London, November 2026 — The Curious Imperative is out now. It is the new book from Ludic co-founders Paul Ashcroft and Garrick Jones, written with Simon Brown, Global Learning & Development Leader at EY, and it follows The Curious Advantage, the 2020 book in which the three authors set out the 7Cs of Curiosity.
Six years on, the argument has hardened. Curiosity is no longer the thing that gives you an edge when the competition is close; it is the thing that decides whether an organization adapts or slowly hardens in place.
About the book
For most of history, knowing things was the hard part. Now an answer arrives in seconds, fluent and confident and usually good enough. The hard part is knowing which question to ask.
Drawing on conversations with more than a hundred experts—from heads of state and Harvard psychologists to chief executives of some of the world’s most complex organizations, along with neuroscientists, special forces officers, artists, scientists and educators—the new book shows how harnessing your own curiosity helps you navigate what comes next. It rebuilds the 7Cs for a world where answers are free, introduces the idea of curiosity debt — the capability that erodes every time the machine does the thinking — and offers a five-question diagnostic and an experiment to try in every chapter.
Answers have never been cheaper. Curiosity has never been worth more.
The book carries a foreword by José Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, 2004–2014.
The authors
Paul Ashcroft is a co-founder of Ludic Group and SmartLab. He writes and speaks about curiosity, AI, and how people and organizations adapt to change, shaped by twenty years working alongside the leaders of some of the world’s largest companies.
Garrick Jones is a co-founder and partner of Ludic Group — an entrepreneur, academic and musician based in London, and the author of Quantum Leadership.
Simon Brown is Global Learning & Development Leader at EY and an international best-selling author. He co-founded the e-learning company Brightwave, spent seven years at Accenture, led a bank-wide learning transformation at Lloyds Banking Group, and was Chief Learning Officer at Novartis.
Get the book
The Curious Imperative is available now in print and digital editions.
You can also read more about the book on this site, or explore it on curiousadvantage.com.
About The Curious Advantage
The Curious Advantage is a thought leadership platform built on the ideas in the books. Alongside The Curious Advantage and The Curious Imperative it runs a podcast — now past its hundredth episode — a learning program for teams and organizations, a curiosity diagnostic that measures how curious an organization really is, keynotes and workshops from the three authors, the Curiosity Forum and a purpose-built curiosity game.
Together they turn the 7Cs model into something organizations can practice at scale — which is the same work Ludic does with its clients every day.