In a world drowning in information, a curiosity culture is a lighthouse, guiding organizations towards uncharted territories of discovery and growth. In this episode, Mark Cox welcomes back Dr. Diane Hamilton to delve into her latest book, Curiosity Unleashed: Achieving Business Excellence by Challenging the Status Quo. Dr. Diane explores how cultivating a curiosity culture within organizations can drive substantial financial gains and enhance employee engagement. She highlights the significance of emotional intelligence in sales and how curiosity can enhance empathy and problem-solving. With fascinating insights, Dr. Diane provides a compelling case for cultivating a culture of curiosity.
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How Curiosity Transforms Companies And Cultures With Dr. Diane Hamilton
Introduction
We've got a spectacular show for you in this episode of The Selling Well, with a return guest, Dr. Diane Hamilton, PhD. You may remember that about a year ago, we had a great conversation with Diane about her book Cracking the Curiosity Code: The Key to Unlocking Human Potential. Of course, curiosity is an unbelievably important trait in business, relationships, and professional sales.
That book discussed the history and importance of curiosity for human beings. This new book we're talking about in this episode, Curiosity Unleashed, picks up where the last one left off. It dives deeper into the value of curiosity and includes examples of individuals and organizations that have benefited financially from developing curiosity, as well as examples of those who failed by getting stuck in the status quo.
I love the way this book is structured because Diane is a nationally syndicated radio host of a show called Take the Lead. She's interviewed everybody, presidential candidates, celebrities, top business leaders, and entrepreneurs. She includes snippets of some of those best conversations at the beginning of the book.
She showcases questions about curiosity and leaders' responses, whether it's Amy Edmondson, Robert Cialdini, or Daniel Goleman, who created the concept of emotional intelligence. Then, she has ten sections in the book where she talks about the impact of curiosity on businesses, people, financial outcomes, and value systems. She also discusses how AI will play into the world of curiosity.
We also talk about some of the barriers to curiosity. What gets in the way of us executing our curiosity? You may remember from the first book that the acronym was FATE, Fear, Assumptions, Technology, and the Environment can get in the way. Overall, it was an incredibly interesting conversation with Diane. There’s more learning to do, but I learned a lot about curiosity. I think you're going to enjoy this episode, and when you do, please like and subscribe to The Selling Well podcast. Thanks for doing so. Here's Dr. Diane Hamilton.
Hi Diane, welcome back to The Selling Well podcast.
Thank you. I'm excited to be here.
We're excited to have you back. By the way, we're curious about your book. Folks, you'll remember we had Dr. Diane Hamilton on the show maybe eighteen months ago, and at that time, two things really stood out to me. One was that I had been listening to some of the broadcasts from Diane's Nationally syndicated radio show, where, by the way, you should check it out, Diane interviews everybody.
Every celebrity, presidential candidate, author, every big-league name you can think of, Diane has interviewed them. That show is called Take the Lead, and you should check out that nationally syndicated radio show. At the time, we were talking about Cracking the Curiosity Code. Everybody knows we've been talking a lot about the importance of curiosity in life.
Curiosity Unleashed
Cracking the Curiosity Code discussed the history and importance of curiosity, but Diane has just released a new book, Curiosity Unleashed, where we explore the actual impact on people, businesses, and innovation. We also touch on things that will happen with the advent of AI. Since we've got her here, Diane, what prompted you to write that second book, Curiosity Unleashed?
I thought that I had written everything I wanted to write about curiosity because the first book was exciting. What was interesting to me about writing the first book was that halfway through, I realized I had to address what was keeping people from being curious. That led to the creation of my Curiosity Code Index.
I mention that because that index helped me find out what inhibited people from being curious so I could help them build their curiosity. What I didn't anticipate was how much I was going to learn from all the training and speaking I did over the last five or six years, based on everything I had done with all the training courses and the questions I got. You can't answer everything in one book.
This new book addresses everything I've learned since then, based on all that. It ties in much more to financial connections because I got a lot of questions about that, and it turns into more stories of companies that either succeeded or failed depending on whether they embraced or resisted status quo thinking. That's how I define curiosity, it's the ability to get out of status quo thinking. It's not just about reading a new article or asking a different question, it's much more than that.
