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PETRA EICKHOFF AND STEPHAN G. GEFFERS
Power of Imagination Studio
A Further Development of the Future Workshop Concept
As for the future, your task is not to foresee it, but to enable it.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery
A Fictional Weather Forecast
An atmosphere of suspense fills the air. We are a group of 80 participants with all of our attention focused on four people in the middle, who are presenting their group results. We witness a fictional weather forecast sometime in the future. Using a picture by an expressionist painter, they explain a satellite image. We learn of training eruptions and competence storms that pour forth like lava. A media Atlantis rises up from the depths and with the help of “Aroma” Computers, Old and New World become networked together, repairing themselves without any help.
One could have heard a needle drop at that moment. The applause for their imaginative, utopian ideas goes on for a long time. Sighs of relief escape from the people who had stepped in the middle of the “6S-4D” Studio (six senses, four dimensions), and they breathe in the lofty atmosphere. Participants who would not have trusted themselves to say anything in front of a large audience suddenly find the encouragement and motivation to do something completely off the wall and ingenious, following their dreams and desires to their hearts’ content.
How will the facilitation team bridge the gap to the serious topic at hand? Having jotted down every content-related remark, they now request “translation” of the ideas covering reams of flip-chart paper, using them as a metaphor, describing their hidden meanings. Thus, “competence storms” becomes a mandate for a competence team in a company to track emerging trends. A cardboard bridge is interpreted as creating a meeting place for teams to exchange ideas. A beetle is transformed into a community bus eating up money, demonstrating the idea of cost reduction … and the imagining continues.
Frequently Asked Questions
WHAT IS A POWER OF IMAGINATION STUDIO?
The starting point for a Power of Imagination Studio—a unique style of Future Work-shop—is a serious topic indeed. A studio moderation team acts as a midwife, responsible for the process that shepherds the birth of something new. Participants create the content, the topics, and categories that come into being during the process. Once these are born, the participants are responsible for the ongoing life of the results.
The process works from the belief that the people affected have the capacities they need for change. They are the experts responsible for finding a solution and changing their lives and work environments. External consulting—even trendsetting technical lectures to “prep” participants—is unnecessary. All are treated as equals regardless of position, age, or experience.
A space is provided for a wide spectrum of applications: bringing together different opinions and strengths, awakening slumbering creativity, or supporting self-organization in social groups. Participants mix in different groups and connections, working with questions that matter to them.
The Future Workshop (“Zukunftswerkstatt”) originated in the peace efforts of its inventor, Robert Jungk. The Power of Imagination Studio builds on the Future Workshop concept by using the individual and collective shifts that come through creativity.
HOW DOES THE POWER OF IMAGINATION STUDIO WORK?
The theme of the process is established beforehand with the specifics unfolding as participants travel through three phases.
In phase one, participants name their issues and problems, freeing themselves of this burden. The complaint and criticism phase brings worry, dissatisfaction, and fears into the foreground so that they can be understood and form the basis for starting anew. This work generates appreciation for the way things are that can move a paralyzed situation symbolically toward the future.
The second phase is the imagination and metopia phase, in which “thought landscapes” and ideals are formed. Metopia,1 derived from the Greek word for “implementable nonexistent place,” is an idea about a near future falling under the participants’ influence, but not fitting within the horizon of rational analytical thought. Artwork, games, and stories are invented and presented through the use of theatre and the arts. The group selects the most unusual, incomprehensible, and fanciful mental images for the most exciting step of all. The chosen ideas are carefully “translated” into ordinary language. Thus, a bridge fashioned from wood, yarn, and fragments of glass symbolizes improved cooperation, a translation of their desire for greater collaboration as the future they wish to create.
The third phase requires the best of participants’ thinking and negotiating skills. In the implementation and practical phase, parallel groups work through the chosen themes, clarifying their strengths and intentions and planning their next steps. Good planning is critical, as it gives participants the time to complete a planning instrument that can guide them after the gathering.2 Periodically, participants review each other’s plans, making any necessary corrections to their goal or creating a new one.3 At the end of the process, creative and sustainable projects exist with established work groups and plans on how to proceed (see figure 1).
Figure 1. Power of Imagination Studio Process
THE ROLE OF EMOTIONS AND ATTITUDES
This group process works through experiencing “aha’s”—surprising insights—and through discovering common dreams. This happens not only intellectually, but also emotionally. Participants become aware that they can change the future, in fact, that they can envision several viable alternatives. They open up creative space together, negotiate agreements on specific steps and changes, and anchor personal interests in common objectives.
Table of Uses
About the Authors
Petra Eickhoff ([email protected]) has her degree in business management (Leipzig) and lives in Cologne (Germany). She is a trainer for business, service, and logistic, professional, and preprofessional development. She is an executive of an association for democratic future design and cofounder of the Future Workshop group, Jena (Thuringia). Her interest is philosophical and political issues about social society after opening of the German Wall. She is certified as an operational trainer and team coach. Topics: Supporting self-organizing groups, strengthening women starting businesses, designing participatory and international conferences.
Stephan G. Geffers ([email protected]) has his degree in computer science (Berlin) and lives in Cologne (Germany). He is a senior consultant for technical and human networking and a cofounder of the Future Workshop facilitators’ circle (North Rhine-Westphalia). He worked with the inventors of the Future Workshop, Robert Jungk and Norbert R. Muellert, from 1986 to 1988. He is a certified project manager, and has written reports for federal government, urban authority, and business management. Topics: Technology assessment, environmental city development; media learning, school identity programs; techniques of macro-visualization, and international dissemination of participatory concepts.
Where to Go for More Information
REFERENCE
Jungk, Robert, and Norbert R. Muellert. Future Workshops—Ways for Reviving Democracy/Use Fantasy to Break Routine and Resignation. 1st ed., Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1981; 3rd ed., Munich: 1989. [In German.]
ORGANIZATIONS
Robert-Jungk-Bibliothek fuer Zukunftsfragen (Library of Future Concerns)—www.jungk-bibliothek.at
Publisher of ProZukunft magazine, Robert-Jungk-Platz 1, A-5020 Salzburg, Austria.
Vernetzung von Zukunftswerkstätten—www.zwnetz.de
An invitation to network in everything related to social creativity, engagement, and the participatory and democratic shaping of the future. Platform for ideas about Future Workshop and Power of Imagination Studio.
Conceptual support: Annegret Franz, Axel Weige; translated by Jonathan Mark Dowling.
1. Utopia is defined as an impossible place. A metopia can be implemented as a transition toward a desired state and is always within a field of potential development. [Open Theory Project: “Jetzt erst recht! Auf der Suche nach einer anderen Zukunft” (Right now: In Search of Another Future), Annette Schlemm, maintainer, 2005.]
2. During the planning cycle, participants decide: (1) their goals; (2) their resources for reaching their goals; (3) the steps of their plan; and (4) their agreements (contract) for implementation.
3. This approach was adapted from Whole-Scale Change (chapter 11).