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Main Takeaways
Reading Time: 2 minutes LEGO® Serious Play is... not a format for training people; to experience" yourself; for funny organisational constellation — LEGO® Serious Play is a facilitated method for strategic decision-making and problem resolution in business environments.

What LEGO Serious Play is — and what it is not!

Recently I had a chat with a colleague about using LEGO® in training and workshops, and what the heck, is this LEGO® Serious Play thing all about.

Here is what I responded.

 

Talking about doing management training or running workshops with LEGO®, people always gape at me puzzled with a weird look.

"Are you kidding...? LEGO in a serious business environment...? This can work as ice breakers or in a learning context only."

For sure, LEGO® bricks are quite perfect for learning experiences and to show the stuff to be learned right on the hands — take this words literally.

Sure, LEGO® bricks are a great tool to break the ice and shyness between people, and to start their engagement.

 

But this is NOT LEGO Serious Play!

 

LEGO® Serious Play is not...

  • a format for training people. A LEGO® Serious Play workshop does not deliver any learning content. Thus, do not integrate it in your class-room or training environment to teach something.
  • a format of "self-experience" for oneself. Sure, to each LEGO® Serious Play workshop you can add a reflection part to debrief the workshop. But this is not the prime focus and main intention of LEGO® Serious Play.
  • a fun and playful "business constellation exercise".  A lof LEGO® Serious Play workshop model organisational dependencies. However, you can run a workshop without visualising any business landscaping.
  • a quick-gamer for your workshops. You can't do a LEGO® Serious Play workshop under 30 min. To gain profound and working achievements, you have to have to spend at least 1 hour. And within 1 hour, you can grasp "easy and fast understandable issues" only.

 

LEGO® Serious Play is...

A facilitated method for strategic decision-making and problem resolution tool (in business environments).

 

LEGO® Serious Play is...

  • a format to align workshop situations always to business goals;
  • a workshop method to deliver results to be used directly next day at the work floor immediately;
  • a format where participants are all equally involved in finding the business solutions;
  • a format to unleash your creativity and ideas by metaphorical thinking. The bricks are only a tool unlock your deeper understanding for a topic.

 

Fields of Application

With LEGO® Serious Play you can solve management and business issues like

  • Defining a Shared Vision & Getting Commitment,
  • Defining Business Strategy & Vision,
  • Developing Business Process Management,
  • Developing Teams & Employees,
  • Implementing Culture Change, / Organ. Change,
  • Performing Market Analysis, SWAT Analysis,
  • Brainstorming Innovation & Ideation / Product Design,
  • Defining Value Proposition & Value Added (Business Canvas),
  • Aligning any topics to business goals in general.

 

"May the power of bricks be with thou"Trust me, I'm a trained LEGO Serious Play facilitator.
Give me a call!

 

 

Further Reading


: EOI Escuela de Organización Industrial, via flickr.com, .