Interview by Karen cnuistensea

IMAGINAnON
FIRST:

DHQQ

Scott Noppe-Brandon, director of arts education at Lincoln Center,

explains why imagination is the most important skill for the 21st century.

Your work is driven by a conviction that the imagination is an
essential skill that must be nurtured. How did you come to this
conclusion?
Looking back over my 35 years of work in this area, one thing has
become clear to me: what we think is what we see. We tend to inter-
pret new information in ways that bend toward our preconcep-
tions and confirm them, and this tendency shapes how we move
through the world as individuals. Unfortunately, this tendency is
magnified exponentially when we face each other as different cul-
tural groups, which is why cultivating imagination in an organiza-
tion or community is no simple matter. The general assumption is
that you have to decide to do something before you imagine what
it is; but in reality, imagination comes first; it must. Unless we pos-
sess the capacity to conceive of what does not yet exist, there is
nothing to direct our wÜl and resources towards. That's why imag-
ination is so very critical in our challenging times. I would go so far
as to call it our greatest renewable resource, and one that cannot be
outsourced. Any nation or organization that allows its stock of
imagination capital to erode is in big trouble.

Rotman Magazine Fall 2011 / H

 It's easy to confuse imagination with creativity and innovation.
Describe what you call the 'ICI Continuum'.
Imagination is the cognitive capacity to ask, 'What if?' - to think
about something as if it could be otherwise and come up with new
ways of perceiving possibilities. Creativity is imagination applied.
When I think about creativity, I think about learning and applying
the formal language or skill set of a creative discipline, whereas
imagination is learning how to think anew or to ask questions anew
about that discipline. Last but not least, innovation is the product
or outcome of imagination and creativity, or creativity enacted.
Something done creatively is not necessarily innovative - to reach
this stage it must also push the limits or boundaries of the form.
What is 'path dependence', and why is it so dangerous?
This is what happens when an institutional arrangement gets
locked in and becomes self-reinforcing. People get used to the way
things are done, to the point where they stop asking why they do it
that way This 'lock-in effect' is one of the great enemies of imagi-
nation. In my work, the goal is to redirect this tendency towards
the kind of thinking that enables new ways of looking at things and
influences the questions we raise and the types of products we
develop. Whether it be at the scale of the entire world or of one
organization, the challenge is the same: how can we unlearn habits
of helplessness and acceptance? How can we learn to see ourselves
as agents rather than as victims of change? How can we learn to see
with new eyes what is, what could be and what must be} Enduring
change will only result when being imaginative at work, at home
and at play becomes the norm.
Why are business people so wary of the imagination?
It has been said that there are no more powerfiil words in the
English language than 'What if?', but we tend to think these words
belong to the realm of childhood. As children, we revel in possibil-
ities, but as adults, we are bound by all sorts of norms, and the pos-
sibilities that transcend those norms are threatening to us.
One thing you advise adults to do is to 'make way for awe' - to
nurture humility and the wonder that comes with it; why is that
so Important?
There is nothing like the feeling of 'knowing it all' to kill one's
imagination. When we become experts at something, we get all
the benefits of intellectual shortcuts and greater processing effi-
ciency, but we also often suffer the cost of closed-mindedness.
Basically, we stop looking and truly seeing. We can all benefit from
rediscovering that sense of awe and wonder that every child comes
equipped with (and that seems to seep out along the route to adult-
hood). I've been accused of implying that advanced knowledge is
counterproductive, but I'm not making the claim that being an
expert at something works against you; what I'm saying is, don't
24 / Rotman Magazine Fall 2011
Ten fmnglnatiye Capacities
Applying these 10 capacities to something from your life experi-
ence - or from a group's shared experience - is a great way to warm
up the imagination:
1. Noticing deeply: identifying and articulating layers of detail
Ihiough continuous interaction with an object of study.
2. Embodying: experiencing a work through your senses and emo-
tions, and physically representing that experience.
3. Questioning: asking 'Why'^'' and 'What if?' throughout your explo-
rations
4. Making connections: linking the patterns you notice to prior
knowledge and experience (both your own and others')
5. Identifying patterns: finding relationships among the details
you notice, and grouping them into patterns.
6. Exhibiting empathy: understanding and respecting the experi-
ences of others
7. Living with ambiguity: understanding that issues have more
than one interpretation and that not all problems have immediate or
clear-cut solutions.
8. Creating meaning: creating interpretations of what you
encouinter, and synthesizing them with the perspectives of others.
9. Taking action: acting on the synthesis through a project or an
action that expresses your learning.
10. Reflecting and assessing: looking back on your learning to
identify what challenges remain and to begin learning anew.
confuse knowledge with the curiosity for more - the curiosity to
ask new questions. The more you know about something, the
more curious you should be about it.
You also advocate thinking inside the box. Please explain.
Our lives are boxed in by limitations - both material and attitudi-
nal - that we either inherit or create, and it takes conscious prac-
tice to see these limitations as the possible source of new inven-
tion. When I hear people say 'think outside the box!', my question
is always, 'What's wrong with the box?' Boxes - i.e., limitations and
constraints - can be incredible prompts for the imagination.
Architect David Rockwell tells the story of bringing home a new
arts and crafts table for his kids and realizing that they enjoyed
playing -váth the cardboard box more than with the table itself
This is what led him to conceive of the Imagination Playground in
New York City, a new breed of playground that consists almost
entirely of raw ingredients - loose parts made of wood and metal.
 Imagination is our greatest
renewable resource, and one
that cannot be outsourced.

