Lead In 30 Podcast

The Power of Curiosity in Leadership: Conversations with Chick-fil-A and a Base Jumper

• Russ Hill

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348: What happens when leaders stop asking questions? In this episode of Lead in 30, you'll discover how a lack of curiosity can impede collaboration, shrink networks, and stifle innovation. Drawing from my experiences with senior executive teams, I'll share stories and observations that illustrate the remarkable impact of curiosity on both personal and organizational growth.

Listen to the tales of two striking in-flight encounters—an adrenaline-pumped base jumper and a focused Chick-fil-A franchise owner—that reveal the broader issue of a "kiss the ring" mentality. Despite their fascinating lives and careers, these individuals showed little interest in engaging deeply with others. These experiences underscore the critical importance of curiosity in leadership. As we head towards the historic Battle of Gettysburg, prepare for reflections and actionable insights that will help you cultivate curiosity and elevate your leadership effectiveness.

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The Lead In 30 Podcast with Russ Hill is for leaders of teams who want to grow and accelerate their results. In each episode, Russ Hill shares what he's learned consulting executives. Subscribe to get two new episodes every week. To connect with Russ message him on LinkedIn!



Speaker 1:

It silences others, it eliminates collaboration, it shrinks your network, it halts innovation and it flattens your growth curve. So why are so many of you doing it?

Speaker 2:

This is the Lead in 30 podcast with Russ Hill. You cannot be serious. Strengthen your ability to lead in less than 30 minutes You're listening to lead in less than 30 minutes.

Speaker 1:

Okay, you all I know the audio sucks. I'm in a rental car and I'm driving out toward Pennsylvania and it is almost 10 o'clock at night on a Sunday night. I'll explain why I'm out here in a minute, but there is no way for me to record this episode of the podcast and be able to look at Google Maps and give you high quality audio at the same time. So you know what we're doing. We're going with what we got, which means that I'm talking through the rental car. What do you call it? Stereo sound system, whatever, and so just forgive the audio. Welcome in to the Lead in 30 podcast.

Speaker 1:

I am Russ Hill and in less than 30 minutes, we give you a model, a framework, an unlock, an experience, something to consider. We do it in less than 30 minutes, something for you to consider, to more effectively lead others, to grow, to try to improve and scale your impact and your lifestyle and your results that you're getting through the team that you lead. And I make my living coaching, consulting senior executive teams, teams, and so I get this unique vantage point because I've been doing it for a long time and I work side by side with others at our firm that do this as well. So I work in this leader lab. So why in the world, why in the world would you not record, hit record on your iPhone, even though when you're driving, I don't even know what state I'm in. I think I'm in Maryland, about to get to Pennsylvania, but anyway, why would you not hit record and share some of the things that you're learning and seeing in this leader lab when you're interacting with executives and managers thousands of managers at all these different organizations across industry? And so that's what I do, and I hope that it brings value to you. And if it doesn't, then what in the world are you doing? Listening, right, like hit stop, actually, don't, because I'll help you fall asleep. Anyway, leadin30.com is where you can find out more about our 30-day leadership course. That's connected to the podcast, where we teach leaders three core competencies that help them actually transform their ability to deliver results. We don't care what product they are leading, what product they are selling, manufacturing, whatever it is, what department they work in, where in the world they work, what industry they're in, what age they are, what education they have it doesn't matter. These three core competencies are the foundation of effective leadership, and you can find out more at leadin30.com.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I want to talk about curiosity. Curiosity in this episode, because I have been thinking about it so stinking much lately. I've had a couple of experiences that I want to share with you. Well, I've had a lot of experiences, but I've had a few lately that really put it back on my mind. So before I do that, though, I should give you some explanation of where I'm at. So I'm going to Gettysburg, you all.

