SerpApi.Org
Smart companies question everything, especially themselves.
This article was written by Franziska Iseli, an Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) member in Sydney, Australia. Iseli is an author, serial entrepreneur, and co-founder of Basic Bananas, which provides marketing mentoring for small businesses. We asked Iseli why curiosity is the ultimate leadership skill.
I recently ran a learning workshop with Entrepreneurs’ Organization member Nic Thomas titled The Human Advantage in the AI Age. We discussed how to ignite curiosity, invite courage, and inspire connection. The discussions were rich. The insights were flying.
Afterward, one thing stuck with me: assumptions.
Sometimes your brain is not your friend.
The human brain is a gap-filling machine. Neuroscience explains how you are wired to complete incomplete pictures. It’s a survival mechanism that served humans brilliantly on the savanna.
See a shape in the bushes. Assume lion. Run! Don’t wait for confirmation, or you might not get to read the rest of this article.
But you’re not on the savanna anymore. That same instinct, the one that fills uncertainty with story, is quietly killing business after business.
Your brain populates the unknown. You make things up to fill the space. Then, you act on what you made up as if it were fact.
You defend your assumptions, build strategies on top of them, hire based on them, and set prices based on them. You ignore market signals that contradict them.
Then, you wonder why your pivot came too late.
The most expensive assumptions in history
Some of the most catastrophic moments in business history occurred when someone, somewhere, stopped being curious and started being certain.
Blockbuster assumed people wanted to leave the house to rent movies. Netflix assumed they didn’t. In 2000, Blockbuster passed on the chance to buy Netflix for $50 million. Within a decade, they were gone.
Kodak invented the digital camera in 1975, then shelved it because they assumed it would cannibalize their film business. The camera didn’t cannibalize them. Their assumption did. The answer was literally in their hands, and they talked themselves out of it.
Nokia had 40 percent of the global mobile market and assumed smartphones were a passing trend — that hardware was the product. Apple assumed the experience was the product. You know how that ended.
Every major record label passed on the Beatles in 1962. Decca told their manager: “Guitar groups are on the way out.” One of the most expensive assumptions in the history of music.
These companies were successful, confident, and certain. Certainty was the trap. They stopped being curious and instead made assumptions.
Where it shows up in your business
I’ve seen this pattern across hundreds of business owners. Not in big catastrophic moments, but in quieter, everyday ones.
You assume you know what customers want without asking or testing your messaging. You assume your best team member is happy. I’ve done that and then lost her. You assume a popular product or service will stay popular without innovating.
The most dangerous assumption of all? That what made you successful will keep you successful.
There’s a tiny, precious gap between stimulus and reaction. Between noticing something and deciding what it means.
That’s where a question could live, if you let it. Instead, you rush to fill it because uncertainty is uncomfortable. Not knowing feels like weakness.
So, you assume. You construct a reality that confirms what you already believe. Then you defend that construction instead of staying curious.
Curiosity is your edge in the AI age.
Curiosity comes from the Latin cura, to care, to pay close attention to something.
Children ask around 70 questions a day. Adults ask far fewer.
Somewhere between childhood and the boardroom, you learned that having the answer is more valued than asking the question. That certainty is leadership and curiosity is weakness.
That’s exactly backwards.
In the AI age, machines will do the knowing. They will retrieve, synthesize, optimize, and execute faster than any human. What you can do better than any algorithm is wonder. Question the question. Ask whether the problem you’re solving is even the right problem.
Something worth sitting with: Tools like ChatGPT often validate your input, clever or not. This means if you stop wondering, the dumb gets dumber.
The businesses that will thrive in coming years are not the ones with the best technology, but those with the most curious humans alongside the best technology. The ones that built cultures where questions are more valued than answers.
AI replaces your answers. It cannot replace your curiosity.
Try this with your team.
Where in your business are you running on assumption? Where are you so certain you’re right that you’ve stopped listening? Examine where “We’ve always done it this way” replaced genuine curiosity.
Ask your team, and see what comes up. You might be surprised by what they already know that no one has asked about.
Assume less. Wonder more. The future belongs to the wonderers.
This post originally appeared at inc.com.
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