sand, some water and multiple platform levels. Playing with sticks,
Rockwell says, reminds us that in the best play, there are no perma-
nent artifacts: there is just some 'stuff, and our imagination.
Another practice you recommend for stirring the imagination
is to 'make a gap' - to obscure part of what we are looking at.
How does this work?
The way our brains are wired, if I remove a word from a sentence,
you probably won't even notice at first, because your brain auto-
matically uses what is available in a given context to 'patch up' any
gaps in content. Here's a simple example: imagine four black Pac-
Man shapes, positioned so that their open mouths form the illu-
sion of a rectangle between them. You can 'see' these shapes in
your mind's eye, even though they are only implied; you can't not
see the rectangle that this conjures up, even though there are no
real edges to be found. Just as our imaginations can extrapolate
from a few data points, they can also 'interpolate'. That's why, for
example, a cat behind a picket fence appears to be a whole cat, not
a cat in slices. We assume the continuity of the cat in the gaps cre-
ated by the fence. Think how long your day would seem if you had
to stop each time you saw something behind a fence to ensure the
whole thing was there!
It's this automatic gap-filling refiex of ours that skillful prac-
titioners of imagination know how to play with. Tony-winning
director Bartlett Sher explains it this way: "I leave space and let
the audience fill it in." This is true of not only the staging of the
set, but of the way he directs his actors: "Don't show all the emo-
tions," he tells them; "don't play the result. Hide something at the
critical moment." In practical terms, when you think about
something, you can playfully but purposefully try to block part of
what you think you know, or part of what you perceive to be true.
By doing this, you make a gap and create a new bridge towards
something new and possible.
You have said that "When we see the world with a \antern
instead of a spotlight, we see how to see."
The older we get, the more we think we have to have laser vision
and be able to hone in on things. But in many aspects of life, we
can benefit greatly from 'soft vision'. I don't mean blurred or con-
torted vision, I mean not simply seeking the descriptive quality of
something, not just looking to see exactly what you see. What
would it look like if things were a little more spread out, and not
so sharp? In Jonah Lehrer's Proust Was a Neuroscientist, we learn
that Paul Cezanne perfected a style in which chunks and swaths
of colour and shape are arrayed to suggest mountains, lakes and
fruit - but only to suggest. The style he pioneered doesn't treat a
painting as a photographic representation, but it manages to cap-
ture in highfidelitywhat goes on in our brains when our eyes first
encounter a scene. "As Cezanne understood," writes Lehrer, "see-
ing is imagining." Every millisecond of our lives, we transform

