In elementary school, I always wanted to ask questions. Why is the sky blue? Why don't we burn algae instead of coal for fuel? Why do we teach American history more than once – and why aren't the facts completely accurate the first time? As many students have found, these questions are an unwelcome nuisance. It's not necessarily because the teacher doesn't like having a curious student. This is because teachers have limited time to teach toward one outcome: high test scores. The time for questions is therefore left aside. However, what if the next big idea, or even the next best idea, gets left behind due to lack of time? This does not benefit the individual, the school or the country in the long run. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original EssayOrganizations operate in the same way as schools. Organizations have multiple goals and projects to accomplish: collecting profits, maintaining their public image, creating products and/or services, expanding the reach of the business – with limited resources: time, money, human capital. As in school, this type of rushed assessment practice, of living for next time, leads to more mundane and less innovative results. Curiosity should be explored and encouraged, but how can it be when efficiency is such a priority? Could curiosity and efficiency coexist? After looking at business-related websites, I think the answer is yes. Before exploring how curiosity and efficiency might occur simultaneously, one must first recognize what curiosity and efficiency are. Curiosity is defined by Merriam-Webster as a desire to know and an interest leading to inquiry.[i] Curiosity is at the forefront of innovation because curiosity leads to creative solutions. Tony Vartanian, co-founder of Lucktastic, deliberately seeks out qualified and curious employees rather than qualified but relaxed employees.[ii] Curious employees search for and stumble upon new questions, which leads to new ideas, new processes and ultimately to a more effective and efficient means of production than previous systems. Curiosity is very beneficial to both start-ups, which need innovation to stay afloat, and sustainable businesses, which need innovation to stay competitive. Yet curiosity is often ignored by organizational leaders, just as it has been by teachers, because this trait is considered childish and ineffective. After all, how does a project end when the creators keep asking themselves why? To answer this question, we must first recognize the trait that allows us to succeed: efficiency. Merriam-Webster defines it as the ratio between the useful energy delivered by a dynamic system and the energy supplied to it. Simply put, a highly efficient system is one in which you invest little, but get a lot out. Imagine the fantastic example of placing a grain of corn in a bucket and turning it into a bucket of gold; the result is much greater than the sum of its parts and would therefore be considered effective. Efficiency is valuable because a business, person, product, or process with this characteristic maximizes output, such as profit or quantity made, while minimizing inputs, such as operating costs or time. Asking questions takes time, which can reduce effectiveness in the short term. -term. However,Curiosity-driven innovation increases long-term efficiency, which in turn increases profits. Curiosity and efficiency must therefore coexist for a business to succeed. The question remains: how? A look at how to encourage the two behaviors separately suggests a solution. Curiosity in the workplace is encouraged through communication between teams, employees' outside hobbies, and increased employee task identity and autonomy. Within an organization, curiosity can be cultivated culturally by accepting and planning for a certain degree of failure, encouraging questions for the sake of learning, leading for example and hiring curious leaders and managers, hiring team players rather than talented individuals, and focusing on the process of achieving an end result rather than the result itself. In short, curiosity is encouraged when members of an organization welcome, challenge, and explore all ideas and perspectives. This quote spoken by entertainment innovator Walt Disney on his television show The Wonderful World of Disney best explains why curiosity is valuable: Around here, though, we don't look back very long. We keep moving forward, opening new doors and doing new things, because we are curious...and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. The quote is also best recognized in a film about failure, Meet the Robinsons. Efficiency benefits from a defined process, clear communication, tasks well matched to employee skills, appropriate incentives and feedback. The merits of this trait are widely recognized in the business world. , but high-performing companies value it and focus on it. Travis Kalanick, co-founder of Uber, goes so far as to say that being Uber means being efficient. Uber's efficiency, both for customers and drivers, is one of its hallmarks and one of the measures of the company's success. Using this information on methods to maximize both characteristics, the obvious overlap between curiosity and efficiency is time and communication, that is, both require high levels. of clear communication, but curiosity takes time away from a rigid but effective schedule. For the benefit of both, organizations would do well to learn the best way to communicate with their employees, build multidisciplinary teams that minimize inefficiencies in departmental project transitions, and encourage questions about all aspects of the project , and to establish a forum for recording ideas expressed in formal and informal meetings in order to avoid repetition of thoughts, memory errors and misunderstandings. To alleviate the problem of overlapping time, organizations should schedule time for curiosity. This could take the form of weekly meetings where people lay out all their questions and make adjustments based on the questions asked or give employees more time to think about solutions to the questions. To benefit more introverted team members, this weekly meeting should also have an online written presence that can be edited throughout the week. Although this adjustment would take time away from an optimized work schedule and therefore could upset current managers and systems, it would enable long-term innovation, saving money and time and increasing efficiency later . Previously, I used the two companies WED (Disney) and Uber to do.