I Don't Know, But I Will Find Out
The career advantage of curiosity over expertise.
In a sea of people trying to win on expertise, now might be the time to take a different stance.
I’d like to share some research that should be getting more attention than it is. Victor Otati, a sociologist at Loyola University in Chicago, studies something called "open-minded cognition." Through his work, he's uncovered a concept that explains why the more expert we become, the more closed-minded we tend to get.
He calls it "earned dogmatism."
The Expert Trap
Otati's experiment is brilliantly simple. He gathers two groups and asks them questions about politics. The first group gets asked to name ten policies enacted by the Obama administration. They struggle, managing only a few. "Obviously you're not an expert here," he tells them. "You've got quite a bit to learn."
The second group gets asked to name just two policies. Healthcare, DACA—they rattle off. "Wow, you must be a political science expert," he responds.
Then both groups take the same test measuring open-mindedness, with questions like "I like to consider all angles before making a judgment" and "There are some opinions I don't have time to listen to."
The results are striking. The group labeled as having "a lot to learn" scores significantly higher on open-mindedness. The "experts" become defensive, closed off to new information.
Believing you're an expert can foster dogmatism, undermining your capacity for improvement.
The Reciprocity of Open Minds
Otati's research reveals something else crucial: the quickest way to get someone to open their mind to your way of thinking is to demonstrate open-mindedness about their way of thinking.
We engage in this reciprocity without realizing it. If I'm having a conversation with someone I politically disagree with, and I demonstrate that I'm willing to hear and consider their ideas, when I state my own ideas, they're more likely to genuinely consider them too.
Before we can entertain a new idea, it has to pass through a moral filter that asks whether this is even something worth discussing. Understanding what blocks that filter—and having conversations about those blocks—opens up space for curiosity-based dialogue instead of automatic, defensive thinking.
Curiosity Conversations
Brian Grazer, the movie producer behind Apollo 13, has turned curiosity into a practice. He schedules what he calls "curiosity conversations"—meetings with people he thinks he can learn from, with the sole purpose of seeing how much he can discover.
He's done this with everyone from Oprah to Isaac Asimov to the Dalai Lama. The practice works with anyone. It's like working out—just exercising the muscle of curiosity for its own sake.
One conversation particularly stuck with me. He spoke with Veronica De Negri, who had been detained in Chile by her government and confined to a box where she had to stand for days. He wasn't making a movie about her story; he was simply learning about isolation and claustrophobia.
Years later, while making Apollo 13, he needed to convey that same sense of claustrophobia and isolation in the spacecraft. That earlier conversation gave him exactly the insight he needed.
There's no direct payoff to these curiosity conversations, but if you gather enough of these experiences, they become available when you need them.
The AI Reckoning
I'm watching this play out in real time with AI. There are a lot of experts in the software development community, and their expertise is allowing them to be dogmatic about how software is written today. But the way software is written is changing dramatically.
Two camps are emerging: the curious ones who realize their job is to stay on top of wherever this technology is going, and those who are dismayed that they don't get to do the fun parts of their job anymore.
I get it—this feels threatening. You've spent years building expertise, and now it might feel like that investment is being devalued. But here's the thing: your experience isn't worthless. It's actually what gives you the foundation to learn faster than someone starting from scratch.
If you get too entrenched in the way things are and focus on doing things the way you've always done them, you risk becoming the VCR repair man. But if you can channel that same dedication you used to build your expertise into learning what's next, you'll be ahead of everyone else who's still pretending this isn't happening.
Beyond the Expert Label
Years before starting Sketch Development, I applied for a consulting role at a company. After several interviews, they passed on me. My curiosity took over—I had to know why.
"You've never been a user of this software," they explained. "You don't have experience with it."
I pushed back: "You don't know how well I know it. You just know I've never used it before, but you never gave me a test."
They indulged my curiosity and offered a technical assessment. I spent 48 hours downloading tutorials and learning everything I could. I discovered later that I passed that test better than anyone who had ever used the software.
The lesson wasn't about what I knew—it was about what I could learn, driven by genuine curiosity and desire.
Reframe Your Foundation
Instead of seeing your job's foundation as "I know, therefore I am valuable," consider this alternative: "I don't know, but I will find out."
This isn't about abandoning expertise entirely. It's about recognizing where your expertise might be getting in your way. Ask yourself: What positions are we defending simply because we've always defended them? What are we ignoring because we don't like the source it came from?
In a world where everyone is trying to win on expertise, the advantage might just go to those willing to admit they don't know everything—but are excited to find out.
If your "experts" have stopped learning, if innovation feels impossible, or if your team defaults to "that's how we've always done it," we can help.
My new book Pitch, Sketch, Launch was recently covered by Forbes, get yourself a copy to transform how your team collaborates and creates.