For just over six years, “Lego® Serious Play® (LSP) to drive Cultural and Organizational Change” has been one of the most inspiring learning experiences for those who discover it and take part in it.
In this article, I share a few details about the experience, along with a clear explanation of what Lego® Serious Play® is, what motivations coexist behind its use, and why this method can help improve day-to-day work for more people.
Discovering the Solution: What is Lego® Serious Play®?
It is a technique that facilitates reflection, communication, and problem-solving, and can be used by organizations, teams, and individuals in general.
It is based on the concept of the“knowledge in our hands” and on a set of fundamental ideas about organizations and leadership, on which its core process and up to seven techniques are built.
Some of these ideas include:
Leader’s success depends on listening to every voice, since it is impossible for them to know all the answers.
Peoplenaturally wantto contribute, to be part of something bigger, and to take ownership and commitment.
Enabling everyone’s participation supports the sustainability of any action plan.
Theknowledge of the people within an organization is often underutilized.
We live in a world that can be described as complex and adaptive.
Its core process consists of four basic steps:
Its core process consists of four basic steps: the facilitator poses a question or instruction to the group; participants build a model with Lego® materials within a set time to answers that question. The facilitator invites participants to share the characteristics of their model; and finally, the group moves into a shared reflection phase where key learnings are captured.
As for the seven application techniques referenced by the method, each one building on mastery of the previous technique, they are:
- Building an Individual Model
- Building a Shared Model
- Creating a Landscape
- Establishing Connections
- Building a System
- Play Emerge and Decisions
- Extract Simple Guiding Principles
How LEGO® Serious Play® Reaches Different Professional Contexts
The motivations for using it tend to vary widely: from discovering the technique, to reflectingon organizational and business topics, designing futures, communicating shared perspectives, and solving all kinds of strategic, cultural, and personal challenges.
Why Can “LEGO® Serious Play® to Drive Cultural and Organizational Change” Help You?
We know much more than we think, and we do not live in a linear, predictable world.
During the workshop,teams articulate what they knowand what they imagine,enabling themto work intentionally on any organizational change.
Knowledge arises from the connection between hands and mind.
By using hands to learn, teams engage in a complex process that generates a strong emotional experience. As a result,thoughts and ideas built with the hands not only tend to be expressed in greater detail, but are also understood and remembered more easily.
Leveling the Playing Field
Each of us have something unique and valuable to contribute to exchanges of ideas, decisions, and outcomes. Thanks to the methodology, teams unlock and enable ideas and imagination regardless of the role a person holds in the organization.
Participants gain a greater understanding and clarity about the identity and dynamics of the organization they work in. They are given the tools and a safe space to do so with confidence and commitment.
In this regard, while traditional forms of group work do not always give everyone the opportunity to express their ideas, LEGO® Serious Play® levels the playing field by generating 100% attention and participation.
Efficient Decision-Making
Throughout this learning experience, teams go through a clear, shared decision-making process. In fact, implementingthose decisions begins to happen naturally.
A Stronger Sense of Belonging
Building social ties is a major benefit of play. It creates asense of group, connection, safety, cooperation, and the expression of organizational culture. In addition, using builds and metaphors helps make formal relationships and recognition dynamics tangible.
Strategy Within Everyone’s Reach
Teams explore, communicate, and understandabstract concepts and complex topics that would otherwise be difficult to grasp. or accessible to very few.
Inclusive Participation in Team Dynamics
In one specific case, the inclusion of people with total or partial blindness was ensured at all times by providing accessible presentations and access to Word documents with instructions that could be read by any employee in the organization.
Making Strategy a Personal Commitment
Netmind, a BTS Company, understands digital transformation as a process of continuous change that all organizations must undertake in order to adapt and succeed in the digital era.
Given that people are key to business success, and that strategy should be understood as something you live, rather than something you are told how to apply, it matters who designs and facilitates these kinds of experiences, and how they do it.
Conclusions
“LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) to Drive Cultural and Organizational Change” has become a relevant learning experience that helps different people and teams see the organizational system they are part of as a whole, so they can be better prepared for the future.
Having a complete view of the system, one that includes roles, identification of emerging trends, relationships within the team, and culture, builds greater confidence, understanding, and commitment to face different events.
Many strategic challenges are already being solved today with Lego® Serious Play®, by everyone, through play, but with the rigor of those who build their future through foresight. Because it is not the same for a few to decide how to react to what happens as it is for everyone to anticipate and prepare for the best, being both judge and participant.
