Summary
A solo HR professional's curiosity, treated as delight instead of one more thing on the task list, builds a different kind of advantage. This post, part five in the Growing on Purpose series, focuses on the Wonder pillar of the GROWW Framework: Goals, Resilience, Opportunity, Wonder, and Why. It draws on a real story from GROWW Leadership founder Kristie Steele's HR career, when skepticism about a four-day work week turned into the curiosity that helped launch an actual pilot. The result shows why delight, not just openness, is where real growth happens.
Post 5 of 7: Wonder | Growing on Purpose: The GROWW Framework for HR Departments of One
I had been at the organization for around a year when a staff member said, in front of everyone, that the burnout situation was urgent. I didn't know what conversations had happened before I arrived, whether this was the first time someone said it out loud or the fifth, but I felt the room hold its breath the way rooms do when someone finally names the true thing.
I was still building. We were hiring quickly, rolling out a new work planning tool, and I had spent most of that first year overhauling the people systems to keep pace with headcount that was predicted to grow fast. A four-day work week was not on my list. It barely registered as a real idea. It sounded like the kind of thing companies talked about in headlines, not the kind of thing an organization our size could actually do.
Then the staff benefits survey came back. Time off and retirement benefits were tied for the top spot on what people wanted improved. A four-day work week showed up as one idea among many for reworking time off. I did a first pass of light research on all of them, mostly to figure out which ones deserved a closer look.
That's when the idea of a four-day work week began sounding like it might be a real solution to me.
Skepticism is its own kind of curiosity when you follow it somewhere instead of stopping at “that can't be right.”
Healthy Skepticism Stays Curious
I want to be honest about where I started. I had heard claims that companies were maintaining and even improving productivity after moving to a four-day week, and I did not know whether to believe them. It sounded too good to be true, the kind of claim that gets repeated because it's appealing rather than accurate.
So I looked closer. I looked because I was skeptical, and skepticism is its own kind of curiosity when you follow it somewhere instead of stopping at "that can't be right." I also knew I wasn’t the only skeptic that would need convincing. If I decided this was the solution, I needed to be ready to answer every question and address every hesitation leadership was sure to have.
What I found were multiple four-day work week pilots, run by companies across different industries and different countries, with results that were consistently, almost universally positive. Productivity returned to pre-pilot levels after a surprisingly short transition period at most organizations, and in several cases it improved. I was delighted. Not merely interested, but delighted, the way you feel when something you doubted turns out to be true and the door that opens because of it is bigger than you expected.
That delight is the part most advice about curiosity skips. Without delight, curiosity fades before it can make an impact.
Why Delight Beats "Staying Open" for the Solo HR Professional
Most advice tells the solo HR professional to “stay open to new ideas." That's a low bar. It treats learning like a chore to tolerate rather than something that can light you up.
The Wonder pillar of the GROWW Framework, Goals, Resilience, Opportunity, Wonder, and Why, is built on a different premise: the leaders who keep growing are the ones who let themselves feel real delight in what they're learning, not just polite openness to it.
The leaders who keep growing are the ones who let themselves feel real delight in what they're learning.
That delight compounds the work already happening in the other pillars.
When your learning builds on your strengths, it turns the obligation of fixing what's not working into the delight of growing a skill you're already talented at. That's the ground we covered in the Opportunity post in this series, and it's the difference between forcing progress on something you're not built for and pointing your natural strengths at the same problem.
When learning becomes a regular practice, it becomes a resilience tool. The muscle you build by staying curious on an ordinary week is the same muscle you reach for when the hard week hits and you need a new way through something.
When what you're learning connects to what you actually care about, the delight and the outcome point the same direction. I was researching four-day workweeks because staff had told me what they needed, and that research fed directly into a goal we were already chasing. When leadership declined my initial pitch to consider a four-day workweek pilot, my delight in the research kept me reading and connecting with the thought leaders behind it until the path forward for our organization surfaced.
Where the Four-Day Work Week Ended Up
That first pass of research became the case for a real four-day work week planning project. It didn't happen overnight, and it wasn't the only idea we pursued from that benefits survey. But it started because I let myself get curious about something I doubted, and then let that curiosity turn into delight instead of dismissing it when the first pitch was declined.
I think about that staff member's comment often. Someone said the true thing out loud, and it opened a door. My job was to walk through it with enough curiosity to find out what was on the other side, and enough delight in what I found to keep going. That pilot is in its sixth month now, and going well.
Cultivate a Delightfully Curious "Wonder Mindset"
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About GROWW Leadership
GROWW Leadership helps mission-driven leaders and organizations turn intention into impact through leadership and sustainable growth coaching, training, and organizational design. Founded by Kristie Steele in Eugene, Oregon.