I took everything I'd learned from working with major companies, I created videos with Verizon, spoke with LinkedIn, did training with EO, went to Europe and did things with Thinkers50, and I found it was crucial to help people see the connection between building a culture of curiosity and how it helps financially, without being boring or just talking about statistics because people don't want that.
By the way, your books are anything but boring. Let me just jump in. We read a lot of books, and they’re anything but boring, especially in how they connect the dots between the core capability of curiosity and its connection to innovation, values, and business results. All of these things, and these real-world examples, are universal among the leaders and entrepreneurs you've spoken to. They all identify curiosity as a critical trait.
It's fun to incorporate something you mentioned. I've interviewed so many people, and I'd like to think I’ve interviewed everyone I wanted to. It feels like it. Everybody I've interviewed is interesting. I included a chapter right at the beginning, if you've read through some of the book I sent you. That was one of my favorite chapters.
I included some of the highlights of what some of the most curious minds had to say about curiosity when they were on my show, whether it was Daniel Goleman, the top emotional intelligence expert, Amy Edmondson, who is currently the top thinker in Thinkers50 and a Harvard professor, or even Albert Bandura, who was a top psychologist before he passed away.
Think about it, next to Freud, who do you hear about the most lately? He was sweet, too. He invited me to his house, and we talked, and he was just such a nice man. There's so much in there, Tom Peters, and just the names I was able to connect with to get their insights. To me, that's my favorite chapter, just because I didn't write it, they did. They offered such wonderful wisdom.
I found the same thing while reading it. In a second, I'll ask, how did you pick those six or seven? You've interviewed hundreds of people. Given the people you've had on your radio show and that you've interviewed, are you sure you made the right decision to join my show? Do you even know?
You're at the top of my list. I love selling. I’ve been in sales for most of my life, and I love what you do. How did I pick? I was looking for the most interesting statements about curiosity. I didn't always talk about curiosity with everyone on my show. In my talk with Steve Forbes, I didn't talk to him about curiosity. I would have loved to have included a clip from him, but it just depends on who I talked to and where the conversation went.
My shows are transcribed on my blog, so I started searching for the word curiosity, to see where it was showing up. I thought, “I forgot that conversation.” When you're doing the show, sometimes you forget what you're talking about because you're managing everything at the time, and it's good to go back and review. Reading some of the things Doug Conant, who turned around Campbell's Soup, or Zander Lurie, who was CEO of SurveyMonkey, said these people had such insights that I thought, “I wish I had said that.” So I kept it.
I love that. By the way, folks, this is at the start of the book. You mentioned Daniel Goleman. For those who don't know, Daniel Goleman brought emotional intelligence into the common nomenclature because he started with research in that area. Now, we use it in every performance evaluation we look at, but that wasn't the case 25 years ago. He was a leader in this. When you chatted with him, it's interesting. The quote I love from Daniel is, “There are two strategies that companies and people generally use in life. One is to exploit, and the other is to explore.” That knocked me over.
Yeah, and it's true. He talked about going into journalism and the things they wanted him to do versus different areas of his career. I love exploring. I love the ability to do that. I talked to many professionals where exploring is sometimes frowned upon. I'm going to be a keynote for international project management for their 30th anniversary. A lot of project managers don't want to get off track to get here, but they don't consider the opportunity cost. That need to explore sometimes gets filtered out of people depending on their profession. I had it in sales. I don't know if I shared it the last time I was on the show, but I had that experience where we had to say certain things, and I neglected to ask questions sometimes.
I did a lot of stupid things because of it. It was because we were drilled into our heads that we had to get this certain message out at any cost. That hurts. Going back to emotional intelligence and Daniel Goleman, all that is empathy. If we can't empathize in sales, that's a huge problem because we're just selling to them.
When we can't empathize in sales, that's a huge problem.
We're not asking them about their pain points. We're not doing anything but just getting our message out because we have to say these certain words fast. I was as guilty of that as anybody, but in your early twenties, they train you. You've gone through this great corporate onboarding, and you think you know it all, but unfortunately, we often don't.
