The Future Belongs to the Curious

On building the mindset we need for whatever comes next

How often have you invested in new tools or processes, only to see engagement flop? In legal, we’ve long valued logic, certainty and risk mitigation – all important traits. But in doing so, we’ve often trained out the very thing that makes innovation possible: the willingness to explore what we don’t yet know. 

Generative AI has shifted that. For the first time in years, lawyers, legal ops professionals and business teams are experimenting. When one of our senior partners walked into an AI demo, notebook in hand, we knew the curiosity seed had been planted. The challenge now is growing it into lasting capability.  

Why Curiosity Matters 

The World Economic Forum’s “Future of Jobs Report” ranks curiosity among the top skills needed by 2030. It makes sense: curiosity shapes how we show up each day. It’s the mindset that shifts “Do I have to learn this?” to “What could this teach me?” – helping us stay adaptable when the path ahead isn’t clear. 

Teams who build this muscle now are best placed to handle whatever change comes next, whether it’s a new tool, a new client expectation or simply a new way of working. And it’s not just good for business – it’s good for us as individuals. Curious people move through change with less fear, less perfectionism and a bit more ease because they are focused on learning rather than having all the answers or being in control.

When Curiosity Meets Caution

While it’s true that curiosity is rising, the familiar scepticism is still there – the measured “let’s see if the hype holds up” group. Both reactions are normal and useful. Curiosity without any guardrails leads to scattered experiments. Caution without curiosity can stall progress. The sweet spot is where they meet. 

Some teams make this work by pairing curious team members with cautious ones – the curious push boundaries, while the cautious provide structure and challenge assumptions. That balance ensures learning sticks. Ideas get tested and refined and colleagues learn from one another along the way.

Growing Curiosity into Capability 

So how do we turn curiosity into long-term capability – especially in a profession shaped by billable hours, high workloads and perfectionism? 

Our answer: rethink time. Curiosity doesn’t always require an extra hour – often it’s just small pauses built into what people already do, like asking a quick question before starting a task or taking five minutes to reflect. Small, consistent touchpoints like these build the habit. 

Then there’s the environment – the structural and cultural conditions that help curiosity grow. This includes: 

• Leadership – role modelling learning by admitting what they don’t know and trying something new alongside their teams. We’ve seen partner backing (eg through a reminder email) significantly boost attendance in learning opportunities, sometimes by up to a third.

• Training – shifting from tool mastery to comfort with experimentation (less “here’s the feature”, more “let’s try it and see what happens”). 

• Reward – celebrating progress and insight, not just outcomes.

• Team culture – creating spaces for experimentation and sharing discoveries. We’ve started encouraging our people to set up weekly “curiosity blocks”.

In our experience, developing capability doesn’t come from a single workshop or big reset. It grows when curiosity is built into daily work and reinforced by the environment around us, making curiosity feel like a normal part of work.

* Curiosity at work: this visual was generated with AI

Practical Ways to Grow Curiosity

Here are some simple ways to build curiosity, whether you have five minutes or an hour.

	Short on time (5 – 10 mins)	Bit more time (30 – 60 mins)
Individual	Ask one question before starting a task, like “What haven’t I considered yet”?	Run a mini-experiment: do a task twice (manual vs AI) and reflect on what changed.
Team	Add a “What did we learn this week?” moment to an existing meeting.	Host a short curiosity session where someone shares an experiment – wins, insights and even how they failed.
Leadership	Share one thing you’re learning this week with the team. Highlight your openness.	Participate in reverse mentoring to gain fresh perspectives and share what you learn broadly.

The world and the tools will keep changing. What lasts is the muscle we build each time we stay open, ask better questions and sit in the muck long enough to see what it can teach us.

Angela Luu, Senior Digital Change Manager

My curiosity goal: ask one additional question in every meeting I attend. 

Ena Catovic, Digital Change Manager

My curiosity goal: do one small thing weekly that I’d normally avoid.