Some people are by nature curious (they have a high Curiosity motive). Curious people ask a lot of question and want to know WHY something needs to be done. They for example want to understand how the results of their work will be used in the organisation. The question “why” could be also understood, by less curious people, as questioning whether the matter at hand should or should not be done at all, but that is usually not the case. Curious people just want to understand for which purpose the results or information is needed.
Curious people do not either start to work right away, but first read and research the matter. For some people this investigating phase can bee too long, and too little results are shown initially. The good side of this is that they probably do not have to redo any of the work, as they have investigated the matter thoroughly.
If you as a manager have low curiosity and want to see some results straight away, you might not understand the work style of some employees.
They are the ones that also love training courses, to learn new things they can apply in their work.
There is nothing right or wrong in having a high or low Curiosity motive, but this can cause misunderstanding in work situations, especially starting new projects or a new employee starting in a position.
If you want to know more about differences in motivation, to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings in your team: Mindful is conducting Reiss motivation profile leadership trainings, see below link:
http://www.mindful.se/tjanster/ledarskap/ledarskapsutbildning/motiverande-ledare/
Aila Kekkonen
Certified Reiss Motivation Profile coach, facilitator and trainer