Diane, you referenced one of the companies that took me through that onboarding. Unfortunately, they're one of the companies that stuck to the status quo. My first job ever was selling photocopiers for the Eastman Kodak company. By the way, I'll call it out. That organization had some of the nicest professional people I've ever met in my life, but they could not cannibalize their core business offering, which was traditional physical film. Although they invented digital photography, they didn't want to cannibalize their core business. They let others completely eat their breakfast.
Yes, that's such a sad story. Think about it, when you walked into every store, you'd get hit over the head with film. There was so much film everywhere. It happens everywhere. It blows my mind to not see it the way it was, but many companies like Kodak had this great success in the past. They think, “We've got to cling to that because it worked. We’ve got to keep repeating it.” What worked for you in the past could be the worst thing for you in the future. That's what people don't want to hear because they have that sense of safety.
What worked for you in the past could be the worst thing for you in the future.
It's hard because, again, you've got to be curious. I think having the trait of curiosity, as you aptly brought up in the first book, is something we're all born with. Being curious but applying that curiosity and living it as a core business value, as per Curiosity Unleashed, are two different things. Those are difficult things.
Just double-click on section one, and team, there are ten great sections of the book. We'll touch on a couple of them that are relevant here today, but I'll call it out again. Having just finished our book, Learn to Love Selling, Diane was one of the people who was very kind to provide a testimonial, thank you. I am aware now of what a well-written book that's enjoyable to read looks like.
I'm not sure we got there quite yet, but your books are absolutely in that category, folks. Both Cracking the Curiosity Code and Curiosity Unleashed, you won't want to put them down. It won't feel like work, you're going to enjoy them. One of our favorites, again, was when you talked about those quotes from your interviews at the beginning, Robert Cialdini.
Yeah, isn't he great?
I've always loved Influence even before I understood why. In the early days of my business career, I loved that book. Your question and response are fantastic. “In my research, I found the environment has a big influence on curiosity. Would you agree?” Then this is a question Robert Cialdini asked, and he came back and said, “It's a great insight.”
My clients will sometimes ask, “What's the one trait I should be looking for in a salesperson?” Folks, my answer is, “Empathy.” Someone who doesn't judge what is the most appropriate or likely effective approach in the situation by self-reflection or looking inside themselves, but by empathizing with the market.
You talked about empathy. Curiosity and empathy, in the early days of sales, we were just taught to pitch, but the truth is, those who understand the client better will do better, and not just listen, but understand. That's all driven by this authentic curiosity. I just love the section on Robert Cialdini, and so will our readers. They hear a lot about him on the show.
He's good. You can listen to the whole show if you want to on my website, but he's interesting. It's funny because my brother and sister took his course at ASU. I'm the only one who didn't get to take his course. I was the only one in business, and they weren't, but they became friends with him. He's a very interesting, smart, and nice guy.
He was wonderful to have on the show. Everybody knows who he is. I was very excited to have him on the show. I thought his insights were good because they tied so much into Influence. That's why all sales are important, but when he talks about empathy, it keeps coming back to how I got into any of this to begin with.
I wrote my doctoral dissertation on the impact of emotional intelligence on sales performance. That all came back to this. It got me interested in the emotional intelligence component, which is interesting. I don't know if I told you this before, but did I tell you how I got into writing about emotional intelligence? I don't think we covered that.
No, I don't think we covered that last time.
It's funny, I was taking a class for my doctorate, and it was the class where you had to decide your topic. I knew I wanted to focus on what correlated with sales performance. I had that in mind and wanted to know what made successful salespeople. I was trying to decide what to correlate it with. I had this teacher who was insane, this guy was just crazy.
I had one or two classes with him, but he was just bizarre. He would say things to me, like he’d make me call him about something, and he’d say, “Welcome to the cave. I'm going to eat you up like you’re a Jell-O pudding and spit you out. It's going to be such a hard class.” I thought, “I’ve got to get rid of this guy.” I would write a paper and turn it in fast because that's how I work, as you can tell by how fast I talk.
He would say, “This was great, but think how much better it would be if you'd taken your time and spent more time.” So, I would just write the same paper again and hold it for two weeks, then give it to him. He’d say, “See how much better that was?” He was that kind of guy. I was talking to him about what I wanted to do because it was the class where I had to pick my topic. I said, “I want to discuss the impact on sales performance.”
