This great poster should be credited to an inspirational social enterprise called Made From Scratch that has the lovely strapline creating sanctuaries for the imagination. Do have a look at their website: http://www.madefromscratchltd.co.uk.
Made From Scratch specializes in adventure playgrounds for children. But wouldn’t it be great if every organisation set out to create sanctuaries for the imagination? And maybe if they did, we might be better at tolerating uncertainty.
Last week I caught a few minutes of an interview on television with a leading economist (whose name I either didn’t hear or instantly forgot) who was saying how important certainty is for the markets. He seemed to be suggesting that the economy would improve, just as soon as we have stability and certainty. My guess is that he is going to be waiting a long time.
Uncertainty seems to be an increasing feature of our lives. And yet organisations are generally not very good at responding to it. Arguably much of the current desire to create policies and practice guidelines to respond to every imaginable situation is motivated by the desire to manage uncertainty by reducing it. It doesn’t work of course; the world is too complex for every eventuality to be anticipated. And if we become too reliant on policies and guidelines to tell us what to do we’ll never develop the skills needed to embrace uncertainty with enthusiasm… and dance.
The more space we give our imagination to play with the more possibilities we have, the more ideas we can generate, the more flexible and light on our feet we become. The best response to uncertainty? An adventure playground for the imagination in every workplace.
Humansinwork 