imagination
Use your imagination to kick start a dream and to powerfully lead your team.
Imagination amplification and projection are on the top 5 list of a leader's priorities. A leader who can vividly imagine and then amp that vision and project it onto the hearts of others can create movements that change the world.
A leader is a 'force multiplier' in that the leader multiplies the impact of her/his team in competition, battle, mission or business. You've seen it over and over again in sports, in business, where you work or go to school...when the leader shows up things happen. Sometimes they seem to happen almost 'magically.'
It's as if, by their mere presence, a true leader amps the efforts of the team. They rise to new heights when the leader is in the huddle with them.
The leader carries several internal assets that make them a force multiplier. One of the assets that great leaders have is imagination and they usually have it in abundance. Not only do unusually great leaders possess great imaginations they also have a superior ability to project their vision so that it imprints the hearts of others and moves them into bold action.
Ways to amp your imagination:
1. Read about and study great leaders like Jesus and learn how He imagined the future story for his followers and projected in a way that imprinted their hearts.
2. Study leaders who have an uncanny ability to project their vision and practice doing the same. For example, pick up the book, "The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs" and study to see how you can improve your ability to project your imaginiation onto the hearts of others.
3. Watch great movies and ask yourself how the movie production team 'projected' their imagination onto your heart and mind. Get more vivid in providing color, details, and even sound to your imagination projection. The more important your mission the harder you need to work on projection of your imagination. Begin with doing the hard work of imagining a Fantastic Future Story for you and your team and then practice projecting it with enough detail so that your listeners imaginations are vibrating in sync with yours.
4. Learn from leaders like Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln whose words galvanized their people to do whatever it would take to win against insurmountable odds.
5. Watch great communicators who get action from their team. Study great preachers who get congregations to 'move' toward a grand vision. Watch great politicians who move people to action and see what you can learn. In short, become a student of leaders whose visions resonate with others because they have a vivid picture of preferred future story and they know how to project it in such a way that others respond. There is an art to being a great projector of vivid imaginations and there is not a more important art to master for a leader than this one.
A couple of leaders that I study all the time are Andy Stanley of Northpoint Church near Atlanta, Georgia and Mark Batterson of National Community Church in Washington, D.C.
I also enjoy watching President Obama create movement in people's hearts. His campaign for the 2009 Presidential Election in the United States was a case-study on visioneering and projection of a preferred future story that resonated with millions across America and around the world. It was fascinating to watch and to learn from. I'm not saying that I agree with our President on everything, but I am saying that nobody in modern history is better at projecting his imagination in a fashion that moves people to action. Whether you agree with him politcally or not you can still learn from him! (and, he's on the television all the time so learning opportunities are abundant!!)
6. THINK. Take time to really think about your team & your cause and what it would look & feel like to 'win' in your context. What would it feel like to 'win'? Take time to process the challenges coming at you and your team and imagine solutions. Going to battle before you've consulted your advisors and imagined all the possible scenarios for winning (and the corollary, how you might get your butt kicked if you don't imagine proper solutions fully) is foolish. But, the Bible suggests that a wise man consults many advisors. I'd encourage you to think, imagine what it would take to win, practice projecting your vision with key leaders on your team and revise your mental imagery/projection based on their feedback. Then do it again and again as long as you have time so that you'll be fully ready to project your teams future story in a vivid, compelling fashion and your brain will have rehearsed enough possible different outcomes that you can flex and fly as things change. (it's not so much that your plan has to work as imagined, but that you, your brain, and your collective 'team brain' have worked your imaginations to the point where you can readily make wise decisions on the fly that lead to the preferred outcome of 'winning')
7. HASH IT OUT. As you're thinking capture your thoughts in an easy to manipulate fashion so that you can sequence your thinking for clear projection later. In the beginning it's enough to just get your brain emptied of 'stuff' and that you capture your brain dump as you move along. Once the brain dump is complete you can start to sequence the information so that it will make sense to others and can be properly 'projected' via print, in person, via talks and speeches, video, blogs...whatever. You want your message to be so crystal clear that it projects vivid powerful images onto the hearts of others.
Imagination is 98% perspiration and the willingness to think about your teams preferred future story. The other 2% comes from talents and gifts that you may have as a communicator. But, even a nominal communicator with a powerful vision that has been thought through, hashed out, rehearsed and rehashed will win over a great communicator who has not been disciplined in preparing to project a compelling future for his or her team.
This morning I heard a news story on Fox News about the Mumbai Masacre in India last year. The person being interviewed said that the terrorists 'out-imagined' the police and the civil authorities. That was a powerful reminder to me as a leader to continually re-imagine the future and re-project it over and over to our team so that when the chips are down that we won't be 'out-imagined' by a competitor or by a shift in the marketplace.
Your Leadership Style has it's roots in your internal Leadership operating system, that is, your internalized leadership theory. And, your leadership theory is propelled by your internal visualization of what's possible and what you as a leader can do. So, down in the heart of your Personal Leadership Operating System you have an imagination about what a leader is, about what a leader does, about what's possible as a leader and about what's possible as a team. So, it's important to fire up your imagination machine and to fuel it with powerful possibilities so that your ability to lead is amped and your leadership style and leadership theory is cranked up to the max for who you are and what your team needs from you today.
A leaders internal vision is the well-spring of the leaders operating system and that operating system is governed by the on-board the leader packs around. The can be enhanced dramatically by mentally rehearsing how great historical leaders would deal with the challenges at hand.
For every great leader who wants to have a broader theory base and a wider range of operational leadership styles imagination is their greatest asset to generate change. And imagination is a fantastic resource to begin expanding your leadership theory and style.