Rotman Magazine Fail 2011 / 1 5

 blurs into forms that we can understand. Cezanne aimed to
rewind our vision to that moment before the blur sharpens up - and looking at what changes we would have to make to the system to
to remind us that we are always forcing forms top-down onto
those blurs. In short, he succeeds in softening our gaze. Think
about what might happen if you looked at your own business in
this way.
Which organization impresses you the most in terms of its
optimization of imagination?
This might surprise some people, but we recently worked with the
Center for Homeland Defense and Security. We conducted
Imagination Conversations with them in Monterey, California,
and Caryn Wagner, the Under Secretary for Intelligence and
Analysis at Homeland Security, gave the keynote address. In the
9/11 Commission Report, the horrific events of that day were
described as 'a failure of imagination', which reveals an under-
standing that we need to start asking a whole different set of ques-
tions. We must also learn how to fail well. By that I don't mean.
Variations on a Bine Chiitar: Maadne Greene
Arts education piorieer Max'me Greene has been Philasopher in
Residence at the Lincoln Center Institute since 1976, Following
are some highlights of her thinking on the links between the Arts
and the imagination.
"Our interest at LCI is in the connection between imagination -
the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise - and
the arts. Our view is based on the belief that the more we can
come to understand, say, the patterns of movement in The
Goldberg Variations or the reciprocity between bodies in motion
and music, the more our imagination is likely to be activated.
When that happens, the dance performance (or musical piece) is
transformed into an event in our consciousness. More images
become visible; more meanings emerge, and our shared world
becomes strangely more intelligible. Consider the great excite-
ment about the Harry Potter books, which are testimony to the
eagerness of many young people for imaginative adventures.
Wizardry, magic, journeys outward from the dull and the unkind;
the Potter books appear to work on many levels, bringing pleas-
ure and fascination to old and young. Yes, they belong to a long
tradition of storytelling and fairy stories and even myths; but
they are new and even startling in the way they draw their read-
ers into another world."
26 / Rotman Magazine Fall 2011
'make mistakes and don't worry about them'; failing well means
capture this failure, understanding why it occurred, and taking
the next step. How do we build all of this into our structures, so
that something like 9/11 never happens again? The very fact that
Homeland Defense and Security is asking these kinds of questions,
I find fascinating. ;
Describe your Imagination Conversations initiative and what
you hope to achieve with it.
These are nationwide forums where people from diversefieldsare
discussing the importance of imagination in their work and life,
the need for it in education, and the best ways to implement it.
This process is helping us prepare for the future by building up a
national awareness ofthe imagination as a vital tool for modern life
across the professional spectrum. It is an ongoing initiative, with
the goal of holding Imagination Conversations in all 50 states. You
can read all about it at http:// imaginationconversation.org.
"Recently I found something in John Dewey's Philosophy and
Civilization that holds implications for all of this. Because we are
afraid of speculative ideas, we do an immense amount of dead, spe-
cialized work in the region of 'facts! We forget that such facts are
only data; that is, are only fragmentary, uncompleted meanings, and
unless they are rounded into complete ideas - work that can only
be done by a free imagination of intellectual possibilities - they are
as helpless as are all maimed things. I am not saying that the exer-
cise of the imagination or active encounters with art forms can
make people better or more critically conscious of their ability to
change the world. I agree with Herbert Marcuse, who said that the
arts do not change the world, but they can change the living beings
who might change the world."
"Imagination is a cognitive capacity that is too often ignored in edu-
cational talk, and yet is so fundamental to learning and to being in the
world. In Art os Experience. Dewey wrote that it is, "a large and gen-
erous blending of interests at the point where the mind comes into
contact with the world. When old and familiar things are made new in
experience, there is imagination. When the new is created, the far and
