The Curiosity Tour

Last week in The Idea Bucket, we embraced Create Intentional Serendipity, a mantra to design a career you couldn’t have planned. This week, we'll put it into practice.

Most of us do the job hunt wrong. We look for posted job openings on LinkedIn, we apply to anything that catches our eye, and we hope we pass the AI filter to at least get a call back. We pull the arm of the career slot machine every time we refresh the feed. We hope our next job magically appears before our eyes.

But reacting to jobs that are already posted rarely reveals the most exciting career opportunities. And, just like with building a venture, timing matters. If you are reacting to a job that is already posted, most likely you're too late to the game.

Today, we'll dive into a better way to approach the job hunt. One that puts you in a position to uncover extraordinary, unlisted opportunities. I call it The Curiosity Tour.

Are You A Cog or A Linchpin?

16 years ago I read a book that changed the way I approached uncovering career opportunities. I had recently finished up my fellowship at the Stanford d.school and that was followed by a self-funded paternity leave for the birth of my first daughter.

I loved how present I was able to be for my baby. But when I started looking for my next career opportunity at the end of my leave, I felt stuck. I had developed an incredibly rare and valuable skillset bridging creativity and business, but none of the people hiring seemed to know what to do with me. I didn’t fit neatly into anyone’s boxes.

After a few months of this, I felt lost and, at times, depressed. I got way too into American Idol and white wine. I imagined being on indefinite paternity leave, unable to get my career back on track.

Then one day while browsing my local book store, my eye caught a provocative subtitle: Are you indispensable? It was yet another book by the prolific entrepreneur-whisperer, Seth Godin, called Linchpin.

That afternoon I laid on my couch while my daughter was napping and I couldn't stop turning the pages. By the end, I realized I had been approaching the job search all wrong.

Godin covers a lot of ground in the book, but these are the insights that stuck with me:

There are two types of jobs. Cog jobs and Linchpin jobs.

The vast majority of jobs are Cog jobs. Just like the name implies, they are a small piece of a large machine. These roles can be deconstructed into their various parts in the bullet points of detailed job descriptions. The humans who occupy these roles are easily interchangeable.  And the selection process is run by a middle management bureaucracy.  These are jobs that you can find posted on LinkedIn and can be easily classified into a drop-down menu.  (I always hated those drop down menus. I never fit.) 

Then there are the Linchpins. As Seth Godin described:

The linchpins...invent, lead (regardless of title), connect others, make things happen, and create order out of chaos. They figure out what to do when there's no rule book. They delight and challenge their customers and peers. They love their work, pour their best selves into it, and turn each day into a kind of art. Linchpins are the building blocks of great organizations. Like the small piece of hardware that keeps a wheel from falling off its axle, they may not be famous but they're indispensable. And in today's world, they get the best jobs and the most freedom.

This spoke to me. I had always been a linchpin and had chafed under cog-like conditions. I uncovered a key insight:

The process for finding a cog job and the process for finding a linchpin job are completely different.

I had been following a cog path. Reacting to job postings that were easily classifiable on LinkedIn and had a hiring process run by middle management who had no idea what to do with a linchpin when they saw one.

From that day forward, I was going to approach my job hunt from a linchpin perspective.

How to Uncover An Extraordinary Opportunity

Finding an extraordinary career opportunity starts with taking a proactive stance. We’re no longer going to be scrolling LinkedIn. Instead, we’re going to go on a Curiosity Tour.

Just like the name implies, The Curiosity Tour isn’t a job hunt, it’s an exploration. You are on a quest. A quest to meet with leaders taking on challenges that inspire you and to uncover the insights that guided their journeys and the roadblocks and frustrations that currently stand in the way of what they are trying to achieve.

Every leader is frustrated. They have a vision. They want to move their organization from where they are now to where they want to be. And they want to do that as quickly as possible. But there is something that is slowing them down.

Where there is frustration mixed with ambition, there is opportunity. It’s your job to uncover these opportunities.

And, just like any good design thinking exercise, The Curiosity Tour is guided by empathy.

This requires an intentional and dramatic mindset shift from traditional job hunting. You are not meeting with people telling them that you need a job, asking if they have a job, or asking them what you should do with your life.

Nobody wants your problems dumped in their laps. And your lack of a satisfying job? That’s your problem. Focusing the conversation on that will shut it down real quick. You can’t hit your job search too squarely on the nose. You are not the focus of these conversations, they are.

Your goal is to be truly curious about the leader you are meeting with. If you do this, career opportunities will sprout up in the near future.