Speaker 1:

The next episode, I'm going to share with you lessons from Gettysburg, and the short version of this is one of the organizations that we work with does a leadership retreat on the Battle of Gettysburg. How freaking cool is that Every year, they take a very small group of leaders from this national company and they take them to the battlefield of Gettysburg. Civil War right, abraham Lincoln, all that right, just north and south colliding the Yankees and the Confederates battlefield like an insane amount of casualties. And so tomorrow so it's almost 10 o'clock at night, I'm driving I flew into Reagan Airport, washington DC. I don't like to travel on Sunday for work, but this required it. So I went to church this morning and then bolted for the airport, took a direct over to Washington, reagan, and now you get this long drive. It's not exactly an international airport in Gettysburg, pennsylvania, but anyway, I was invited, along with one of my other colleagues at our firm, and so you don't turn that down I was invited to be with this group of leaders and executives, and so I'm going to learn lessons of leadership at gettysburg and I I'm and I'm definitely going to share them in the next episode, okay. So, uh, come back for that, okay. So that's why I'm out here in the middle of freaking nowhere. Um, because I'm headed to the, the biggest battle in the civil war, where the history of not only I would argue, not only america changed, but the history of the world changed, and that's debatable. But anyway, that's what, that's why I'm, that's why you got me where I'm at. So, okay, um, curiosity, two quick experiences, both of them on a plane.

Speaker 1:

One, I'm sitting next to this guy who's a base jumper, so I'm up in first class. Travel a lot right. So I'm in first class. This guy's sitting next to me. He just doesn't look like your typical person in first class Throw. You know, criticize me for saying that, but it's just true. You either get old people or people that are frequent business travelers, or you get athletes or people that look like they got a lot of money up in first class. So, anyway, this dude did not fit that bill, any of those categories, and yep, all kinds of judgment. Sorry, super awesome guy, but he's sitting next to me.

Speaker 1:

I strike up a conversation, or he does, I don't even remember and he starts telling me about being a base jumper. If you don't know what a base jumper is, that's the dudes with or and gals with wingsuits. They put on those wingsuits, they look like a human bat and they jump off a cliff, off a mountaintop, and they go soaring down. And you've seen the GoPro videos Insane, unbelievable, death defying. This is what this guy does all over the world. So he starts telling me all these incredible experiences.

Speaker 1:

We get into this amazing conversation and long story. There's so much I could share from it, but we've got to keep it under 30 minutes and I'm 15 minutes from the hotel, so I got to make it tight. Anyway, he shares with me all these the hotel, so I got to make it tight. Anyway, he shares with me all these and I'm asking question after question after question after question, fascinating, right. So after 20 or 30 minutes. Now the plane's getting into the air, we're both putting on our headphones and either digging into work or a movie or whatever, I don't know. I can't remember what he was doing, and so the conversation wraps up and as the conversation, we hit pause on it.

Speaker 1:

What I realize is this he knows nothing about me. He did not ask me a single question. Now I know what you're thinking, rush, you can't compete with the base jumper. His life is so much more interesting than yours. And point granted, I'm not going to challenge that. But common courtesy, man, social laws, right, at least one, maybe two questions. Maybe something like what do you do for a living? Maybe a where are you from? Maybe a where are you going? Maybe a something. And I'm not bitter, I'm just playing, I obviously don't care, it was just notable, notable. Not a single question. Zero Curiosity. Why, what did I do? What, what, what, what, what. And the reality is, the reality is. My belief is it had nothing. His lack of curiosity, well, I shouldn't say that I was going to say it had nothing to do with me, but my belief is, if I was a very attractive younger female, he probably would have asked me a question or two, but other than that, no interest. Right, and I could be wrong even on that, but I think I'm right based on our conversation. He would have been curious if I was that person. Okay, then I'm on same same, very similar experience.

Speaker 1:

Somebody with a Chick-fil-A button-up shirt sits next to me coming out of Atlanta a few weeks ago and as passengers are getting on the plane he's saying hello to a lot of folks and I developed this theory that he's a Chick-fil-A franchise owner. I know through my connections with Chick-fil-A and different executives and yada, yada, that Chick-fil-A is based in and started in Atlanta. So I start forming this theory that we've got all the Arizona franchise owners on the plane. I ask him that, hey, you Chick-fil-A franchise owner? Yep, you coming from a conference? Yep, all these people you're saying hello to, I assume they're a franchise owner, yep, and so then we get it. So I ask him multiple questions, obviously in the line of work that I do. Chick-fil-a is an interesting model for lots of different reasons. No company is perfect. Some of you hate Chick-fil-A for all kinds of reasons, whatever. So I'm asking him some questions about owning Chick-fil-A's.

