The power of workplace curiosity 

TOPIC: 

Every person is born with a healthy dose of curiosity.
Some people can maintain this level through adulthood, many however see its original strength deplete.
The same happens with systems like start-ups.
Early start ups have a high predisposition on exploration, only to see that this mindset deteriorates once the company expands, focuses on efficiency and conforms to rigid standards. 

The current conformist mindset of leaders is one which has been handed over from thinking of the last century.
The speed of business and change we have witnessed over the last 20 years have made it clear that that model for running companies is not viable anymore.
The tricks of the industrial 20^th century are not good predictors anymore for running agile operations in the new 4^th industrial revolution.
The 21^st century is the century of ideas.
Those leaders and companies which allow for curiosity, openness to new ways of working, humility in changing course and allowing ideas to flow freely in their organisations will exploit the present better and explore the future better than their competition. 

Intentional curiosity is needed for this.
Harvard Business School professor Francesca Gino has found that while leaders often state that their organisations value curiosity at work, most stifle it through their culture, processes, and practises.
We will explore what we know about curiosity, why it is important and what individuals and organisations can do to get better at it.    

PROFILE 

Short: Stefaan van Hooydonk -  After building a distinguished career as Chief Learning Officer, learning innovator and strategist for multinational companies such as Philips, Agfa, Cognizant, Flipkart and Nokia,  Stefaan founded the Global Curiosity Institute  where he and his team are supporting professionals, teams and organisations to foster a mindset of curiosity.

Long: Stefaan van Hooydonk: founder of the Global Curiosity Institute 
He consults global corporations, leadership teams and individuals to help build stronger curiosity muscles.
He helps them in baselining individual and workplace curiosity, and supports them with designing and implementing intentional curiosity improvement projects and learning initiatives. 

Stefaan started his career in investment consulting in China.
From there he moved to set up the executive education arm of a major business school in Shanghai, China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), which he ran for 5 years.
Subsequently, he moved to the corporate side and set up global learning teams and innovative corporate universities for Nokia (China/Finland), Agfa Healthcare (Belgium), Philips (the Netherlands), Flipkart (India), Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia) and Cognizant (UK).
His last role was that of Chief Learning Officer for Cognizant, where he overlooked the learning and development for over 300k associates across the globe.
He has been globally recognized for his innovative approach to learning, people and technology.

Stefaan has a Master’s degree in Economics and in Chinese, together with postgraduate degrees in Marxist Economics from China, Cross Cultural Management from France and an Executive MBA from Rutgers University.
He is a certified ICF and NLP coach.
A Belgian national, Stefaan has been married for 25 years to Jeltje Peletier: a successful psycho- and yogatherapist. Together they have 4 children: Rik, Femke, Koen and Menko. He practises meditation daily, is a marathon runner and is currently pursuing a masters degree in philosophy.