Read Online A Curious Mind by Brian Grazer - Free Book Online Page B

media and business can consult them. MIT lists nine faculty members who consider themselves experts on creativity, and twenty-seven who are experts on innovation. MIT experts on curiosity? Zero. Stanford lists four faculty experts on creativity, and twenty-one on innovation. Stanford faculty offering to talk about curiosity? Zero.
    It’s essential to cultivate creativity and innovation, of course. That’s what has driven our economy forward, that’s what so dramatically improves the way we live—in everything from telephones to retailing, from medicine to entertainment, from travel to education.
    But as indispensable as they are, “creativity” and “innovation” are hard to measure and almost impossible to teach. (Have you ever met someone who once lacked the ability to be creative or innovative, took a course, and became creative andinnovative?) In fact, we often don’t agree on what constitutes an idea that is “creative” or “innovative.” Nothing is as common as the innovation I come up with that I think is brilliant and you think is dumb.
    I think that this intense focus on being creative and innovative can be counterproductive. The typical person at work in a cubicle may not think of himself or herself as being “creative” or “innovative.” Those of us who don’t work in the corporate research and development department may well be clear that “innovation” isn’t our job—because right over in that other building is the “department of innovation.” In fact, whether we might think we are creative or not, in most workplaces, it’s pretty clear that creativity isn’t part of our jobs—that’s why customer service reps are reading to us from scripts when we call the 800 number, not actually talking to us.
    Unlike creativity and innovation, though, curiosity is by its nature more accessible, more democratic, easier to see, and also easier to do.
    From my own experience pitching hundreds of movie ideas to studio executives, I know just how often people get told “no” to their brilliant ideas—not just most of the time, but 90 percent of the time. It takes a strong stomach to absorb all that rejection, and I don’t think most people feel like they get paid to come up with ideas that get rejected. (In the movie business, unfortunately, we don’t get paid at all without having our ideas rejected, because the only way to get to “yes” is through a lot of “no’s.”)
    Here’s the secret that we don’t seem to understand, the wonderful connection we’re not making: Curiosity is the tool that sparks creativity. Curiosity is the technique that gets to innovation.
    Questions create a mind-set of innovation and creativity. Curiosity presumes that there might be something new out there. Curiosity presumes that there might be something outside our own experience out there. Curiosity allows the possibility that the way we’re doing it now isn’t the only way, or even the best way.
    I said in chapter 1 that curiosity is the flint that sparks great ideas for stories. But the truth is much broader: curiosity doesn’t just spark stories, it sparks inspiration in whatever work you do.
    You can always be curious. And curiosity can pull you along until you find a great idea.
    Sam Walton didn’t walk the aisles of his own store trying to be inspired to do something new. That would have been as useful as looking inside empty Wal-Mart tractor trailers for inspiration. He needed a different perspective on the world—just like I found with Chief Gates or Lew Wasserman. Sam Walton wanted to innovate in the most ordinary of settings—a store. He started by being curious about everyone else in retailing. He just kept asking that question over and over again: what are our competitors doing?
    I don’t sit in my office, gazing out the windows at Beverly Hills,