When you want to build a ship,
do not begin by gathering wood, cutting boards, and distributing work,
but awaken within the heart of man the desire for the vast and endless sea.
Imagination is a critical skill in creative leadership
A few weeks ago, we were preparing for a very involved client leadership development program that included rock climbing, backpacking, and canoeing. As we watched the weather, we grew increasingly concerned about all of the things that could go wrong. The rain seemed to wash out rock climbing, leaving a gaping hole in our programming. Thunderstorms began to pop up in the afternoons, causing us to think about how we could mitigate the risk of lightning on exposed ridgelines. We thought about ticks and preventing Lyme disease. We didn’t immediately imagine floods. We needed more creative leadership. We needed more imagination.
The authors of this article make a great case about how leaders can navigate the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world we increasingly face, but I believe they are missing imagination. Imagination, or the ability to dream up completely new ideas, leads to the creative leadership needed to chart incredible courses. It also protects your team and organization from completely unforeseen dangers.
vivid imagination can keep you safe
Imagination is a tool for leading in uncertainty. With a lot of rain a few days before our trip, it would be sunny and beautiful on the days that we planned to canoe. Of course, water trickles down tributaries into creeks and into rivers, meaning that during our sunny days, the water level might be too high to even canoe safely. Good decisions require pessimism, and it takes imagination to think of everything that could go wrong! If we had more active imaginations, we would have thought of floods far earlier in our risk management process!
Here are two tools creative leaders can use to unleash negative imagination
Use premortems to imagine worst-case scenarios.
After a few unforeseen risks like this popping up over the years, we use premortems often at Cairn Leadership. These are as simple as brainstorming a list of the worst things that could happen. From people getting injured and campsites flooding to forest fires cancelling important contracts and tariff-driven economic downturns impacting cash flow, these discussions help us get past our positivity bias and mitigate risks we would rather not think about. To start your premortem, ask “if this effort goes completely wrong, what would it look like, and what would have caused that?”
Assign a devil’s advocate to balance optimism.
No one likes to be the Debbie Downer, but in backcountry skiing it’s foolish to go into avalanche terrain without one. When confronted with the prospect of a fluffy powder descent, skiers would rather not think about the reality of avalanche danger. We fail to verbalize our doubts, and that leads to tragic deaths like this infamous Tunnel Creek incident. If we select one person to be the devil’s advocate, we can at least count on one voice of reason. This person can be funny. Act the part and joke about it, but even in a joking manner, having a member point out a looming cornice can sober the powder fever. If you’re ideating a new business idea, appoint someone to be negative, or you’ll find yourself behind schedule and over budget quickly!
Creative leaders use imagination to inspire vision
Imagination, of course, does not typically have a negative connotation. Leaders often need to articulate a vision and imagination goes a long way in that endeavor. You can’t provide a clear mission or set compelling goals for a team without imagining the vision that drives all of that. As we get older, our ideas become more limited, more myopic. We start to believe that if we have not seen it, it might not be possible.
An active imagination allows us to envision and articulate a future state that our organization wants to bring into reality. Here are a couple of skills you can practice to foster a vibrant imagination of the future.
Storytelling as a creative leadership tool.
We work on storytelling skills for the teams we work with because they move us, literally. Paul Zak shows how a good story can change our blood chemistry when we hear it. We become excited with epinephrine or trust our team more due to an influx of oxytocin. With this kind of influence on the table, we are frankly surprised that leaders don’t work on storytelling skills more often. Try this next time you need to get your people motivated. Frame how things are, share what needs to be done, paint a picture of how much better they will be after the thing is done.
Example: “Last Tuesday, I took a look at our website, and it was boring. I asked Susan to write a short blog about her experience solving client X’s problem, and we have already seen an uptick in website visits. I am asking each of you to share your favorite client engagement story, because our customers need to know how you can help them solve their stickiest challenges!” Much better than, “I need a blog from all of you to put on the website by the end of next week.”
Imaginative problem solving for creative leaders.
Divergent thinking means coming up with as many ridiculous solutions as you can and then winnowing them down to the right one. We teach this process of problem solving for teams to help break teams out of fixating on what seems like the most obvious solution. Practicing design thinking with your team can build imagination capacity for everyone as you throw out silly ideas that might just become the next 3M sticky notes.
Build your imagination skills
Imagination is key to good leadership because it keeps us safe and helps us see around corners to predict the future more realistically. It also opens up possibilities and allows us to create compelling visions. You might be thinking, but I am not a creative leader, so I can’t be imaginative. In reality, creative leadership is a capability you can develop. Here are a few ideas on how.
Read more fiction.
Reading fantasy, classic literature, or sci-fi can be a lot of fun, and it’s not a waste of time for a serious business leader. You’ll find new ideas and break up entrenched ways of thinking. Look at science fiction from 50 years ago and consider how much of it has become true. It’s not because our current state was inevitable. People with imagination shaped what the future would look like.
Go outside.
Empirical research clearly demonstrates that time in nature boosts our creativity. Research out of the University of Utah found participants scored 50% higher on validated creativity tests after a weekend trip outside. If you’re on the fence, bring your team’s biggest problem out with our facilitators, and we will help you do six months’ worth of work on it in 48 hours.
Learn new things in new ways.
We rely heavily on multiple intelligences when we facilitate team programs at Cairn Leadership because the approach allows clients to make connections more quickly. In Small Teaching James Lang defines knowing as the connections between the facts we know. When we think of a team leadership concept by watching how ants solve the explore-exploit problem, we have created a new and valuable understanding. Learning new hobbies and concepts can feel frivolous and downright uncomfortable for senior leaders, and few things will catapult your creative leadership skills.
Be a kid again.
If all else fails, turn off your phone and go hang out with your kids, nieces and nephews, or best friend’s children. After building a pillow castle that somehow transforms into a rocket ship, you’ll find some imagination somewhere on the way to a candy cane forest on the moon… who knew?
Leaders need to develop creativity - use your imagination
We don’t often think of imagination as a critical skill for leaders, but it absolutely helps us make more realistic and well informed decisions. Imaginative thinking also allows us to create and articulate compelling visions to move our organizations to previously unimagined heights. The best news, cultivating imagination is fun. Learn new things, play with kids, read some Tolkien, and for goodness sake get outside for a Saturday!
