PBTO S3E1: Imagination – Our Greatest Strength and our Greatest Weakness

One of the greatest strengths of the human race is also one if its weakest link. Our ability to imagine is the source of all the innovations around us that has made our lives and our species so dominant in the also what causes us to trip in a lot of our pursuit.

We could end up living in our imaginary worlds and never see the reality. This is the reason why so many of us (individuals and organisations) are never able to realize our potential. We are unable to get out of our imaginary worlds into the real world and look at reality as it is, without colouring it with our imagination.

This is why:

• Even after being completely drunk, we still think that we are sober enough to drive home.
• Even after seeing that the reality around us has changed, we continue to execute our old plan as if nothing changed.
• There is such a gap between knowing and doing what is the right thing.
• This is the reason why most change initiatives fail (as they don’t acknowledge and incorporate the reality but are built on imagined realities).
• Most leaders fail (as they don’t acknowledge the reality of their situation and of their followers).
• We continue to smoke or drink (we imagine a future when we will quit smoking or drinking).
• We don’t learn from our mistakes (we think that the reason for that failure was not due to mistakes we made but because of some other imagined reason).
• We have so many couples go through divorces (instead of accepting our spouses for what they are, we imagine how we want them to be and when they don’t measure up to that imagined reality, we are not happy in our relationship anymore).

Even though we know this now, I am sure that we will imagine that we are much better at recognizing the reality and not make these same mistakes (which is also a form of living in an imagined reality).    

The question then is how to get grounded in the reality (some might even question the very notion of reality, but let’s leave that discussion for a later date) and not make these very mistakes.

One way that I have found to work really well is to have a buddy who can help us see the reality and shatter the imagined reality that we are living in. If we are looking for a reality check in our work life, then this person needs to be someone who doesn’t have a stake in the discussion but is still part of the same universe. Someone who sees the world very differently than how we do.

As buddies, it is our responsibilities:

• Recognize that every world view is biased & based on some figment of our imagination or experience.
• Share our world views openly and without any
• Question each other’s world views. Go deep to find out the core beliefs driving our world view. And then explore how close to the reality these beliefs are.

This can only work on the following conditions:

• There is a strong level of trust between both the buddies
• There is no conflict of interest between the buddies
• Both the buddies know and understand that biases and imagination are a real threat that needs to be addressed.
• Both the buddies believe that the process will make them better and more successful.

In Conclusion:

As they say, “Sunlight is the best disinfectant”. Acknowledging the fact that we all live in some imaginary world which leads to biased thinking and decision making is the first step towards addressing this problem. There are more people who have failed due to this reason than any other reason.

As this is also the reason that allows us to build a better world, we need to be extra careful and intentional about when to allow our imaginary world to lead the way and when to come out of our imaginary world and let our work be rooted in our reality.