Your Inner Wizard

‘Of course it is happening inside your head – but why on earth should that mean it is not real’?
– Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K Rowling

Oprah Winfrey once commented that the greatest thing Harry Potter has given the world is the freedom to use our imaginations.  Very few people, whether they have children or not, have been untouched by the enchantment and magic of Harry Potter.

So why does this openness to embrace imagination and magic stop at the workplace door?
I started thinking about this the other day on the coat tails of a couple of things.  Firstly, I had attended Allegra Consulting’s Event where some amazing speakers got up and talked about Innovation Labs being set up in large corporates and the importance of putting the human in the middle of a customer journey.

What struck me was that a lot of effort and a lot of time and money were being put into constructing this.  Shouldn’t this flow naturally from humans?  Why do we need to work hard on being innovative and imaginative at work when on a Sunday morning if we sat down to watch a Harry Potter movie it would come naturally?  Food for thought.

The second thing that happened was that I was working with a client who wanted a drop dead tagline to take into a boardroom presentation with her.  Part of the tagline was ‘Weave my magic’.  At the last minute, after getting a second opinion she got cold feet and thought she would be laughed out of the boardroom if she used that tagline on the back of the postcard we had created together.  I am sure the person who gave her this second opinion is not averse to Harry Potter and I bet if I was to ask everyone within that boardroom their views on Harry Potter not one of them would laugh and see it as corny.

‘It’s wingardium leviOsa not leviosAH’.

The famous lines from the pen of J.K Rowling teach us valuable lessons including the power of the word; the power of the tool in our hands (wand) and working in unison not fighting against it; light and dark and the part we choose to act on.

Above all we learn the importance of imagination – the uniquely human capacity to dream what is not (innovation, invention). This gives us not only the ability to change our lives or workplaces for the better, but gives us empathy for others in what we have not experienced.

So next time you are worried about whether to use creative words in a presentation or you are stumped on how to increase innovation for competitive advantage, do nothing but think of Harry Potter.  Relax and allow your natural imaginative capacities to come to you. Do not allow fear to take over and pull back from them.  Harry didn’t pull back.  Imagine if he had?

Work with Me:

To talk to me about my personal training program that takes exceptional professionals who have hit a natural wall (perhaps the wall on platform nine-and-three-quarters) and turns them into peak leaders in their field and (imaginative, innovative, fearless) humans who are happy at work and at home, contact me here: https://www.wgrenfell.com/contact