strange become the most natural inevitable things in the world. There
is always some measure of adventure in the meeting of mind and uni-
verse, and this adventure is imagination"
What steps can leaders take to foster a more imaginative
workplace?
The first step is to recognize that imagination is a community
activity. By this I mean that it is of no use if it stays bottled up
inside one person's head. That might be engaging for the individ-
ual, but nothing is going to change if it stays in there. Leaders can
set the tone by encouraging people to ask questions and by hav-
ing a variety of thinkers and practitioners around in the organi-
zation. It is critical to encourage an environment of inquiry and
an environment of problem solving. Leaders must face the fact
that everyone is struggling with how to blend fact and reason
with imagination and creativity. The more you think about that
and engage in finding the right balance of it within your organi-
zation, the better.
Some organizations, like Google, actually provide 'individual
time' each day, where employees are encouraged to be 'off the
clock', but thinking about things that interest and excite them.
The hope is that it will come back in some way to benefit the
"As I view it, imagination is what enables us to enter into the creat-
ed world of Chorlotte's Web and Winnie the Pooh, Toni Morrison's
The Bluest Eye and Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing.
Doing so, we find ourselves creating new patterns, finding new con-
nections in our experience. Opening to art forms helps us break
what Dewey called 'The crust of conventionalized and routine con-
sciousness'. More and more meanings emerge for us; and our lived
world, our shared world, becomes strangely more intelligible.
Nothing is solved, nothing is cured; but as learners, we may be in the
world differently - feeling ourselves in process, in quest, working
together as seekers, as questioners in what we sometimes call the
learning community"
"To think of the creative spirit is to think of moving beyond into
spaces where we can live now and then in total freedom. It is imagi-
nation that releases us, that discloses alternative possibilities -
imagination that is the 'health', as Emerson put it, of even/ human
being. The ability to break with the conventional and the taken-for-
granted - the capacity to pay heed to metaphors, gestures, tonali-
ties - does not come naturally People have to be enabled to crack
the codes, to enter in, to take the risks, to uncouple - if only for a
while - from ordinary reality. I am convinced that efforts to free per-
sons in this way ought to be central wherever education occurs. We
company. You don't have to be that official about it, but I do love
the idea of motivating people to challenge the status quo. Most of
the change we need is going to happen by making connections
between previously-unrelated ideas rather than staying within
the silos of a knowledge base itself. This is an essential part of
being prepared for the 21st century. Will we always accomplish
what we imagine? Of course not. But we will certainly never
accomplish what we refiise to imagine. R
Scott Noppa-Brandon is executive director of the Lincoln
Center Institute in New York City. Each year, LCI works with
ÍU arly 400,000 students and educators, arts administrators and
organizations around the world, bringing the arts into the class-
room as a springboard for inspiration and critical thinking. He
is the co-author, with Eric Lhi, of Imaginalion First: Unlocking the Power of Possibility
(Jossey Bass, 2009). A revised paperback edition was released in April, 2011.
cannot send representatives to see The Magic Flute for us, or a
Motherwell drawing or The Prodigal Son. It can only be we our-
selves, among other selves, who may be opened to the surprise of
self-discovery in this fashion, as they are to the sense of craft, of dis-
cipline, of taste, of standard, as they become aware of what excel-
lence can mean. That, for me, is what the creative spirit signifies, and
it is our obligation to devise occasions for its flowering, more and
more occasions to provoke people to come awake and find new
visions, new ways of living in the fragile human world"
Maxine Greene is the William F. Russell Professor in
the Foundations of Education, Emérita, at Columbia
versity's Teachers College. The preceding quotes
ait from Variotions on o Blue Guitar: The Lincoln
Center Institute Lectures on Aesthetic Educotion,
(Teachers College Press, 2001). Reprinted by permission of the
Publisher. All rights reserved.
Rotman Magazine Fall 2011 / Ï 7