Speaker 1:

I don't sit next to a franchise owner very often. I don't interact with any. I don't know any franchise owners. I know and I know and I'm connected to executives at the corporation, but not, but not this, so anyway. So I asked him a bunch of questions. He does ask me one question what do you do for a living? And I said I work with the senior executive teams and there's literally nothing else that he asks. And so we talk for 15, 20 minutes. I could tell you all kinds of things about what he does, and literally no questions from him, zero curiosity.

Speaker 1:

So I say this thing you know, working with executive teams, and I would think somebody who develops leaders like I don't, maybe I got nothing to bring, but if someone said that to me I'd be curious. So those are two personal examples. And then I see it in the executives we work with right. So you get to very large corporations, especially like Fortune 50 companies. You work with executives that don't lack confidence and they lead tens of thousands of people and they are not all carbon copies or clones of each other. They look and act and dream and think very differently. But there are some in those ranks that have zero curiosity. They have a kiss the ring mentality.

Speaker 1:

You know what I'm talking about, right Like some of you work for somebody like that right now. Some of you have worked with somebody like that. Some of you live with somebody like that or related to people like that. They're your in-laws, whatever it is Like there's just zero curiosity. So what drives that? And you all in these podcast episodes I just they're my audio journal in some degree, right Like you're just getting the raw flow of thoughts from somebody who works in a leader lab, the raw flow of thoughts from somebody who works in a leader lab, who's driving across the state of Pennsylvania going to a leadership training retreat at whatever. So I have some thoughts, but I don't have the answer. So I opened up an Apple note entitled Curiosity recently and I'll tell you a few of my thoughts and then I'm going to leave you just thinking about it and I'm going to come back later. Five episodes from now, 25 episodes from now I don't know when and I'm going to share more about this because I am really interested in this topic right now.

Speaker 1:

I believe that what causes someone to not have curiosity are a couple of things. And again, curiosity is a couple of things. And again, I haven't built this list out enough, so it's incomplete. But number one, it's a judgment that the person I'm interacting with. So let's just talk about curiosity from a person-to-person standpoint. But you also have curiosity in podcasts and in books and in courses. Like curiosity, you get information, data and wisdom from all kinds of different places, and so it's not just humans interacting. But that's the model we're going to go with, or the example we're going to use here.

Speaker 1:

So I'm not showing curiosity toward you because I've made a decision that there's not a lot of value you can bring me. That sounds harsh, doesn't it? But isn't it true? Aren't you not asking questions of someone sometimes because you think I'm not sure they're worth my time, I'm not sure that they can bring significant value? That's one reason. Now let me quickly go to another reason, because some of you are thinking no, no, no, no, russ, it's not always that. Another reason is exhaustion. I'm not curious right now because I'm tired, because I'm hopeless, because I'm frustrated, because I'm, whatever it is, I'm overloaded, whatever it might be You've got the word I'm using for it. That I put my Apple note is exhaustion. Maybe that's too strong, Just tiredness, maybe a whatever it might be. Are there more than those two reasons why we don't have curiosity. One is I'm making a judgment that you can't really add value. That is pertinent to me, like I'm not interested in it. And then the second one exhaustion, tired, whatever it might be. There's got to be a third and fourth reason to why we don't have curiosity right, and I'm going to dig deeper into that. Now let me give you one other thought, and then I'm going to be at the hotel in Gettysburg.

Speaker 1:

The long time ago and I've talked about I talked about this maybe 150 episodes ago, which sounds so weird to say Hewitt was the founder of 60 Minutes, the CBS news program that none of you watch anymore, but used to be one of the top five most watched television programs in the United States. In 60 Minutes, a news magazine on Sunday nights with the best of the best of the best journalists attached to it. We don't have many journalists left in the world. That's the opinion of somebody who went to school for a journalism degree and spent 15 years in the media business. There are not many journalists left and there are a lot of opinionated content providers, but a lot. And 60 Minutes was. The best broadcast journalist in the world got hired there, morley Safers, I mean you just think about the incredible. The list goes on and on. There's like, well, it doesn't go on and on. Actually, there's just a few people that really made it who it was or what it was.

