How do you _e l e v a t e_ the imagination?
Elevating the imagination is critical for those who lead. But how often is this an intentional goal or objective in your work? Do you walk into work thinking – “How can I help others lead with their imagination today?”
This memo is for leaders who want to:
Get more creative ideas and results from their team
Move their group closer to the vision
Develop the creative potential of each team member
With greater intention we can find ways to bring, engage, and honor the imagination at work. Here are some simple ways to start (or continue) elevating the imagination.
What does it mean to ELEVATE?
Elevate :: to lift up or make higher :: STRENGTHEN
“Imagining” is a creative thinking habit that can be developed and strengthened. As leaders, we can play a critical role in helping others strengthen their imaginative ability and constructive skills – even their creativity.
Begin by strengthening the core beliefs of your team members. Take steps to evaluate and encourage mindsets that will create a culture of growth, experimentation, and collaboration. Look for simple ways to engage their imagination.
One aspect of imagination is forming a clear picture of a future result – a vision of what you want to create. As leaders we might be tempted to tell our team what the vision is, or what to do. But that is no way to strengthen their imagination or improve their creative skills. A better way is to provide a challenge question or prompt that invites them to apply their imagination to developing and refining a clear vision of their future.
In what ways are you helping others strengthen their imaginative skills?
What do you believe about yourself that encourages you to lead with your imagination?
Elevate :: to raise in rank or status :: PRIORITIZE
You can tell a lot about your priorities by evaluating the meetings on your calendar. If most of your time is spent managing and maintaining the day-to-day, it will be hard to find time to step back and think long-term, or to playfully experiment with a vision of a better future in mind.
And if we don’t know where we are going, it is hard to chart a course and know what to prioritize. Developing our vision or choosing our harbor, will help us determine and clarify our priorities along the way. This is because “…vision has power... [it] can help you organize your actions, focus your values, and clearly see what is relevant… (Robert Fritz)
Beyond leveraging a clear vision to organize your priorities, you can think of the imagination as your top priority at work. It can be a primary consideration when evaluating team members or making in hiring decisions.
How is your imagination an integral part of your work?
What is your typical response to experimental or novel ideas from those you lead?
Elevate :: to develop intellectually or culturally :: IMPROVE
At the fundamental level, your imagination can expand indefinitely as you choose to embrace it, develop it, and lead with it. It will expand as you embrace a growth mindset, choose to be less reactive, or choose to flex your creative muscles.
On the other hand, your creative potential is reduced if your core beliefs cause you to shrink away from creative opportunity, operate with a fixed mindset, or become too concerned with extrinsic motivations and reactivity.
One way to elevate and improve the level of imagination in others is to look for the different ways that each person manifests their imagination. You might see them making stuff, problem solving, or expressing themselves artistically. Look for ways to recognize and celebrate each person’s unique ability to use their imagination to achieve creative results. When you identify creativity (in yourself and others) and work to encourage it, you will be leading your team toward novel results.
How do you honor the creativity of the people around you?
Which of your core beliefs might be restricting the use of your imagination?
Elevate :: to raise the spirits of :: ENERGIZE
Some leaders and institutions advocate for creativity and innovation, but then stifle it with an oppressive culture that honors the status quo. In contrast, creative leaders design culture and establish structures that lead to innovation. They do this by expecting creative results, celebrating the imagination, and giving others space to step back from the day-to-day and innovate their future. Their program or organization becomes a rich seedbed for creative ideas as they challenge their team or their students to engage their imagination.
Another way to elevate the imagination is to be careful with control and rigid one-size-fits all policies. Of course, order and SOPs are important, but many in leadership seem to yearn for some sense of control in the face of uncertainty and complexity. Their desires come to the surface as conservative decision making, rigid policies, overbearing procedures, and one-size-fits-all approaches.
These approaches do not energize the imagination. Without creative leaders who make space for innovation, limited growth and incremental change is the result.
How might you engage the imaginations of the people you lead?
Do you call for and expect divergent, imaginative thinking from your team?