He just cut me off and said, “That’s such a great idea, you want to do emotional intelligence and sales performance.” I replied, “What?” I didn't even say that. As you said, Goleman's book came out in ‘95, and he had made it more of a mainstream topic, but I hadn't known much about it at that time. I thought, “Huh.” Right after I got off that phone call, because he was crazy, I dropped him and picked somebody else. And I cannot for the life of me remember what his name was because I want to go back and thank him.
It's a great story, by the way.
He was out there, but I think he hadn't even finished his doctoral dissertation, he was ABD or whatever it was. He was not even finished with his process. I don't know why I even had him, but it made me look up more about emotional intelligence. I thought, “This is such an interesting thing.” That's how I got into it. Because of that, I had to take training to become certified in emotional intelligence tests.
I had to look at the Mesquite versus the EQI and all the different sales tools and EI tools. Because I learned how to become certified in all those different assessments, I wanted to create my own. I found out how much harder it was to create one when I did it. It was tough because you don’t just want something cute to put on your website, you want a valid instrument that you can put in peer-reviewed journals and that people can use. I had to go through quite a bit, but I’ve got to thank that guy. I’ve got to find him.
What a great story. He was a quirky genius before he'd achieved genius level. I love those people, by the way. You take on their quirky attributes.
He might've just read a book that week, you know what I mean? You just don't know.
Curiosity Code Index
Someone who hasn't made it big but behaves like they've made it big. They get the secondary trait of being super famous before they get there, I love that. You were talking about the assessments, that's a nice lead into the CCI. For everybody reading this, and correct me if I'm wrong, outside of that background for creating the Curiosity Code Index, the second idea was not only were you interested in being able to measure your curiosity, but also to help others think about the barriers to curiosity. Is that right?
Right. There are other assessments out there. Kashdan and his group created this other model that is great for measuring how curious you are so you can find out your levels. I didn't want to do that. I wanted to determine the things that inhibited curiosity because to move forward, you have to figure out what stops you.
To move forward, you need to figure out what is stopping you.
My process was different. I hired all these people from unbelievable places to help me, but they were stuck in the status quo, and they kept giving me Kashdan’s model again. I said, “No, he did a great job with that. I don't need another one of those because that's already been invented.” See, his model works great with my model because if you use his model, you will find out your level. You need help in certain areas, you're okay here and not okay there.
Mine, on the other hand, tells you what’s keeping you from improving. Here's how you can do a personal SWOT analysis of sorts and create an action plan, and then you have a way to get better. It's not a DISC where you're a D, I, S, or C thing. It's more like an emotional intelligence test where these are your levels in different areas, and you could get stronger if you do these kinds of things. It was interesting to create it. I've created different assessments now.
I did one in perception, and these are very challenging to do. It takes years of research, and I studied thousands of people in different demographics. It takes a lot of tweaking of questions to figure out exactly how to get the factor analysis to work and all the geeky stuff that no one cares about. That was my process, and I had to fire all the statisticians I hired because they just kept doing the same status quo things. I said, “No, I'm going to take my own advice, and I'm going to do this. I'm going to figure out how to do it myself,” and I did.
By the way, you were referencing Kevin Kashdan. Kevin was on the show. What we'll do, team, is include the links to the CCI, the assessments that Diane's speaking of, and the references to her nationally syndicated radio show, Take the Lead, all those links are in the show notes. Maybe one path, and I know we covered this a little bit last time, but it's worth thinking about it again, are those barriers.
Barriers To Curiosity
When you start to think organizationally or at an individual level, what are some of the things that start to hinder or block this natural curiosity that we all have that you aptly point out in Cracking The Curiosity Code? When we're kids, we're naturally curious. We ask the five whys almost every time, but we start to lose that. What are these things that start to get in our way?
It's interesting looking at how it hits around age five. What was fascinating to me is that we start to lose our curiosity at that age because it's the same as creativity. It just mimics that same peak and then falls. You think about how you get into school, you do certain things at that time, not blaming teachers, but when teachers have limited time and they’ve got all these kids, they can't answer every single question.
