The Imaginations of Unreasonable Men Read Online Free
Author: Bill Shore
medicines needed by the world’s poor. 4 As a result, the institute, her brainchild, helps to actually create markets for drugs for neglected diseases. Established in 2000 as the first nonprofit pharmaceutical company in the United States,
and now backed by more than $40 million from the Gates Foundation, it has created a new model for improving global health.
Teach for America, now the top employer of Ivy League graduates in the United States, was a triumph of imagination by a Princeton senior named Wendy Kopp in 1989. Kopp believed that the best students from the best universities would be willing to at least temporarily forgo careers in law and banking to teach in some of the most underserved schools in the country upon their graduation. There were countless obstacles to putting such a plan into action, ranging from the logistics of recruiting and training teachers to the resistance of teachers unions. But they were all surmounted by Kopp’s imagination. Today, Teach for America has 7,300 current members teaching in thirty-five urban and rural areas. They impact 450,000 students annually, and nationwide there are more than 17,000 alums, including founders of charter schools, high-school principals, and school superintendents. 5
The Harlem Children’s Zone is a triumph of imagination by Geoffrey Canada, who conceived of the idea that some of the nation’s poorest children should be surrounded, starting in utero, by a safety net woven so tightly that they would not be able to slip through it. Canada was president and CEO of a nonprofit called the Rheedlen Center, an organization that had been helping Harlem’s children since 1970. But he was driven to do more, and in 1997 he launched a new initiative. By creating an interlocking network of services in a twenty-four-block area of Harlem, he wove that safety net, and the
Harlem Children’s Zone was born. Children are testing at or above grade level on standardized tests and breaking the cycle of generational poverty as they graduate and enter the workforce. The effort has grown to encompass ninety-seven city blocks, and all the services are provided for free. 6
Overcoming failure of imagination can be an enormous challenge. In some fields—including the nonprofit sector—the failure of imagination has become routine. In some ways, it is culturally ingrained thanks to severe and debilitating resource constraints. But imagination cannot be bought and installed like the latest software, or taught in an MBA program. Nor can it be inculcated into an organization by expensive consultants. There are no metrics by which it can be measured. That makes it easy to dismiss it as a “soft” resource, something that is “nice to have,” rather than the “must have” hard currency that is needed to conquer seemingly intractable problems.
Though imagination cannot be purchased, there are ways to purposefully create a culture that acknowledges the primacy of imagination in reaching breakthrough solutions. This can be done by constantly challenging the conventional wisdom and even the most longstanding assumptions. It can be done by asking hard questions about what is possible, even if such questions seem naïve, and by rewarding risk and not penalizing dreamers.
Imagination can be nurtured and elevated by properly funding R&D—which is often considered a luxury—as if it were a necessity, because it is. And it can be stimulated by
forcing those in an organization, from the senior leadership on down, to get out from behind their desks and venture into places where their imaginations will be stimulated by bearing witness to people and places very different from themselves.
Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military strategist who wrote The Art of War , said that every battle is won or lost before it is fought. 7 Similarly, every effort to change the world journeys toward its destiny on a path determined by what can be imagined. Not believing that we could end childhood hunger was
and now backed by more than $40 million from the Gates Foundation, it has created a new model for improving global health.
Teach for America, now the top employer of Ivy League graduates in the United States, was a triumph of imagination by a Princeton senior named Wendy Kopp in 1989. Kopp believed that the best students from the best universities would be willing to at least temporarily forgo careers in law and banking to teach in some of the most underserved schools in the country upon their graduation. There were countless obstacles to putting such a plan into action, ranging from the logistics of recruiting and training teachers to the resistance of teachers unions. But they were all surmounted by Kopp’s imagination. Today, Teach for America has 7,300 current members teaching in thirty-five urban and rural areas. They impact 450,000 students annually, and nationwide there are more than 17,000 alums, including founders of charter schools, high-school principals, and school superintendents. 5
The Harlem Children’s Zone is a triumph of imagination by Geoffrey Canada, who conceived of the idea that some of the nation’s poorest children should be surrounded, starting in utero, by a safety net woven so tightly that they would not be able to slip through it. Canada was president and CEO of a nonprofit called the Rheedlen Center, an organization that had been helping Harlem’s children since 1970. But he was driven to do more, and in 1997 he launched a new initiative. By creating an interlocking network of services in a twenty-four-block area of Harlem, he wove that safety net, and the
Harlem Children’s Zone was born. Children are testing at or above grade level on standardized tests and breaking the cycle of generational poverty as they graduate and enter the workforce. The effort has grown to encompass ninety-seven city blocks, and all the services are provided for free. 6
Overcoming failure of imagination can be an enormous challenge. In some fields—including the nonprofit sector—the failure of imagination has become routine. In some ways, it is culturally ingrained thanks to severe and debilitating resource constraints. But imagination cannot be bought and installed like the latest software, or taught in an MBA program. Nor can it be inculcated into an organization by expensive consultants. There are no metrics by which it can be measured. That makes it easy to dismiss it as a “soft” resource, something that is “nice to have,” rather than the “must have” hard currency that is needed to conquer seemingly intractable problems.
Though imagination cannot be purchased, there are ways to purposefully create a culture that acknowledges the primacy of imagination in reaching breakthrough solutions. This can be done by constantly challenging the conventional wisdom and even the most longstanding assumptions. It can be done by asking hard questions about what is possible, even if such questions seem naïve, and by rewarding risk and not penalizing dreamers.
Imagination can be nurtured and elevated by properly funding R&D—which is often considered a luxury—as if it were a necessity, because it is. And it can be stimulated by
forcing those in an organization, from the senior leadership on down, to get out from behind their desks and venture into places where their imaginations will be stimulated by bearing witness to people and places very different from themselves.
Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese military strategist who wrote The Art of War , said that every battle is won or lost before it is fought. 7 Similarly, every effort to change the world journeys toward its destiny on a path determined by what can be imagined. Not believing that we could end childhood hunger was
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