For a moment, imagine that you are a young child making the transition from a bicycle with stabilisers, to one without. Imagine the sensation of sitting on a bicycle for the first time without them. As the parent supports the child for the first few metres to help find their balance, imagine how the child feels as the parent lets go – and how the next few metres feel to the child as they discover their new found freedom.
As we start to make the first steps in emerging from the coronavirus crisis, how deeply we imagine our future will have a profound effect on how successfully and healthily we emerge from the current pandemic.
In this article, I look at the role that our imagination can play in building a safer and brighter future in a post lockdown world.
The imagination process
Have you ever imagined about living somewhere completely new, or changing career, but then given up on that idea? The quick way to imagining something is to immediately think about yourself being in situ in that new place or new job, but that can often result in giving up on the idea, because you have no idea how you are going to get there!
However, to get to that new place in your life isn’t just a case of imagining what that new place would feel like, it’s also imagining all of the steps in between, how they would feel and how you are going to achieve them.
If we go back to imagining that you’re a young child riding a bicycle for the first time without stabilisers, you can’t imagine that experience fully without going back to remembering the feeling of having cycled with stabilisers, how you felt when the stabilisers were taken off and the new feeling of balance that a child needs to find when cycling unaided.
Putting together the pieces
The process of making things a successful reality relies on the full use of our imagination. If you only think of the end result, the process becomes a lot more difficult, if not impossible, because if you remove the steps to getting to the end result, you have no map of where you are going.
Part of the problem in emerging from the coronavirus crisis is the human desire to return to normal as quickly as possible. In doing so, just as with imagining a new place to live or new job without imagining what you need to get there, the focus is on the end (i.e. the ‘normal’), rather than fully imagining the steps that are needed to achieve that in the most effective way.
The sensory experience
In addition to imagining those steps, another important aspect of recovering from the crisis will be imagining how our actions feel to others.
For example, in re-opening a restaurant that has been affected by lockdown, in order to attract customers back you might have to imagine:
- how will the dining experience feel to the diners?
- if I’m a diner and I look around the restaurant, will it still feel inviting?
- will the sounds of the restaurant make it feel like a relaxed place to be?
- who are my customers and how will their day have been when they walk through my door?
- how can I make social distancing feel as unobtrusive as possible?
Be it a restaurant or any other business, failing to fully imagine how the overall experience might feel to your customers or audience could detract from their actual experience and leave them feeling cold or disappointed. Whilst getting customer feedback might be useful, it may also turn out to be too late if people have already voted with their feet. However, the more that you imagine how to create better experiences for others, the more likely it is that others will feel welcomed, safe and secure and ultimately, trust you, as we embark on a new journey in the post-lockdown world.
The real key
In imagining how to create those better experiences for others, something else will play a key part. Communication.
Imagine you are that restaurant owner thinking about re-opening a restaurant. Thinking about how the dining experience will feel is one thing, but when thinking about how that can be improved, it is also crucial to imagine how you as a restaurant owner and your staff will communicate with your diners (particularly where diners may be nervous about dining out again).
The way that we say hello, the way that we present things, the way that we ask and answer questions, the way that we apologise for dropping a spoon on the floor and the way in which we say thank you and goodbye are absolutely key in making the sensory experience a happier and more relaxed one for the diner.
But of course it’s not only restaurants where that matters post lockdown. Whatever the situation that we are in, imagining how our way of communication comes across is paramount to the heath and success of all family, friend and business relationships.
Don’t take the little things for granted
Whilst all of these little things may sound completely obvious, in reality, they are hard to achieve well unless we imagine what it is really like to be on the other side of the table, e-mail, phone call, advert and so on.
Just as with any skill, using the imagination needs the time and space to be developed and practised. It also requires the ability to stop and think constructively about how something would feel to someone else if you were in their shoes, rather than thinking about how it would feel to you if you were in the other person’s position but in your own shoes. An important difference.
However, with practice, using the imagination more constructively starts to open up your eyes to other possibilities and better ways of working, communicating and interacting with others. The better that we work and communicate with each other, the greater the chances of emerging from the current crisis in better shape.
How do you imagine things?…
So, as we start to emerge from lockdown, how do you imagine the journey looking forward from here? What obstacles do you imagine that you might see on the way and how do you imagine that you will overcome them?
Before you answer, pause a moment. One temptation in answering these questions will be to jump to the first thing that springs to mind. But if you’re not imagining the steps on your journey, how the obstacles might arrive or how you might be able to avoid or overcome them, then you may not be allowing your imagination to really help you.
However, if you start to allow your imagination to do the work without forcing your thinking, it will not only begin to open up new ideas and thoughts, it may also create new possibilities and opportunities that help you to emerge from this crisis in better shape. And where we all use our imagination productively, it may just help us all in creating a better, safer and more sustainable future in a post-lockdown world, whether or not we ultimately find a cure for this terrible disease.