The Six Commandments of Ethical Imagineering

Imagineering is about moving along with the ebb and tide of social interaction. It is about co-creating ideas that you might not have expected in advance, but which fit the context because they arose in that context. You need to be very flexible and adaptive as an Imagineer, but to avoid losing yourself or your focus (or both), you need principles to guide and ground you. Here are six suggestions, semi-jokingly called ‘commandments’: 

[1] Truth and Honesty: facts don't care about your feelings (©Ben Shapiro), and your feelings might obscure the facts. In shaping co-creative interventions, intuition is not enough – some research is necessary to establish the groundwork for your intervention. The ‘facts’ in question can very well be local facts (derived from co-creative processes based on social constructionism) or more generally applicable facts (natural laws, societal or economic regularities, etc.), but these facts do constitute a framework of possibilities and constraints that you need to be aware of.  

[2] Feasibility and Pragmatics: Imagineering is built on dreams and ambitions. However, you might want something to be the case, but that doesn't magically make it so. The system (e.g. the company, department, group of people you work with) might oppose your desires, and for good reasons - either practical impossibilities, or opposing opinions. Make sure you are prepared to let the system tell you what it needs, and what it is capable of. Imagineering, to an important extent, is about adaptation, about letting the system settle in its niche in a better way. 

[3] Responsibility: as an Imagineer, you might want to ‘parachute’ into a company and change everything. Out with the old, in with the new! Innovation is about letting go, and sometimes, that is a difficult process. Be aware of the power that you wield as a ‘catalyst of change’. Also be aware that ‘new’ does not always mean ‘better’. The people in the system you work with are sometimes set in their ways for good reason. As an Imagineer, your talent should be to distinguish between helpful and harmful habits.  

[4] Skin in the Game (©Nassim Nicholas Taleb): it's easy to take risks with other people's money or the things they care about – like their company or job. Who will pay to realize your ideals and exciting new plans? Who will bear the burden of failure, or of negative impact? If you only ever intervene as an outsider, you can easily shirk responsibility, or flee when things go bad. If you do not expose yourself to the consequences of your own actions, you will not try your hardest for your commissioner. 

[5] Fairness: are you generating a stimulus that is truly positive / beneficial to the system, or are you pushing through your own agenda? Are you making the system do what you think it should do, or what the system itself needs the most? For whom is your intervention good, and who does it disadvantage? Are you sure that you are doing what is right, and fair? 

[6] Quality care: merely having good intentions is not good enough - the Imagineering process needs to lead to (an increased chance of) good outcomes. But again: ‘good’ for whom, and ‘good’ in what way? This means that an Imagineer’s job is not done when s/he is done… You need impact measurement (did something actually improve?), and client care after your intervention (how can you help the system take care of itself after you leave?). 

Marco van Leeuwen is a senior lecturer and researcher at Breda University of Applied Sciences (BUas), The Netherlands. His research focuses on ethics/moral psychology; health, wellbeing and quality of life – especially for fragile groups (e.g. the elderly, people with disabilities); the meaning of leisure and tourism practices; and social innovation in complex societal systems. Since 2021, he has been the chairperson of the BUas’ Research Ethics Review Board, working on developing protocols and safeguarding research integrity at BUas.