There's some impact from education. We knew that from a lot of the research. Sir Ken Robinson's great TED Talk talked about that with creativity. It was interesting because if you look at George Land's TED Talk and the research he did with NASA, he looked at how creativity was super high when we were two, but by the time we were five in that age, it was already declining. Then you get to 31, and it's gone.
What I wanted to look at is, what happens to it? I found when I did the research that I kept thinking fear was going to be a big one because I'd asked a lot of people on LinkedIn and in different groups to give me the top things. I was surprised by at least one of the four factors that inhibit curiosity, and they are fear, assumptions, technology, and environment.
Four factors inhibit curiosity: fear, assumptions, technology, and environment.
I'll explain each of those. Fear is not surprising, nobody wants to ask questions in meetings. You don’t want to look stupid. You don't want to be in a sales presentation and have somebody ask you a question that you don't know the answer to. In sales, we were taught not to lie. Don't fake that you know it, tell them, “I don't know, but I'm going to get back to you as soon as I can.” You look a lot better than saying the wrong thing.
Nobody knows all the answers, but we’re all afraid that we don't. We don't want to volunteer information that could make us look unprepared, stupid, or whatever negative thoughts we tell ourselves. Fear didn't surprise me. Assumptions also didn't surprise me because they’re the thoughts in our head that say, “This is going to be too hard,” “They’ll turn me down,” or “If I ask this question, I’ll lose the deal.”
I'd rather lose the deal now than have it fall apart later because I didn't ask the right questions. You have to think about overcoming those assumptions. There’s so much involved in what we tell ourselves, and these factors overlap. Your assumptions lead to fear, and that's a problem.
The T in technology surprised me more than the others. It’s about the overuse and underuse of technology. We either want it to do everything for us, or we feel overwhelmed and avoid it altogether. We need to balance high and low use of technology, knowing when to rely on it and when to think for ourselves.
If I gave Einstein a calculator but never taught him the math behind it, would he be the greatest calculator worker? We need that foundation of knowledge before relying on tools. It's like an hourglass, you build the base and then build on top of that. It’s important to pay attention because some people love technology so much that they don’t get the results they need.
Stop thinking, or stop learning how to spell. We'll get to AI in a second.
Yes, I want to talk about some of my research with AI and chat. Remind me. The last one is “E” for environment. That was a big one for me, as I could relate to it. Environment includes everyone you've ever interacted with and how they’ve influenced you, friends, teachers, family, current and past bosses, social media, you name it. Anything can influence how you think. We experience confirmation bias and get all these reinforcements of our thinking. Your family might push you toward a certain job or career path, saying sales is the best or worst job, and that influences your decisions.
Exactly right.
When going through the nine sub-factors under each of these areas, we work on that. When I go to companies, they receive a big report similar to what you’d get if you took an emotional intelligence test or DISC assessment. We go over that, share insights, and then whiteboard ideas to create action plans to overcome these issues. The second half of the training is fun because we address the organization's issues, communication, turnover, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, whatever it is. We talk to leaders first to understand their top concerns, but we also get feedback from employees about what they think are the main problems.
Then, we come up with great ideas on how to build a culture of curiosity and identify what’s missing. We know from Harvard Business Review that leaders think they're encouraging curiosity, but when you ask their employees, they don’t agree. There's a disconnect, so you have to approach it from different angles.
What’s great is, whether I’m training or certifying others to do this, we create these reports for leaders. It's crucial because the feedback comes from employees anonymously. I think I mentioned in my book how Disney asked their employees for suggestions on improving their work environment. They got great solutions, like adjusting air vents and tables, which saved them a lot of money. This process is similar. You go directly to the source, get their input, and it translates into financial benefits.
I think when people hear curiosity, they think it sounds nice and cute, but they don’t fully understand what it means. It’s about being innovative, staying relevant, breaking out of status quo thinking, and saving the company money. For the individual, it increases their earning potential, especially in sales, because you build empathy, make better connections, and improve communication. Ultimately, it leads to making more money and being more engaged in your work because you’re better aligned with what you do instead of just repeating what someone told you to say.
