Curiosity beyond Diagnostics: The Art of Slow Looking and Deep Discovery
- Samuel Lam
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 12 hours ago
Why Effective Leaders Go Beyond Solving Problems to Cultivating Wonder
Samuel Lam, Managing Partner, Third Opinion Partners & Linh Ngo, Consultant, Third Opinion Partners
In leadership and coaching conversations, we often naturally start with some diagnostic
questions to get to know an individual and their situation: What happened? What is the
problem/ challenge? Where is the pain? Diagnostics is a vital first step, it helps us
establish facts, surface symptoms, and define a starting point for finding a solution,
decision or action. But if leaders (and coaches) rely only on what others tell them or on
the data that happens to be available, they risk treating the wrong problem. Diagnostics
tells us what is visible, but curiosity invites us to explore what is possible. And your
curiosity needs to be cultivated and built, way beyond diagnostic steps.
The Space and Value of Diagnostics
Diagnostics gives leaders and coaches a baseline to discover facts and information
about what has happened and is going on with a leader or situation. It provides data,
direction, and grounding, which is essential in finding evidences and clarifying
accountability. It is where leaders and coaches practice leadership inquiry and active
listening.
In leadership coaching, coaches often use various methods such as interviews and
diagnostic tools, 360-degree feedback assessments, and psychometric assessments to
collect data and information about the coachee. Diagnostics is for both the coach’s
understanding and self-awareness of the individual about oneself, the team, and the organization.
This step is absolutely critical and beneficial if the correct methods are chosen and
conducted effectively.
However, depending on diagnostic data has its limitations because it is only based on the
available data and noticeable symptoms. The data collected often does not give us
everything or tell the entire story. Diagnostic data needs to be integrated well with a
framing around a person’s natural drivers, execution, energy, and expectations. Leaders and
coaches need to build on that foundation with curiosity - the discipline of discovery.
Curiosity: The Discipline Beyond Diagnostics
Curiosity is not random interest or idle questioning. It is a disciplined practice of paying
attention - looking, wondering, and wandering.
Looking: choosing deliberately what to notice.
Wondering: asking why something is the way it is.
Wandering: allowing space and time to explore without rushing to conclusions.
This “art of slow looking” allows leaders to stay with what they see - a person’s pain, joy,
or desire - long enough to understand it more deeply. It’s about being present, unhurried,
and genuinely interested in the other person’s story.
For coaches and leaders alike, curiosity must flow both ways. It begins with being curious
about the person - their lifeline, their motivations, their context - and extends to building
curiosity in them. When you show curiosity toward a coachee, you invite them to be
curious too, about you, about themselves, and about the patterns shaping their
leadership. This shared curiosity expands adjacencies - the spaces that encourage
reflective and contemplative pauses and where learning and insight happen.
Curiosity helps leaders listen not just to what is said, but also to what is not spoken. It
brings empathy and depth into conversations that might otherwise remain surface-level.
Curiosity also helps leaders explore the forces that drive people - the Three Ps of
motivation:
Pain: what they seek to avoid,
Pleasure: what they hope to gain, and
Purpose: what gives meaning to their effort.
Understanding these dimensions requires patience, openness, and the ability to stay with
complexity - qualities diagnostic thinking alone cannot provide.
In a recent Harvard research surveying 1700 executives in more than 90 countries led by
Professor Linda A. Hill in 2022 (as described in ‘Curiosity, Not Coding: 6 Skills Leaders
Need in the Digital Age’ , Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, 2022 1 ), curiosity
is recognized as one of the most desirable traits that leaders need to lead in the digital
age, besides creativity, adaptability and comfort with ambiguity.
From Humble Inquiry to the Prepared Mind
Curiosity builds upon humble inquiry - Edgar Schein’s invitation to ask genuine questions
with respect and openness. Humble inquiry is the attitude; curiosity is the stance and the
process that follows. It’s what leaders do with their openness: they observe, question,
and connect seemingly unrelated ideas.
This leads to what we might call the prepared mind of a leader - a mind trained to
observe intentionally, to interpret what it sees, and to connect insights across boundaries.
As Warren Bennis described in Still Surprised, even in his eighties, he remained eager to
learn, much like a scientist or child at play - always exploring, always discovering.
The need of developing and keeping a curious mind is even more important today in the
era of Internet and artificial intelligence (AI). Science students at Harvard University are
now invited to apply and get selected for the Genuinely Hard Problems (GHP) scheme,
which is designed to expose bright young minds each week to the world’s biggest
unanswered questions creator (Source: Curiosity as a discipline? Harvard thinks it can
train a new breed of super smart scientists 2 ). According to Dr. Logan McCarty, a Harvard
science lecturer and Dean of Education and the scheme’s creator, neurobiology
professor Jeff Lichtman, the internet and artificial intelligence (AI) have lessened the
need for ambitious thinkers to acquire specialised technical skills and internalise vast
quantities of information. Instead, Dr McCarty said, they should be seeking to understand
human society and its problems: “Prepare students to ask, ‘how can we use science’ and
‘what should we do with science’, not just ‘how to do science’.” The initiative raises
profound questions about the future of science education in the age of AI, where human
curiosity remains the key.
