While Kelsey would have thought the answer would have been to directly face down all of these problems, the “young adults” seemed to want to do the opposite—they wanted to plan and forecast, to look past immediate problems into the future.

If you aren’t surprised or uncomfortable by your customer’s responses, then you aren’t digging deep enough.”

She toweled the one small bead of sweat off her face and continued. “The new management team was just not curious enough about the customers they inherited. They just assumed they were buying the customers when they bought the company. They thought they were really smart. Smart enough to know what people wanted, what they needed, but the thing is,

“Just remember, you can’t fix all of it. Customers are going to tell you all kinds of problems. Your job is to decide where to focus. That’s Essential Curiosity Question #2: Are you Focused on the Right Things?

The Four Essential Curiosity Questions. They kind of require some explanation, but here’s the high level: One, what are our blind spots? Two, are we prioritizing the right things? Three, what can we test? Four, how can we engage others?”

it’s much harder to stay at the top than it is to get there: because it’s so hard to maintain your curiosity in the face of success.”

Essential Curiosity Question #3: What can I test? Testing helps us de-risk big ideas before investing.

customer frustrations and disappointments never end. They always have complaints.

That’s why presenting a problem without some kind of a tested solution inside of a big organization is a recipe for delay.”