Welcome back to a third season of the Eccles Business Buzz podcast!
This season, join host Frances Johnson as she explores the topic of continuous curiosity, asking: What is curiosity? Why is it important? And what roadblocks prevent us from being curious in our work, homes and communities? Throughout this season, we’ll also hear from guests who have used curiosity to pursue something new – a degree, a profession, or a passion.
In this episode, Frances chats with Glen Kreiner, Chair of the Department of Management at the David Eccles School of Business. Glen is also the L.S. Skaggs Presidential Chair in Business Ethics Management. His award-winning research focuses on our identities at work, mindfulness, work/life dynamics, and ethics.
Glen talks about the relationship between mindfulness and curiosity, and how we can all work to develop what he calls a “beginner's mind.”
On practicing mindfulness
Glen (4:14) - “One of the things we talked about in a paper we had published recently is the idea of mindfulness capacity. That's something that can be built, kind of like putting water into a reservoir. If the reservoir is dry, you don't have any water left. So we try to think about how we build a mindfulness capacity so that in those stressful moments, we can call upon our mindfulness skills. If we want to be creative or curious or think about ourselves or our relationships, we can draw upon those mind practices.”
On the benefits of a beginner’s mind
Glen (16:19) “In the eyes of a beginner, there’s lots of possibilities. But iIf you think you're an expert, there aren't many possibilities. You think you've already figured it out. So that beginner's mind is a really wonderful tool for curiosity and creativity, because it helps you throw assumptions out the window.”
On using mindfulness to understand our identities and the perceptions of others
Glen (29:09) “My perception of myself is not the same as these people's perception of me, or maybe they're seeing something that I can cultivate so that I can feel that way about myself. / (25:47) Whether the label came from me or someone else, what does that word mean? Do I want it, or do I not want it? Do I want to change the meaning of it? Cause maybe I keep the word. Change the meaning of it. And that's what mindfulness and curiosity can allow us to do with these identity labels that either we or others put on ourselves.”