Cultivating a Curious Mindset
Researchers and psychologists have compiled and concluded on the many benefits of
curiosity - it enhances intelligence, increases perseverance and grit, propels us toward deeper engagement, superior performance and more meaningful goals. After
synthesizing many important research on curiosity over the last 50 years, Todd Kashdan,
Professor of Psychology, Patrick McKnight and team at George Mason University created
a five-dimensional model of curiosity (‘The Five Dimensions of Curiosity’, by Todd B.
Kashdan, David J. Disabato, Fallon R. Goodman and Carl Naughton, Harvard Business
Review 2018 3 ):
Deprivation sensitivity - recognizing a gap in knowledge the filling of which offers
relief. This type of curiosity doesn’t necessarily feel good, but people who
experience it work relentlessly to solve problems.
Joyous exploration - being consumed with wonder about the fascinating features
of the world. This is a pleasurable state; people in it seem to possess a joie de
vivre.
Social curiosity - talking, listening, and observing others to learn what they are
thinking and doing. Human beings are inherently social animals, and the most
effective and efficient way to determine whether someone is friend or foe is to gain
information.
Stress tolerance - a willingness to accept and even harness the anxiety associated
with novelty. People lacking this ability see information gaps, experience wonder,
and are interested in others but are unlikely to step forward and explore.
Thrill seeking - being willing to take physical, social, and financial risks to acquire
varied, complex, and intense experiences. For people with this capacity, the
anxiety of confronting novelty is something to be amplified, not reduced.
Curiosity thrives on reinforcement. It grows when leaders explore areas they are naturally
drawn to - their adjacencies: what they like, what they are good at, what rewards them.
Like children who learn through play, leaders who stay curious learn through exploration.
To cultivate curiosity as a discipline:
Slow down and stay longer with what you observe.
Ask questions that open rather than close.
Listen deeply - especially to silence.
Explore adjacencies instead of rushing to answers.
Allow learning to unfold, not be forced.
From Problem-Solving to Possibility-Making
Diagnostics is about fixing; curiosity is about discovering. Together, they create balance -
a grounded yet imaginative form of leadership.
When leaders approach others and themselves with curiosity beyond diagnostics, they
shift from being problem-solvers to possibility-makers. And in a world that prizes speed
and certainty, that slow, deliberate curiosity might just be the most radical leadership act
of all.
Bibliography and Recommended Readings:
Articles:
‘Curiosity, Not Coding: 6 Skills Leaders Need in the Digital Age’, by Linda A. Hill,
Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, 2022, accessed via link.
‘Curiosity as a discipline? Harvard thinks it can train a new breed of super smart
scientists’, by Anjana Ahuja, The Strait Times, 19 November 2025, accessed via link.
‘The Five Dimensions of Curiosity’, by Todd B. Kashdan, David J. Disabato, Fallon R.
Goodman and Carl Naughton, Harvard Business Review 2018, accessed via link.
Books:
‘Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership’ by Patricia Ward Biederman and
Warren G. Bennis, 2010.
‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’, by Daniel Kahneman, 2011.
‘Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling’, by Edgar Schein, 2013.
‘The Prepared Mind of a Leader: Eight Skills Leaders Use to Innovate, Make
Decisions, and Solve Problems’, by by Bill Welter and Jean Egmon, 2005.
‘The Power of an Hour: Business and Life Mastery in One Hour a Week’, by Dave
Lakhani, 2006.
‘Managing in the Gray: Five Timeless Questions for Resolving Your Toughest
Problems at Work’, by Joseph L. Badaracco, 2016.
About Authors
Samuel Lam is Managing Partner of Third Opinion Partners, a global leadership development and organisational development consulting firm. One of the leading practitioners in the field of leadership development in Asia, Sam has created some of the most highly regarded leadership development programs for both Singapore and global clients. He serves as executive coach and adviser to a number of notable CEOs, boards, and senior government officials in Singapore, Europe, and Asia. His major clients included GlaxoSmithKline, Unilever, Prudential, AIA, Lenovo, Hasbro, Philips, Disney, CIMB Bank, and various branches of the Singapore Government. Sam’s expertise spans several areas of leadership development: executive coaching, executive selection, performance improvement of top teams, development of talent pipelines, and assessment of top talent. He co-authored Linkage Inc.’s Best Practices in Leadership Development Handbook (Second Edition, 2009) with Marshall Goldsmith and David Giber.
Linh Ngo is a Consultant and Program Manager at Third Opinion Partners. She has over 10 years of experience in strategic human resource management and talent development, both as a human resource practitioner and a consultant.” Her area of expertise lies in designing, developing, and executing customised leadership development programs and delivering leadership consulting projects. Some of her major clients include AIA, Deloitte, Hasbro, Lenovo, Maybank, Sime Darby, RHB Bank. As Linh forges ahead, she is in charge of advancing new programs and initiatives in empowering the next generation of leaders.
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