The Curious Interview

When you reach out to leaders you are curious about, frame the discussion as a learning journey:

• I’m exploring what I will be dedicating the next phase of my career to and I am currently in learning mode to uncover problems worth solving. I’m curious about (X) space and am talking to the top leaders in it to learn more about their journeys and the problems and opportunities they are seeing. Would you mind if I ask you some questions about yourself, your organization, and this space?

When you get the meeting, start by asking them about their own journey:

• How did you go from (moment B) to (moment C) in your career?
• If you could go back in time and give yourself advice in that past moment, what would it be? What do you wish you knew then that you know now?

Then, shift the conversation to the present day. Ask them about what they are trying to accomplish:

• What’s getting you up in the morning?
• What’s keeping you up at night?
• If you could wave a magic wand and you could move your organization from Point B to Point C, describe to me where you are now and where you want to be two years from now.
• What is getting in the way of achieving that? What frustrates you the most? What aspects of that vision are you most excited about?

Stay curious. Pull on these strings. Evoke stories, feelings, and aspirations. Ask open-ended questions. Keep focused on them but let the conversation take you to unexpected places.

Most of us think we are being a burden by taking up this leader’s time. But if you truly lead with empathy, you’ll be doing them a favor. It’s pretty rare that people approach us with true curiosity and empathy and let us open up about ourselves. Allow them to do that. 

Close by inviting them to help you on this journey:

• Who else do you think I should be talking to in my quest to learn more about (X) space? (Try to get three names.)
• Would you be open to introducing me to them if I sent you a forwardable email? (More on this next week.)

Finally, if it feels appropriate, you can briefly turn the conversation back to you: 

• Did you hear any problems worth solving for which you would be a good fit?  Do you have any experience or insights about that problem? If so, you can casually mention the problem you heard and the key insights you had around it. 
• If you ever want to talk more about that, just let me know.  

By staying curious about the other person and not hitting your job search on the nose, you’ve created intentional serendipity:

• You’ve uncovered insights about how they got to where they are - wisdom that you can apply to your own journey. 
• You’ve uncovered opportunities worth pursuing and problems worth solving in a space you are interested in.
• You’ve probably generated even more questions that you are curious about pursuing. 
• You’ve gotten contacts and intros to other interesting people in the space. 
• And, importantly, you’ve planted the seed in the head of a leader that you exist and that you might be worth considering for a future opportunity.  

Critically, we must define success in these meetings by how much it pushes forward on your learning journey. Do not expect your job problem to be solved in this meeting. 

This is a slow burn, a long game. We are planting the seeds of intentional serendipity that will sprout in the near future. Don’t over water them.

Mapping Out Your Curiosity Tour

Now that you know what we’re aiming for — curiosity-driven interviews with leaders in spaces you want to explore — let’s make a simple plan to guide your journey.

Start by picking a space. This doesn’t have to be your forever path. Just choose a focused sprint based on your interests, experiences, and connections. To keep things structured, define your space using three overlapping variables. For example: a location, a trend, and a sector.

Next, open a spreadsheet. This is your Curiosity Tour Dashboard. Use it to track names, introductions, and insights as you go.

Here’s your first assignment:

• Identify the 10 most interesting people in your chosen space.
• Brainstorm how you might reach each one, ideally through a warm introduction.
• Prioritize your list and begin your outreach.

Once you have your first few meetings, momentum will start to build. Use your dashboard to track who you’ve met, what problems you’ve uncovered, and who you want to reach out to next.

If your curiosity shifts, that’s part of the process. Adjust one or more of your variables, choose a new space, and start again.

Your Challenge This Week

Begin your Curiosity Tour:

1) Pick a space you want to learn more about.

2) Create your Curiosity Tour Dashboard.

3) Reach out to at least three people on your list.

4) Conduct a Curious Interview with at least one person on the list.

5) Capture the top problems worth solving that you’ve uncovered.

6) Reflect on how different this meeting felt from previous attempts you’ve made on a more traditional job hunt.

Next Week

We’ve made our Personal Selection Stack, we’ve set our Go / No Go Date, we’ve started our Curiosity Tour, and we are beginning to Create Intentional Serendipity.

But now that we are conducting these interviews, how can we increase the likelihood of these leaders opening up the doors to other connections?

Next week, we’ll get real practical and I’ll teach you the key to making a warm introduction happen: The Forwardable Email.

About This Newsletter

The Idea Bucket is a weekly newsletter and archive featuring one visual framework, supporting one act of leadership, that brings you one step closer to building a culture of innovation.

It’s written by Corey Ford — executive coach, strategic advisor, and founder of Point C, where he helps founders, CEOs, and executives clarify their visions, lead cultures of innovation, and navigate their next leadership chapters.

Want 1:1 executive coaching on this framework or others?  Book your first coaching session. It's on me.