By the way, thank you. There's much to unpack here, and we're going to circle back to AI in a second. For those watching on YouTube, you can see my dog-eared copy of Diane's book, Cracking the Curiosity Code, because I still read physical books. I highlight things and keep going back to them. Team, anyone reading this already knows the great feeling you get when you’re having a conversation with a client, prospect, teammate, or friend and you’re super engaged. You feel better. You’re learning and listening to understand. Diane points out in her book that this happens because dopamine is being released, and that’s why it feels so good. We love dopamine.
The second thing is the simple definition of curiosity, it's just a strong desire to know something. I think a lot of times, when we’re in a conversation, it doesn’t feel like authentic curiosity. Maybe in a selling environment, someone is asking questions that lead you down a path, but you sense manipulation. Every study I've read says we all repel being manipulated in any way. But when you’re having a conversation where someone is genuinely excited, you feel that energy and enthusiasm, and it’s contagious. You feel good as the recipient.
It was more interesting, too, and you don't feel that imposter syndrome where you're saying someone else's words. I found it very challenging in the pharmaceutical sales training I had, where they made us memorize long scripts that had to be delivered in a specific order and manner. When I got back in the field, my boss said, “Forget all that. Don't do any of it.” Two years of training, and suddenly, never mind, but it had such great insights.
He would go into offices and say, “Look at that Selling Well Podcast sign behind you, tell me about that.” He would be interested in what was on their walls or the plants they had. “I have a plant like that,” he’d say to make conversation. He didn't just start with, “This is why you need this,” the minute he knocked on the door. I learned a lot from watching him.
He's interested and interesting. You're trying to be both interested and interesting. As Dale Carnegie said a hundred years ago, you can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in someone else than in two years by trying to make them interested in you. It's still true a hundred years later.
He, Zig Ziglar, and all the famous figures said similar things. It’s evergreen advice because people are people and want to be related to in a certain way. Tony Alessandra's quote, “Treat people as they'd want to be treated instead of how you'd want to be treated,” is also important. I explored this concept in the book The Power of Perception with Dr. Maya Zelihic. We often forget that people don't always see things the way we do.
We often just forget that people don't always see things the way we want.
I remember calling on a doctor, thinking “I'm going to use this line, this is going to be good.” I had a migraine drug and said, “Do you know what? Your patients are calling you up in the middle of the night, waking you up. They'll have to go to the ER and all this stuff.” He replied, “I don't care if they go to the ER, it’s not my budget.” I thought, “I’m not going to you,” but more importantly, I realized you can’t assume everyone cares about the same things you do.
This brings us back to assumptions. You can go down a rabbit hole, assuming everyone cares about what you care about or shares your opinions. We’re learning a lot about this through social media. There's nothing you're going to be sure of until you ask people. You need the confidence to ask, without fear, because it's better to hear something you can't answer than to miss something you should have known.
Leadership 101, are we creating a situation where we want a bunch of yes-people around the table, or do we want to understand what's going on so that we can figure out what other questions to ask?
I don't know if you saw Travis Bradbury’s research, which he shared a while back, about CEOs having lower levels of emotional intelligence. This could be because they’re surrounded by yes-men or yes-women, leading to fewer meaningful conversations. Not having these meaningful conversations is a huge problem for emotional intelligence.
Not having meaningful conversations is a huge problem for our emotional intelligence.
You're right. On the leadership front, I think it ties back to something else you mentioned, with so much change and transition, many new leaders experience imposter syndrome. We all have it to some degree, no one is at zero on the sliding scale. But for new leaders, especially those in significant roles, there’s often a fear of being asked a question they don’t have the answer to. They want to keep everything in control.
No, you've got to hope they do ask tough questions because it helps you grow, and you’ll find the answers. The way you respond matters. If you fake it, you’re in trouble. You want to say, “That’s a good question. I’m sure others have it too. I’ll find out and get back to you today,” and then follow through. You can’t know everything, but we're so hard on ourselves, thinking we should. I think people appreciate humility. When a salesperson comes across as overly polished, it’s less appealing than someone with a humble quality who focuses on relationships.