Speaker 1:

So Don Hewitt was executive producer, and Don Hewitt wrote a book a long, long time ago called Tell Me a Story, and I had painted on my wall I don't know if it was painted or if it was a big sticker, I can't remember Put on my wall. My last office in the media business had a huge, huge letters on the wall that said tell me a story. And the reason for that is when I read Don Hewitt's book and I listened to interviews and I consumed any content that I could find that he put out, I discovered this mentality had that, oh, 60 Minutes. We built this news magazine based on the premise that everyone has a story and our journalists this is what Don Hewitt would say our journalists are paid to find the stories in human beings, and so you would tune into this news magazine and it would be.

Speaker 1:

You know, tonight we're on a potato farm in South Africa, or you know South America, and you're like I have no interest in a story about a potato farmer and like I'm not curious. But then you would watch this 10 minute story or 15 minute story and be like, oh my gosh, that was the most amazing human being, the most amazing story that I just heard. And it came out of this philosophy of dig out, uncover the story that is in these people. And so I've incorporated that mantra, that mentality, in my life. And there are moments when I'm not curious. There are people who I interact with socially, casually and professionally, who I don't ask their story, but there are also a lot of people whose stories I do pursue and what I have found is it has profoundly affected the wisdom I've been able to unlock, the stories I've been able to hear, the examples I've been able to gain, just all of these sorts of things. And so I have this mentality of being curious and seeking people's stories and I would just encourage all of you to think about that. Everybody's got a story, everybody's got value to add, everybody's got lessons they've learned, if you're willing to have a curious mindset and seek them out.

Speaker 1:

And let's talk about the opposite of that real quick in the last two or three minutes when you don't demonstrate curiosity. So, those of you who are executives in corporations. When you are not interested in somebody's story, when you're not interested in their perspective, when you are not interested in their thoughts on a topic, when you don't demonstrate curiosity, you silence them. They no longer want to talk to you. You've made it clear you're not interested in them. There's no other way around that. You eliminate collaboration. When you aren't curious because the other department or that other peer of yours, or whomever, doesn't think you have any curiosity about what their perspective is, you flatten your growth curve because you have a nostalgia for what you already know and you have this affection for the wisdom and insight you already have.

Speaker 1:

Wow, these buildings are freaking cool, you guys. I can't even see them, but I'm driving in. Oh my gosh, this is going to be so cool. Like I'm a mile away and I can tell I'm driving on a country road right next to the battlefield, like the fences and some of these buildings. Wow, I've never been here. I've been to a lot of places in the world, but I've never been to this place and it's one of the things I love about my job. I love about what I do. I get to go to these places and it's curiosity.

Speaker 1:

I'm going into tomorrow with a ton of curiosity. Why the crap should I care about the battle of the freaking Civil War? Like, do you know what I mean? And of all the things on my schedule, of all the things I need to get done, like I don't have time, but I want to be curious, and so I'm going in and on the plane I was reading things about Gettysburg and I want to learn, and tomorrow I'm going in with just tons of questions and just learning and soak it all up. Wow, this is just. You guys have been here, some of you have been here, so you're you can visualize what I'm seeing in this small town of Gettysburg as I'm pulling in 10 o'clock on a Sunday night and I feel like I just went in a time machine.

Speaker 1:

Wow, yeah, the next episode is going to be really, really good. Okay, anyway, curiosity, more to say about it. I want you thinking about it. Are you demonstrating enough curiosity? Why don't you? What causes you to not demonstrate it and what effect does it have on others? It's not good. I'll tell you that much. And and and I'm saying this as a student of curiosity, not as an expert in demonstrating it that needs to be said too. All right, got to jump half a mile away from the hotel off to the battlefield. Baby. I'll talk to you in the next episode of the Lead in 30 podcast.

Speaker 2:

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