The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast · John Jantsch

Curious Leaders Build Stronger, Smarter Teams

·22 min·1 clip

Clary says toddlers ask 298 questions a day, but adults may ask only five.

1. The Duct Tape Marketing Podcast episode focuses on The Curiosity Curve and leadership curiosity with Dr. Debra Clary. 2. John Jantz hosts Dr. Debra Clary, a leadership strategist, narrative scientist, researcher, and executive coach with more than three decades of experience at Frito-Lay, Coca-Cola, Jack Daniels, and Humana. 3. The episode asks whether curiosity is a soft trait or a measurable leadership practice that changes team performance. 4. Clary says she first became interested in curiosity after hearing an American joke in Rome, a CEO ask whether curiosity can be learned, and a Gallup report show low engagement. 5. She cites neurophysicists out of London who found toddlers ask 298 questions a day, while adults may ask only five. 6. Clary says people are taught to be incurious through phrases like “children are to be seen and not heard,” “Don’t open Pandora’s box,” and “Curiosity killed the cat.” 7. She explains that expertise, university training, and time constraints push leaders toward answers instead of questions. 8. Clary says researchers out of MIT found a direct correlation between a leader’s curiosity and team performance. 9. She adds that curiosity can be learned, taught, and measured through the curiosity curve assessment for individuals, teams, and organizations. 10. Clary argues that leaders often default to telling people what to do because it is efficient in the short term. 11. She says the best leaders focus on the individual rather than the problem, because questions build confidence and critical thinking. 12. Her examples include asking “Tell me what you’ve been thinking about,” and “Are there other problems that are similar to this that you’ve solved?” 13. Clary says meetings should include agenda-setting plus an open question about what is missing from the agenda. 14. She says leaders should encourage questions and even challenge what has been said so teams get comfortable with being challenged. 15. Clary links culture to leadership by saying, “So goes the leader, so goes the culture.” 16. She describes a case where an insurance-company team and a care-delivery team were using the same word differently until she paused the meeting and asked each person to define it. 17. Clary describes her style as data-driven and practical, using research to move skeptical CEOs toward visible agreement. 18. The conversation is interview-based, direct, and example-heavy, with John Jantz asking short follow-up questions and Clary answering in concrete workplace terms. 19. Leaders, consultants, and managers who want better team performance will get the most from it. 20. People looking for a general business chat without research or frameworks may skip it.

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