That was one good thing about being a pharmaceutical rep, it wasn’t just about a one-time sale. It was about building relationships. Many of you might be in sales where it’s a one-time thing, but you never know when those customers might come back. High-pressure stuff might work in one-time sales, but in relationship sales, you can't do that.
Even with one-time transactions, people can sense your intent now. I walked into a retail store the other day, and the salesperson who helps me is great. I pulled something off the shelf and said, “I think this would look great.” He replied, “Let’s talk about what else you have in your closet before you buy that red jacket that always looks good to buy but that you’re never going to wear. Based on your color, there’s no way you’re wearing this thing.”
AI And Curiosity
The best people in life or your relationships understand the other side and see how they can help, even in one-time transactions. I know we’re running short on your valuable time, Diane, but I want to get this in. In section five, you talk about curiosity and AI. Will AI quell, contain, or expand curiosity? Now, I can get initial answers to almost any subject quickly. It can trigger my first line of questioning, leading to more. What’s your view on AI in this world of curiosity?
It's interesting. I sold computers in the early ‘80s, and everyone was freaked out, thinking they would lose jobs and that computers would take over. We didn’t know about social media managers or the other jobs that would be created. They’re saying it’s similar now, but it’s dramatically expanded since then, and maybe jobs will be affected more.
I use ChatGPT a lot to get ideas, especially if I’m preparing for a training session. I might think about what would be a good game to play. Whether I like what it suggests or not, it opens my mind to new possibilities. I usually take about 10% of what it suggests and then build something completely different because AI only knows what you tell it. It’s not going to know everything you can create until you put it into the internet somehow.
Recently, I did research on the financial impact of having a culture of curiosity from the C-Suite’s perspective. I asked C-Suite executives to tell me what financial benefits they received from creating a culture of curiosity. I was pleasantly surprised by the results. They reported making between $100,000 to over a million a year by implementing this in their organizations. It wasn’t just the CEO saying this, every C-level executive, from COOs to CHROs, echoed the same sentiment. I thought it was great.
I had a lot of correlative data, but I don't love doing statistics, it's not my thing. I asked for a chart to accompany my study, and it gave me one with my exact data. But then, it added fictitious information, like mentioning 250 CEOs when I only had data from 51. It was scary how it made up the data.
That’s a constant theme with AI, you always have to check everything because it can go completely off the rails.
I argued with it for a while saying, “No.” As a mother, I know how to argue with it.
I was just going to ask, “Did you win?”
I didn't win. I gave up because it couldn't do that. I think the way it's programmed is to make things look better than what you put in. They want it to be more glowing. They use certain words that are annoying after a while. The landscape comes up a lot. I don't even use that word. There are a lot of things where you can tell it's AI-generated, but I think the ideas it comes up with are important.
I think it's going to do a lot of things much faster than people can, but I think people will end up doing other jobs, just like we now have social media managers instead of people loading copy paper or whatever they were doing before. It's just going to be a different kind of world where you need the creative element. It's creative to some extent. I saw the movie made by George Carlin. I don't know if you saw that, but that was it.
No.
You’ve got to look that up. I know that Carlin's estate is suing them for it, but they took his voice and tried to replicate it to some extent. It sounds like him, but not completely. They wrote a whole comedic routine based on his past work and created it about today's issues. Since he's dead, he can't talk about these things. It was pretty accurate, the things he would have talked about and the style in which he would have given it.
It's going to take a lot of creative license, but it's only going to know what he used to think. It's not going to know what he might have developed into. It's got a scary element, no question, but it's also got a positive element because it enlightens you to some great ideas. I thought, “I hadn't thought about doing that in a workshop.” I'm like, “Give me an outline for a workshop. I want to do one about XYZ.” “I'm going to sell to this company. Tell me the most recent products they have and what this guy's background is or this gal's background.” “Give it to me in this format and certain ways.”
It just keeps things fast for you to do research or to do what you were going to do anyway. It just gives you more time to do it. There's the good and the bad with any technology, always. Everybody freaks out when new stuff comes out, and there will always be good and bad in all aspects. I think that right now, it is fun to see what it can do. I've been playing with it quite a bit just to see how to use it.
