Instead of letting people “solve the puzzle,” most leaders prefer to concoct the strategy, package it, and then market it to their people with the hope and belief that they will act on it. 99 of 99 times (let’s avoid the 100% norm), this doesn’t work. At the very core of human nature is a desire to solve our own problems. We don’t want somebody else to tell us the answers! I’m pretty sure that 99 out of 99 people (well, maybe one or two fewer) refuse to look at the back of a crossword or sudoku book for the answers or read the last chapter of a James Patterson novel before they read the book. If they did that, what’s the point of engaging in the puzzle or the adventure story? The experience of solving problems and participating in a rigorous journey is why people buy the New York Times, sudoku books, and best-selling novels.

But leaders don’t get this. They continue to give their people the answer key, and then they don’t understand why their employees aren’t as excited about executing a strategy that they had no part in helping to craft.

Listening is a weak cousin to the pursuit of curiosity. Listening can be very passive. But if you want to engage people in your organization, you have to know what they’re curious about - in the marketplace, in your strategic response to it, and in how they can contribute. This takes listening to the next level, into a purposeful leadership pursuit that is at the core of how to be relevant to employees and engage their hearts and minds.

At the core of all this is leaders’ inability to remember what it was like not to know. It’s forgetting the energy and excitement that came from comparing, contrasting, learning, unlearning, and coming to conclusions. If we deprive people of that, there’s no way they can get as excited about the business or strategy as leaders do.

Also breaking news: 100% of people find that water is wet.