by Joy Maitland | Aug 5, 2026 | Board Members, Board Trustees, CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, General Managers, Heads of Divisions, Human Resources (HR), Leadership Development, Managing Directors, Middle Managers, Non-Executive Board Members, Senior Managers, Women Leaders
The organisations most likely to succeed tomorrow may not be those with the best answers. They may be those willing to question today’s success.
Leadership curiosity has become one of the most important competitive advantages an organisation can develop.
In the early 1980s, Intel faced one of the most important decisions in its history.
Competition in the memory chip market had intensified, and the company’s future was becoming increasingly uncertain.
During a discussion with Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, then CEO Andy Grove asked a deceptively simple question.
“If we got fired and the Board brought in a new CEO, what do you think they would do?”
Moore paused before replying.
“They’d probably get us out of the memory business.”
Grove looked at him and said,
“Then why don’t we walk out the door, come back in and do it ourselves?”
That single question changed Intel’s future.
More importantly, it revealed something profound about leadership.
Sometimes the greatest threat to future success is not what we don’t know.
It is what we have stopped questioning.
Success Can Become a Blind Spot
Experience is one of leadership’s greatest strengths.
It helps us recognise patterns, make informed decisions and avoid repeating past mistakes.
However, experience also carries an often-overlooked risk.
Success reinforces confidence.
Confidence reinforces assumptions.
Over time, assumptions can quietly become certainty.
Processes that once created competitive advantage become untouchable.
Practices that once challenged conventional thinking become the convention itself.
Without noticing, organisations stop asking the questions that made them successful in the first place.
Microsoft Chose to Become a Learning Organisation
More than three decades later, Satya Nadella faced a different challenge at Microsoft.
The company remained hugely successful, yet many believed its culture had become inward-looking and overly certain of its own expertise.
Nadella’s response was remarkably simple.
Microsoft would become a company of “learn-it-alls” rather than “know-it-alls.”
It was far more than a slogan.
It represented a cultural commitment to curiosity over certainty.
Listening over defending.
Learning over proving.
People were encouraged to ask better questions, challenge assumptions and remain open to new ideas, regardless of seniority.
That shift helped transform not only Microsoft’s culture but also its ability to innovate in an industry changing at extraordinary speed.
Curiosity Is Becoming a Strategic Advantage
Artificial intelligence has made knowledge more accessible than at any point in history.
Information is no longer the scarce resource it once was.
Curiosity is.
The organisations that will thrive are unlikely to be those with the most information.
They will be those that continue asking difficult questions after everyone else believes the answers are obvious.
Curiosity has become a strategic capability.
Not because leaders lack confidence.
But because they recognise that confidence should never replace learning.
The Leadership Challenge
Every organisation develops habits.
Every leadership team develops beliefs.
Every successful strategy creates assumptions.
The important question is not whether those assumptions exist.
It is whether they are still true.
Leaders who remain curious create organisations that continue adapting.
Leaders who become certain often create organisations that slowly stop learning.
Insight: The organisations most at risk are rarely those that know too little. They are often those that believe they already know enough.
In an environment where technology, markets and customer expectations continue to evolve, curiosity has become far more than a personal characteristic.
It is a competitive advantage.
Because the future will not belong to organisations that defend yesterday’s answers.
It will belong to those that continue asking tomorrow’s questions.
Leadership curiosity is not simply about asking more questions. It is about creating a culture where long-held assumptions can be challenged before competitors challenge them for you.
Leadership Question
If an entirely new leadership team took over your organisation tomorrow, what long-held assumption would they challenge first.
The Right Conversation Can Change Everything. Let’s Talk.
by Atiya Sheikh | Aug 5, 2026 | Board Members, Board Trustees, CEO, CFO, COO, CIO, General Managers, Heads of Divisions, Human Resources (HR), Leadership Development, Managing Directors, Middle Managers, News & Articles, Senior Managers, Women Leaders
What one business leader’s refusal to make an easy profit teaches us about culture, trust and long-term success.
Imagine increasing the price of every product in your business by just 3%.
Most customers probably wouldn’t notice.
Your profits would rise almost overnight.
When the idea was suggested to Costco founder Jim Sinegal, he refused. He famously described it as “the business equivalent of taking heroin.”
At first glance, it seems an extraordinary comparison. However, what followed revealed a much bigger leadership principle.
After all, what harm could a modest price increase really do?
The answer had very little to do with pricing.
It had everything to do with culture.
The Decision Was Bigger Than the Numbers
On paper, the decision seemed straightforward.
A small increase in prices would have generated hundreds of millions of dollars in additional profit. Consequently, many businesses would have viewed it as sound commercial judgement.
Instead, Sinegal saw something very different.
He understood that Costco’s success had never been built solely on low prices. It had been built on something far more valuable: trust.
Customers believed Costco would always act in their long-term interest.
The moment that principle became negotiable, Costco itself would begin to change.
Not overnight.
Not dramatically.
But gradually.
That gradual drift is perhaps the greatest danger.
Organisations Rarely Drift Overnight
Most organisations do not lose their culture because of one catastrophic decision.
They lose it through a series of small compromises that slowly become normal.
“We’ll make an exception this time.”
“No one will notice.”
“It’s only temporary.”
“We’ll put it right next quarter.”
Individually, these decisions seem insignificant. Collectively, however, they redefine what the organisation is prepared to accept.
Over time, the exception becomes the expectation.
The compromise becomes the culture.
Leadership Is Often Tested in the Small Decisions
Leaders rarely wake up intending to weaken their culture.
More often, they face pressure.
Commercial pressure.
Operational pressure.
Time pressure.
As a result, the temptation is understandable.
A small shortcut.
A slightly lower standard.
A decision that delivers today’s result while quietly borrowing against tomorrow’s reputation.
The difficulty is that culture does not change through mission statements.
It changes through repeated decisions.
People pay far less attention to what leaders say than to what leaders consistently tolerate.
The Hidden Cost of Leadership Compromises
Insight: One of the most remarkable aspects of the Costco story is that the decision was not driven by what the company could do. It was driven by what it believed it should do.
That distinction matters.
Many leadership decisions are not constrained by capability.
They are constrained by values.
The strongest leaders recognise that protecting trust sometimes requires turning down opportunities that appear attractive in the short term.
Because trust, once compromised, is rarely restored through a single decision.
It is rebuilt one decision at a time.
Insight: Organisations rarely lose their way through one major decision. They lose it through a series of small compromises that gradually become acceptable.
Costco’s decision reminds us that sustainable success is rarely built by extracting the maximum value from every opportunity.
Instead, organisations build sustainable success by protecting the principles that caused people to trust them in the first place.
Because culture is not defined by the decisions leaders celebrate.
It is defined by the compromises they refuse to make.
The most damaging leadership compromises are rarely dramatic. They become visible only after small decisions accumulate over time.
Leadership Question
What is your organisation normalising today that would once have been unacceptable?
The Right Conversation Can Change Everything. Let’s Talk.
Business equivalent of taking heroin’: Why Costco refuses to raise prices even if no one will notice