Imagine What's Possible!
Jeff Fuson
A leader is a 'force multiplier' in that the leader multiplies the impact of her/his team in competition, battle, mission or business. You've seen it over and over again in sports, in business, where you work or go to school...when the leader shows up things happen. Sometimes they seem to happen almost 'magically.'
It's as if, by their mere presence, a true leader amps the efforts of the team. They rise to new heights when the leader is in the huddle with them.
The leader carries several internal assets that make them a force multiplier. One of the assets that great leaders have is imagination and they usually have it in abundance. Not only do unusually great leaders possess great imaginations they also have a superior ability to project their vision so that it imprints the hearts of others and moves them into bold action.
Ways to amp your imagination:
1. Read about and study great leaders like Jesus and learn how He imagined the future story for his followers and projected in a way that imprinted their hearts.
2. Study leaders who have an uncanny ability to project their vision and practice doing the same. For example, pick up the book, "The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs" and study to see how you can improve your ability to project your imaginiation onto the hearts of others.
3. Watch great movies and ask yourself how the movie production team 'projected' their imagination onto your heart and mind. Get more vivid in providing color, details, and even sound to your imagination projection. The more important your mission the harder you need to work on projection of your imagination. Begin with doing the hard work of imagining a Fantastic Future Story for you and your team and then practice projecting it with enough detail so that your listeners imaginations are vibrating in sync with yours.
4. Learn from leaders like Winston Churchill and Abraham Lincoln whose words galvanized their people to do whatever it would take to win against insurmountable odds.
5. Watch great communicators who get action from their team. Study great preachers who get congregations to 'move' toward a grand vision. Watch great politicians who move people to action and see what you can learn. In short, become a student of leaders whose visions resonate with others because they have a vivid picture of preferred future story and they know how to project it in such a way that others respond. There is an art to being a great projector of vivid imaginations and there is not a more important art to master for a leader than this one.
A couple of leaders that I study all the time are Andy Stanley of Northpoint Church near Atlanta, Georgia and Mark Batterson of National Community Church in Washington, D.C.
I also enjoy watching President Obama create movement in people's hearts. His campaign for the 2009 Presidential Election in the United States was a case-study on visioneering and projection of a preferred future story that resonated with millions across America and around the world. It was fascinating to watch and to learn from. I'm not saying that I agree with our President on everything, but I am saying that nobody in modern history is better at projecting his imagination in a fashion that moves people to action. Whether you agree with him politcally or not you can still learn from him! (and, he's on the television all the time so learning opportunities are abundant!!)
6. THINK. Take time to really think about your team & your cause and what it would look & feel like to 'win' in your context. What would it feel like to 'win'? Take time to process the challenges coming at you and your team and imagine solutions. Going to battle before you've consulted your advisors and imagined all the possible scenarios for winning (and the corollary, how you might get your butt kicked if you don't imagine proper solutions fully) is foolish. But, the Bible suggests that a wise man consults many advisors. I'd encourage you to think, imagine what it would take to win, practice projecting your vision with key leaders on your team and revise your mental imagery/projection based on their feedback. Then do it again and again as long as you have time so that you'll be fully ready to project your teams future story in a vivid, compelling fashion and your brain will have rehearsed enough possible different outcomes that you can flex and fly as things change. (it's not so much that your plan has to work as imagined, but that you, your brain, and your collective 'team brain' have worked your imaginations to the point where you can readily make wise decisions on the fly that lead to the preferred outcome of 'winning')
7. HASH IT OUT. As you're thinking capture your thoughts in an easy to manipulate fashion so that you can sequence your thinking for clear projection later. In the beginning it's enough to just get your brain emptied of 'stuff' and that you capture your brain dump as you move along. Once the brain dump is complete you can start to sequence the information so that it will make sense to others and can be properly 'projected' via print, in person, via talks and speeches, video, blogs...whatever. You want your message to be so crystal clear that it projects vivid powerful images onto the hearts of others.
Imagination is 98% perspiration and the willingness to think about your teams preferred future story. The other 2% comes from talents and gifts that you may have as a communicator. But, even a nominal communicator with a powerful vision that has been thought through, hashed out, rehearsed and rehashed will win over a great communicator who has not been disciplined in preparing to project a compelling future for his or her team.
This morning I heard a news story on Fox News about the Mumbai Masacre in India last year. The person being interviewed said that the terrorists 'out-imagined' the police and the civil authorities. That was a powerful reminder to me as a leader to continually re-imagine the future and re-project it over and over to our team so that when the chips are down that we won't be 'out-imagined' by a competitor or by a shift in the marketplace.
Your Leadership Style has it's roots in your internal Leadership operating system, that is, your internalized leadership theory. And, your leadership theory is propelled by your internal visualization of what's possible and what you as a leader can do. So, down in the heart of your Personal Leadership Operating System you have an imagination about what a leader is, about what a leader does, about what's possible as a leader and about what's possible as a team. So, it's important to fire up your imagination machine and to fuel it with powerful possibilities so that your ability to lead is amped and your leadership style and leadership theory is cranked up to the max for who you are and what your team needs from you today.
A leaders internal vision is the well-spring of the leaders operating system and that operating system is governed by the on-board the leader packs around. The can be enhanced dramatically by mentally rehearsing how great historical leaders would deal with the challenges at hand.
For every great leader who wants to have a broader theory base and a wider range of operational leadership styles imagination is their greatest asset to generate change. And imagination is a fantastic resource to begin expanding your leadership theory and style.
Imagine What's Possible!
Jeff Fuson
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