The most sought after skills in the workplace can be developed by nurturing your imagination. I’m talking about analytical and creative thinking, named as the two top skills in demand by the World Economic Forum’s 2023 Future of Jobs Report.

Here are my five top reasons for reconnecting with your imagination:

A colleague at work, in business or in your personal life, shares an idea born from their imagination. How will you respond? I suggest you choose ‘imaginative listening’ to allow space for their idea to grow.

Before conservationist Jane Goodall struck up a friendship with the chimpanzees of the Gombe Stream National Park, she imagined a life living among the animals of Africa.

That’s the way of life; first, we imagine and then, we act.

Has anyone ever told you to ‘get on with your work, stop your daydreams’. Have they ever suggested your head was ‘in the clouds’ when all you were doing was looking out the window, imagining.

Through our lifetimes, in all sorts of settings like work and in education, we receive a lot of negative messaging around imagination.

And yet, imagination has made all the difference to our lives.