I am a fan of using imagination as a strategy tool. Sounds a bit jarring, right? Rainbows and unicorns meet logic models and spreadsheets.
Not exactly.
Traditional strategy is often driven by what I call “rearview mirror tools” — experience and statistics are useful forms of evidence to inform decision making, but they are always based on what’s happened in the past. Imagination takes us into the future, inviting us to articulate what we wish were true and what we’d like to create.
Here’s a practical way to try this out.
I figure each of us should have a project (some might call it a divine dream) that falls into one of the following four categories. They don’t have catchy titles, but are captured by sentences we sometimes barely dare articulate:
- “Wouldn’t it be amazing if we could…?”
- “What would it take for us to…?”
- “Come and see what we’re making happen!”
- “That was incredible and we are so grateful.”
This is the process of serious imagination.
Our recent family trip to Zimbabwe followed this trajectory. For years, it sat in the back of my mind in category one — a dream that developed increasing specificity. It went from “I miss full-family vacations” to “I would love to show our kids and grandkids parts of Africa” to “Wouldn’t it be incredible to go on a safari together?”
Many of us don’t get past this stage, partly because we don’t put enough details to our dreams. When people talk to me about what they would love to have happen in their lives, I ask them to describe it in greater detail — a painting with colours and shading, not just a pencil sketch on a napkin. What do you want?
Another reason we don’t get past stage one is that we don’t give ourselves permission to ask the key question of stage two: what would it take? Before we can make a plan, we might need to investigate why that question is so hard for us to ask. Our dreams can feel like “too much” for all kinds of reasons — so we leave them as dreams rather than treating them as goals or projects. We first spoke to our kids and to a travel agent about this Africa possibility in 2024 — it didn’t just happen.
During the execution phase of this dream, on our trip itself, we were awestruck every day. The scenery, the wildlife, the unexpected gifts that awaited us…they surpassed our expectations. But equally awesome for me were the satisfaction and gratitude of seeing a dream actually come true. Not because we won the lottery, but because we envisioned something, communicated it to others, planned for it and did it.
And here I am in phase four. The adrenaline is subsiding and there is an emotional exhale for sure, but I’m also trying to sit a bit longer with the experience before moving on to the next thing. (I’m the girl who plans the next trip while on the current one. Who’s with me?) Metabolizing what’s happened will take a while. We’re basking in the afterglow, and vaguely curious what comes next.
I realize there is all kinds of privilege baked into my story. But I believe each of us can work through this cycle in some way.
It starts with “imagining in 3D” what you would love to have happen.
What is that for you?