Creative Change-makers Award
Camden Imagines
@moral_imagining
Imagination hackathon – 23rd November 2022. Credit: Phoebe Tickell
Camden Council and Moral Imaginations partnered to unleash the imagination of council officers, from leaders to repairs to planners to social workers. They sought to build the scaffolding and support that would enable the organisation to collaborate, vision, and dream. The result was a wave of energy to envision alternative futures, build municipal imagination, and solve problems in radically creative ways.
The Campaign
Alongside new democratic forums, we need to foster and support a new era of imagination. The old structures are failing us. Camden Imagines moves away from being stuck in fear and resource competition, arguing that if we want to avoid recreating the same things as before, we have to unlock the imagination of our local places and city; stop putting sticking plasters over broken systems and reimagine something better together from the ground up.
Over two years, Camden Council and Moral Imaginations worked together to build the imagination capacity of the organisation. The work centred around building something called Imagination Activism in a cross-section of council officers from different teams. Trained in skills like Radical Ambition, Visioning, and Long-Term Thinking, they returned their roles but now they double up as Imagination Ambassadors for the organisation.
Following that, they created a cross-organisational campaign that included training the Senior Leadership Group, running events, and organising around collective visions.
@moral_imagining
www.moralimaginations.com/camden-imagines
In association with
Collective visioning for Camden – 30th November 2022. Credit: Phoebe Tickell
With increasing pressures on finances and the scale of need from our communities increasing every day, the risk is that we get locked into only solving the problems that are immediately in front of us. We need to balance the reactive with the longer term. We need to be guided by visions as well as problems that need solving. Imagination is a muscle that needs support to grow. It’s an innate capacity that we are all born with, but have different opportunities to flex and stretch. The corporate sector understands the importance of making time and space for imagination – but in the public sector it is seen as a luxury. We’re thrilled that our efforts to build infrastructure and support municipal imagination to flourish and grow are being recognised, and we hope it will inspire others to do the same!”
Project team
Collective visioning for Camden – 30th November 2022. Credit: Phoebe Tickell
With increasing pressures on finances and the scale of need from our communities increasing every day, the risk is that we get locked into only solving the problems that are immediately in front of us. We need to balance the reactive with the longer term. We need to be guided by visions as well as problems that need solving. Imagination is a muscle that needs support to grow. It’s an innate capacity that we are all born with, but have different opportunities to flex and stretch. The corporate sector understands the importance of making time and space for imagination – but in the public sector it is seen as a luxury. We’re thrilled that our efforts to build infrastructure and support municipal imagination to flourish and grow are being recognised, and we hope it will inspire others to do the same!”
Project team
The Change
The project unleashed a wave of energy and galvanised actors from across the ecosystem of Camden, catalysing participation, cross-organisational collaboration, and a new language and set of ideas to underpin the organisation’s approach to leadership, learning and development, design and strategy.
The programme had profound effects:
- 69% of participants reported an increase in a sense of psychological safety at work, and the ability to speak up about things that feel really important to them.
- 92% of participants reported an increase in imagination capacity and the ability to envision the future, increasing radical ambition to solve intractable issues.
- Since the programme, participants have gone on to set up projects and with different teams within the council, including working with the nine libraries of Camden to reimagine library spaces for residents, using collective imagination tools and techniques to engage Camden residents on what really matters to them.
The campaign has created a wave of awareness and change, raising awareness about “municipal imagination” and promoting collective imagination as a key element of a functioning and healthy democracy. Municipal imagination is the practice of local councils and citizens coming together to imagine how things could be different, and organising together around these visions.
The Future
There has been a noticeable shift in culture at the Council: an openness to new ideas, asking ‘what if’, feeling more confident to speak up and push for real change and not settle for plaster sticking solutions.
The Imagination Activists organise around collective projects, organising around common ‘what if’ questions such as “What if imagination were part of everything we do?” “What if there were a seventh-generation viewpoint in every room?” “What if we brought creativity and play into our work?” “What if there was less division between staff and community?” as part of the Imagination Community of Practice.
They are putting the tools learned into action in organising events and hackathons for staff and residents, and building engagement, energy and action around achieving Camden’s Missions. Imagination has been integrated into the Camden Leadership Model and will continue to support the council in creating radical solutions to intractable problems.
Who else was involved?
Several people played a role in the success of the campaign. Staff of Camden Council, Cllr Georgia Gould (the Leader of Camden Council), Jenny Rowlands (the CEO of Camden Council), Jo Brown (Director of People and Inclusion), Nick Kimber (Director of Corporate Services and Policy Design), Ian Gilson (Organisational Design Lead)
The Moral Imaginations Team: Phoebe Tickell, Emily Bazalgette, Benedicta Asamoah Russell, designer Heather Knight and illustrator/artist, Reilly Dow
The 32 Imagination Activists (from across 21 teams in Camden): https://medium.com/camden-imagines/introducing-camdens-imagination-activists-d41c7013fc43.
Guest speakers: Daze Aghaji, Ashanti Kunene, Andy Middleton, Rob Hopkins, Keri Facer and Moral Imaginations advisors: Joanna Macy, Alison Tickell, Anthea Lawson, Christine Lai, Jon Alexander, Rob Hopkins.