I think that's good advice, by the way. With any technology like this, it's going to be a mainstay. Play with it. Just get in and find some things. Certainly, for entrepreneurs, there's a productivity component in there. Basic marketing, you could put your book in there, you could ask for email blasts to market the book, and you could ask for sell sheets on the book.
The podcaster’s questions about the book, you could give that to the next person interviewing, saying, “These are twenty questions that might make sense for my book.” All of it comes in a minute. I find it's going to be interesting staying abreast of it. I like this theme of technology enabling your future, but I think it comes back to making sure it’s not one of your barriers. Make sure it's not the T in fate, Not too little or too much. By the way, we’ve hit the end again. What a pleasure speaking to you again. It’s great to see you, and thank you.
Thank you. I’m excited. The book’s out. Here it is. I’m sorry I didn’t get to give you an actual copy. It's very exciting to have it out. I don't know if you saw it on LinkedIn, but I did a promo offer for companies that want to build a culture of curiosity. If you have a larger number of people that you want to give this Curiosity Code Index to, I'm giving it away for free if they've bought 50 or more books.
I'm doing certain things that are a big value to people, but it's been a lot of fun. If you guys get a chance, it's out there. You can find everything. I created a special website that goes to my main website at DrDianeHamilton.com, but it's a special website just for that offer. If you want to look at UnleashedCuriosity.com, because Curiosity Unleashed was already taken, it's reversed. There's a lot to be learned about getting out of status quo thinking. I'm super excited about this book.
Closing
Team, every one of those links will be in the show notes for this episode. I can say with confidence that you're not going to regret reading either book, Curiosity Unleashed and Cracking The Curiosity Code. Great reads and interesting reads, you'll want to pick these up for sure. Diane, thank you again for joining us. What a pleasure chatting with you.
Thank you, and thank you for sharing your book with me. I loved it.
By the way, thank you so much for providing such a wonderful testimonial for our book. I appreciate it. Learn to Love Selling, folks, and team, thank you for joining the show. If you liked this episode, please share it with your friends, and then like and subscribe to The Selling Well podcast because that matters to us. That's how we get great guests like Diane, and thanks for doing so.
If there's something we can do to make this show more helpful for you, that growth-oriented sales professional, please let me know. My email is MarkCox@InTheFunnel.com. That comes to me. We love constructive criticism. We respond to every note we get. Some of the things we do on this show are because you gave us good suggestions. Please reach out to us if there's a great author we should be interviewing or a topic we should discuss. We'd love to hear from you. We'll see you next time on The Selling Well podcast.
Important Links
Dr. Diane Hamilton PhD - LinkedIn
DrDianeHamilton.com - Website
UnleashCuriosity.com - Book’s Website
CCI - Assessment
Cracking the Curiosity Code, the Key to Unlocking Human Potential - Authored Book
Curiosity Unleashed - Authored Book
Take the Lead - Podcast
The Power of Perception - Authored Book
Learn to Love Selling - Mentioned Book
The Curiosity Code: Unlock Your Sales Superpower With Dr. Diane Hamilton - Previous Episode
About Dr. Diane Hamilton
Dr. Diane Hamilton is the Founder and CEO of Tonerra, a consulting and training business. She has served on multiple advisory boards, including Docusign, the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue, the Global Mentor Network, and RadiusAI. She is the former MBA Program Chair at the Forbes School of Business and Technology, a Fulbright Specialist, and continues to serve as faculty for several universities, including Duke Corporate Education.
She is a nationally syndicated radio host, keynote speaker, and author of multiple books required in universities worldwide, including Cracking the Curiosity Code, Curiosity Unleashed, and The Power of Perception. She is the creator of the Curiosity Code Index® assessment, the first and only assessment that determines the factors that inhibit curiosity, and the Perception Power Index, which determines the factors that impact perception.
Her groundbreaking work helps organizations improve innovation, engagement, and productivity. Thinkers50 Radar, considered the Academy Awards for Leadership, chose her as one of the top minds in management and leadership.
She was named to Global Leaders Today's list of top leaders along with Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, and Sheryl Sandberg; LeadersHum included her on their list of 200 Biggest Voices in Leadership and the Top 10 Most Powerful Women Leaders in HR, and Hiring Branch's Top 24 HR Influencers to Follow.
