved heaven and earth to attend, were discouraged that they could not get an interview, let alone an internship. A student from, say, Carnegie Mellon would be recruited both on campus and at the conference. However, a student from a public university in the Midwest would not. The number of women — especially women of color — graduating from elite schools was small, so companies fought each other over a tiny pool of candidates, likely restricting the number of positions they filled with women.

What was going on? These companies played it safe; they stuck to the approach that worked for them before. Recruiters were not curious enough. They were failing to ask questions such as, “Where can we find new sources of talent in tech?” They were failing to challenge assumptions about whether the best talent can only come from their preferred (and well-trodden) recruitment grounds or whether other programs might prepare people from diverse backgrounds in a better way. 

When we are open, we approach others and their contributions with an inquisitive mind and without judgment. Curiosity breaks down barriers between people, helps them build stronger relationships, and makes everyone feel valued and included. But it needs to be intentionally cultivated.

How to Nurture a Culture of Curiosity

We often think of curiosity as an innate personality trait, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, it’s a skill that can be developed and embraced throughout an organization. Here are four key things leaders can encourage everyone to do to cultivate a culture of curiosity:

1. Engage in Continuous Learning

• Encourage your team to explore ideas and learn new topics.

• Promote curiosity-fueled exploration in team meetings.

• Ask your team what topics and fields they want to learn more about. Focus on areas that are of high value to the organization.

• Present talks and other educational offerings. Record them and make them available to everyone.

2. Collaborate with Others Across the Organization

• Share information and ideas between groups regularly.

• Find ways to introduce ideas outside your employees’ comfort zones, including hosting speakers from other disciplines and from other groups at your company.

• Create organizationwide task forces. Bring together teams from throughout the organization to solve problems.

• If you are global, ensure that you are encouraging your global teams to work together.

• Show employees you are receptive to ideas from other groups or departments by inviting them and actively seeking them. Help them embrace the creative conflict that comes from collaboration.

3. Dig More Deeply into Problems

• Prompt employees to ask questions that lead to a deeper understanding of a situation or challenge before acting.

• Question the story painted by organizational data. Develop a practice for pushing back on the narratives that emerge when interpreting your data.

• Consider what the numbers are not telling you and whether you are interpreting them too broadly.

4. Challenge Assumptions of ‘How Things Are Done’

• Regularly evaluate the success of your processes and consider alternatives. Consider whether your approaches serve all needs, meet all objectives, or work only for certain populations or types of problems.

• Be suspicious of traditional methods that are considered sacrosanct.

• Re-evaluate your organization’s preconceived notions of what talent and success look like.

• Consider which traits and behaviors that you look for in employees might exclude talent from certain groups.

Curiosity-driven innovation and curiosity-driven inclusion are deeply intertwined. When we encourage being open to new ideas and perspectives, we are more likely to recognize and value the ideas others bring to the table, especially those ideas born from having had an experience different from ours. When we encourage leaning into curiosity to solve problems — especially people problems — we are more likely to closely examine others’ unique situations and find approaches that better meet their needs.

Reprinted by permission of Harvard Business Review Press. Adapted from Rebooting Tech Culture: How to Ignite Innovation and Build Organizations Where Everyone Can Thrive by Telle Whitney (Harvard Business Review Press, 2025). All rights reserved.

Telle Whitney is a consultant, senior executive leader, and advocate for diversity and women in technology, and was named one of Fast Company’s Most Influential Women in Technology in 2011. She served as CEO of the Anita Borg Institute from 2002 to 2017 and co-founded the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference.