Imagine your way to a more sustainable future now
It’s impossible to build a better future if you can’t imagine it.
This is the eighth of a series of ten insights from co:collective on how your business can join the sustainable economy.
“We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humankind is to survive” – Albert Einstein
In Donella Meadows’ seminal work ‘Thinking in Systems’, she outlines a hierarchy of leverage points for systems change. Leverage points are places in a complex system (an economy, an organization, an ecosystem) where a small shift in one area can catalyze big changes in all. As we face compounding social, environmental and economic crises, finding points of leverage is critical to building a sustainable future.
So, what’s at the top of Donella’s list, that’s to say, the most effective?
Surprisingly, it’s not changing how the system is designed (infrastructure) or changing the rules (laws). It’s not changing the incentives (economic model) or even changing power dynamics (leadership).
“We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we create the world” – The Buddha
Today, many of us in the Western world operate within the dominant paradigm born from neoclassical economics, shareholder capitalism, individualism, and anthropocentrism.
And, if that’s a whole lot of blah blah blah to you, I mean that we exist in a paradigm that favors the individual at the expense of the collective, the rich at the expense of the poor, today at the expense of tomorrow, and humans at the expense of all other living organisms, flora and fauna.
This is a flawed paradigm, because it’s founded on the belief that we are inherently disconnected from each other, and the environment – which the current state of things is proving otherwise. This mental model shapes how we think, how we relate, and what we create. It’s at the root of the problems we face today.
So, what Donella is really saying is that to change a system, we need to get to the root problem: our own minds. And that’s lucky for us, because our minds hold our imaginations.
“The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that ‘the way things are’ is not permanent” – Ursula K. Le Guin
The human imagination is the source of our ingenuity. It’s what separates us as a species from other animals, even apes. It’s a powerful tool that can create, destroy and transform our world.
Yet, in the boardroom, we favor rational, analytical, compartmentalized, literal problem-solving more than the imaginative. While these tools are critical, especially in implementation, unless we change the mindset that applies them, it can reinforce rather than transform the status quo.
So, how can we use imagination to unlock our minds? Futures thinking is a helpful tool. It involves understanding emerging trends and dynamics across a range of variables (e.g. social, political, economic, environmental, cultural), and then imagining a range of longer-term possibilities based on different outcomes or intersections of these variables. We can then use these futures scenarios to ideate different pathways to solutions, including where to prioritize our actions now. For example, if we ran out of oil in 10 years, how must your business evolve to not be obsolete within the decade? And, what are the most urgent priorities to make a move on in the short-term to enable solutions in the long-term?
It’s important to note that futures thinking is as much a practice as an outcome. Meaning that the experience of imagining different futures helps to transform the dominant paradigm within ourselves (or the team, project or organization) which can lead to radically new ways of engaging with the problem and designing starting points and solutions, even beyond the process itself.
“I don’t know what the next American revolution is going to be like, but we might be able to imagine it if your imagination were rich enough” – Grace Lee Boggs
So, if your organization is committed to tackling systemic issues, you must urgently unlock the power of the imagination. Because, only when we can imagine a different future, can we start creating it today.
Where can you start?
01. Make time to unpack the paradigms that shape how you, your team and organization thinks
02. Build the imaginative capacity on your team, including diversifying who you hire (lateral thinkers to the front)
03. Embed futures thinking into your strategic process now, combining the imaginative and the analytical
04. Trust the process, the answers to your questions are not always where they seem
By Sarah Elsmore
Senior Strategy Director, Business & Brand
Sarah is a Strategy Lead at co:, where she partners with clients on their brand and business transformation projects. She’s driven by the urgent need to create a more sustainable and equitable future for all through better businesses, organisations, cultures and leadership practices. She’s a humble student of systems thinking, which she weaves into her strategic practice to create more possibilities for clients, teams and strategic outcomes.