The Importance of Curiosity in Biotech, Pharma, and IT

I’ve spent close to thirty years placing technology leaders. A good chunk of that has been in Biotech and Pharma. And the one thing I keep coming back to, across every kind of organization I work with, is curiosity. The people who ask the most questions consistently do the best work.

That’s not just IT. That’s recruiting. That’s research. That’s investing. Whatever the field, the people who are drilling down, who are asking what’s possible, who are testing the edges of what everybody assumes is normal — those are the ones who move things forward.

And the ones who aren’t curious? They’re not drilling down. They’re not testing assumptions. They’re not asking what’s possible. In Biotech and Pharma, where the science is constantly moving and the regulatory environment can shift overnight, that’s a fast way to fall behind.

Curiosity is the difference. It doesn’t matter the size of the company. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a clinical-stage startup or a large established Pharma. The people who ask more questions consistently do better work. Full stop.

My Kids Warn Their Friends. That’s How Curious I Am.

My kids have a thing they do whenever they bring someone new around. Before the person even walks in, they pull them aside and say: watch out for my old man. He asks a lot of questions.

I’ve heard this enough times that I’ve stopped being surprised by it. And honestly, I think it’s one of the better things they could say about me.

Because that’s exactly what I do all day. I want to know who people are. What they’ve done. What they care about. Where they came from and where they think they’re going. I ask a lot of questions because I want the answers. Not to fill a checkbox. Not to move through a process. Because I actually want to understand.

I don’t know anymore whether I got into this business because I was always this way, or whether doing it for thirty years made me this way. Probably both. But I do know that the curiosity and the work feed each other. The more you ask, the more you find. And the more you find, the more you realize there’s still more to ask.

The IT leaders I’ve placed in Biotech and Pharma who’ve gone on to do really well are built the same way. They walk into a new environment and they start asking why. Why is the infrastructure set up like this? Why does data move in this direction? Why has nobody questioned this process? They’re not being difficult. They’re not trying to prove anything. They’re just curious. And that curiosity is what lets them see things other people in the room have stopped seeing because they’ve been looking at it too long to notice it anymore.

That’s a hard thing to teach someone. Either you’re wired that way or you’re not. And after enough conversations, you can tell the difference pretty fast.

The People Who Excel Are Always Asking Why

I’ve seen this pattern enough times that I trust it completely. The people who really excel at what they do are the most curious ones. Not the ones with the longest resume. Not the ones who’ve been in the industry the longest. The ones who ask the most questions, who want to understand how it all fits together, who are never quite satisfied with the surface answer.

They drill down. They want to know what the different answers are for the same question. They’re not looking for one right answer. They’re looking for all the answers and then figuring out which one actually applies. Whether it’s investing, whether it’s research, whatever the field, the best people operate that way.

In Biotech and Pharma IT specifically, that instinct counts for more than it does in almost any other industry. The decisions these leaders make carry weight beyond the IT department. When something goes wrong, it doesn’t stay contained. It ripples into the science, into the regulatory process, into timelines that nobody can afford to lose. The people who stay ahead of those problems are the ones who were asking uncomfortable questions long before anything went wrong.

That’s not something you can train into someone after the fact. Either they’re wired to dig or they’re not. And the ones who dig, you feel it in the conversation. They’re present in a different way.

In a Screen, I Have to Find Out Why

When I’m talking to someone and I’m not feeling that curiosity, I notice it. It shows up as a kind of flatness. The answers are fine. Everything checks out. But there’s no energy underneath it. No engagement with what we’re talking about.

When I get that feeling, I stop talking about the role entirely. I go somewhere else. I’ll shift to their current situation, what they’re working on, what they care about, what’s been on their mind lately. Because I have to find out why.

Why are they talking to me? Nobody picks up the phone to waste a half hour. Nobody calls me because they had nothing better to do. If someone’s on the line with me, something brought them there. Something made them curious enough to have this conversation. My job is to find out what that something is.

I use a simple frame. If you’re an eight out of ten where you are right now, what would make it a ten? That question does a lot of work. It tells me what they actually want. It tells me what’s missing. And it tells me whether they’ve thought about it at all, or whether they’re just going through the motions of a conversation they’re not really invested in.

Because here’s the thing. Everybody has natural curiosity at some level. Even the person who says they’re not really looking, who says they just wanted to talk. There’s a reason they picked up. There’s something they’re curious about, even if they haven’t named it yet. My job is to find where that curiosity lives and figure out whether what I have connects to it.

In Biotech and Pharma, that screen counts for even more because the environment demands leaders who drive themselves. Nobody’s going to tell the head of IT at a clinical-stage company what questions to ask next. Nobody’s going to hand them a list of things to be curious about. The best ones already are. They come in curious and they stay that way.

That’s what I’m looking for in a conversation. And when it’s there, you feel it from the first few minutes.

 

About The Author:

Steven Swan is the founder of The Swan Group, an executive search firm specializing in technology leadership placements in Biotech and Pharma. With nearly thirty years of experience, he has placed CIOs, CTOs, and senior IT leaders across clinical-stage startups and large established life sciences organizations. 

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