The 'Imagination Gap'

In everything we do, personally or professionally, individually or collectively, we should strive to make the biggest possible impact - to ensure that our ideas spread far and wide, our actions benefit as many people as possible. Unfortunately, that does not happen enough. There is plenty of talk about big goals and changing the world, but the truth is we measure results quarter to quarter and project to project. Words like transformation and disruption are used a lot, but the massive changes that seem possible are rarely achieved.

The problem is with our imagination. We aren’t using or applying our imagination to the full extent possible. We talk about technology as having the potential to save the world and evolve everything about how we communicate and function as humans. But then we celebrate the efforts that prioritise short-term thinking and increased awareness - refusing to accept that the actual, meaningful, measurable impact on our lives is minimal at best.

We are facing an imagination gap.

Imagination gives us the ability to interact with the world, our lives, and people, not as they are, but as they could be. It provides a window into the world of what is possible, and it can push us to think beyond what we know and where we are comfortable - to the unknown, and toward a future of our own creation. Imagination allows us to go beyond immediate space and time and to anticipate dangers that may exist or trouble we might encounter. It allows us to envision our individual and collective futures.

Without imagination, our progress will always be limited. This is true for everyone: business/brands, political and advocacy groups, governments, media, nonprofits and charitable organisations, schools, families, and individuals.

We are not all Galileo, Newton or Einstein. Most of us are not Mozart, John Coltrane, or even Professor Harold Hill from the Music Man. But, everybody has an imagination and our imaginations are powered and influenced by our individual experiences and the context of our lives. Imagination is not the same as creativity or innovation, which are applied in more practical and measurable ways. It is about invention and fostering new thinking and novel ideas. It is important to recognise the different ways that imagination takes shape for every individual. We cannot pass judgment or dismiss anyone’s capacity for imagination under any circumstance.

The imagination gap exists because the structures and ways that we function as a society fail to recognise the value and potential that imagination offers. We’ve created structures to protect the people who are already considered creative or the handful of ideas that 'qualify' as bold and novel. Consistent with how our society has advanced - from the industrial age through the information age and beyond - there has been a massive effort to streamline or operationalise creativity and innovation. Those systems and structures have undermined our individual and collective interest in imagination. We have done so much to systematise and monetise the idea of creativity, and innovation in the structured, consumer-focused world in which we live, that we have made it nearly impossible to use and apply our imagination in the ways that are most exciting, and have the most potential to create dramatic and long-lasting change.

We created the imagination gap and we continue to perpetuate its damaging impact.

The good new is this: you can’t kill imagination. The parts of our brains that generate new ideas will always be active. But the more we suppress our imagination, or shut down others who try to share theirs, the larger the imagination gap becomes. So, we have to change the way we think and talk about imagination. We have to un-build the structures that are in place that actively block imagination from being used, applied, and embraced in order to close the imagination gap.

The goal of The Imagination Gap is to spark real changes in our behavior. I want you to expand the use of your imagination, and help the people you know, work with and serve to do the same. More broadly, I believe we can change how individuals and organisations think, operate and communicate, by helping them to close the imagination gap and unlock the potential that exists [but is not currently being fully realised]. We can all use our imaginations to understand that there is an imagination gap. 

We now need to use our imaginations to address the imagination gap. The gap is between the boundless potential that imagination creates - all the ideas, insights and options that we fail to consider, don’t think are possible - and haven’t begun to pursue. And closing the imagination gap will benefit everyone - government and political organisations, news and media, entertainment, sports, marketers and advertisers, educational institutions, thought leaders, brands and corporations, nonprofits, foundations, and charities, as well as each of us individuals.