Curiosity conversations are structured, intentional meetings with fascinating people from diverse fields outside one’s immediate professional circle, driven purely by curiosity and the desire to understand different perspectives and experiences.
In general, people are happy to talk, especially about themselves and their work, and to actually get to talk to them, it helps to have even a small pretext. The point of these conversations is to follow your curiosity. The goal is to learn something from the person you are meeting with.
For them to be effective, they have to be a kind of discipline, “because you don’t get to talk to busy, interesting people unless you put steady effort into persuading them to see you.”
Grazer maintained this practice for over 35 years, tracking down people about whom he was curious and asking if he could sit down with them for an hour, with his goal being at least one every two weeks. His strongest sense of curiosity is what he calls “emotional curiosity”: he wants to understand what makes people tick and see if he can connect a person’s attitude and personality with their work, challenges, and accomplishments.
Even if you’re curiosity is received negatively by the person you are talking to, you still get a vivid sense of the person. If you persevere and keep the conversation going, you can still get a good understanding of their opinions and, more importantly, get insight into their point of view.
From a network perspective, curiosity conversations are a deliberate strategy for creating Network Shortcuts—connections outside your usual social and professional circles. By systematically reaching out to people in different industries, fields, and communities, you’re building the weak ties that make your network “small” and give you access to novel information and opportunities. The discipline required—at least one conversation every two weeks for over 35 years—reflects the reality that valuable shortcuts don’t form accidentally.