What killed the cat?
When I was growing up I’d occasionally hear the phrase “curiosity killed the cat” when I’d ask too many questions. I haven’t heard that phrase in a long time, and I’m pretty sure chasing that mouse into the street is what killed the cat. But isn’t it strange that there is actually a phrase to demotivate someone from being curious?
I personally don’t think people are nearly curious and inquisitive enough. Going into a new job, promoted to a new role, or transitioning careers you expect people to be a bit more inquisitive. “What do I do for this?”, “Who do I call about that” and that makes total sense. But why aren’t we expecting people that have been in roles for a lot longer to ask the more difficult question of “why?”
Morale Killers are Among Us
If you’re in the C-Suite or in a Director role, do you know how many inefficient processes your teams are still using? Do they exist because your teams lack the empowerment or curiosity to ask “why?” In my experience, I’ve talked to a lot of people about their data. One of the questions I make sure to ask is “why are you doing it this way?” Most of the time the answer is not so good. I often hear something like “the person who trained me did it that way” or “I don’t know. I don’t have time to think about that.”
So if people are willing to sacrifice time each month instead of asking the right “why” questions, should we expect people to dig deeper if it cost them more effort to do it? Especially if their job does not encourage to find and correct inefficiencies?
Ask Why and Thrive
I believe that there is no position in a company where that question can’t be asked. Encouraging people to ask “why” and dig into the status quo of how you’re handling data, how you’re processing inventory, or how you’re cleaning the floors. If you can find a better way to do it by asking “why”, why not ask it?
Imagine at that point you’ve set free your entire organization to find wasteful processes, wasteful technologies, and wasteful thinking without any additional costs. You’d probably also see a morale boost because you’ve empowered your teams and you’ve given them the ability to improve the morale-killing work they may have been doing.
Sounds good right?
On October 29, Perficient and Domo are teaming up to bring Ben Schein, former BI Lead at Target and current VP of Data Curiosity at Domo, to Minneapolis for a user event. Schein will discuss how data is for everyone and explore how we can move beyond hiring a few data scientists or enabling the elite 1% of your organization to work with data, and getting the data to the 99% in order for them to make better business decisions. This event will be a great opportunity for you to learn how your organization can unlock data insights feed curiosity with Domo.
You can register for this Domo event here. Space is limited, so sign up soon. And if you can’t make it, we’d still love to hear from you. Reach out to me and I’ll introduce you to some great people to help get you rolling.
Event Details:
October 29, 2019 | 3:00pm – 5:30pm Central
Capital Grille | 801 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN 55402
Register Now
