Building a Better Business Using the Lego Serious Play Method

Per Kristiansen, Robert Rasmussen

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781118931370
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Skills
• Index: Business

Unleash innovation potential with creative, serious play

Building a Better Business Using the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Method delivers a creative approach to enhancing innovation and improving business performance, with the focus on unleashing play. Written by the two original Master Trainers for LEGO SERIOUS PLAY (LSP), the book outlines how LSP can develop teams, people, relationships and business. Based on the merging of play with organizational development, systems thinking and strategy development, LSP can foster improved meetings, faster innovation processes, team growth, and better communication.

The belief that everyone intends to "do good" and has the potential to do it is at the heart of LSP. The method nurtures the idea that everyone in an organization can contribute to discussions and outcomes. Building with LEGO bricks is a type of creative play that triggers a different kind of thought process, unleashing imagination and potential that is frequently untapped by the logical mind. The book explains this hands-on, minds-on approach, and discusses the theory as well as the practical implementation of LSP. Topics include:

• Observation of internal and external interaction dynamics
• Fostering a free and honest exchange of opinions
• Suspending hierarchy for better, more effective communication
• Facilitating change by encouraging exploration

The LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method is employed by start-ups and multinational corporations alike to maximize synergy among teams and throughout organizations. For leaders looking to boost effectiveness and see better results, Building a Better Business Using the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Method is a comprehensive introduction to this creative management technique.

Part I
The LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Territory

This part will map the landscape, or as we have chosen to call it, the territory of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY. We will cover four areas that are essential for understanding the method, and specifically discuss:

1. The business needs for which the method provides a great solution, and the challenges that the method evolved to deal with
2. What the LEGO brick is, the power behind it, its history, how it is used in LEGO SERIOUS PLAY, and the difference it makes
3. What we mean by the term serious play
4. How all of this comes together in what we define as the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method

Chapter 1
The Need for Building Better Businesses

The book's Introduction provided information on how the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method was developed to specifically address challenges that LEGO faced. Though many things have changed since the turn of 2001/2002, challenges like these have only become even clearer and more urgent. Our experience has brought to light a number of issues in how business and management is conducted that have led to a continued demand or need for LEGO SERIOUS PLAY, and the difference it can make.

Three areas where LEGO SERIOUS PLAY provides a solution are:

1. Beyond 20/80 meetings and Creating leaning in
2. Leading to unlock
3. Breaking habitual thinking

We present this sequence (as shown in Figure 1.1) in this particular order for a reason: first the manager has to break the 20/80 dynamics and create meetings where everybody is leaning in and contributing. Once this happens, he or she needs to lead to unlock everyone's full potential and, finally, do so in a way that breaks the habitual thinking and unearths new and surprising insights.

Figure 1.1 How the Method Creates Value

Our description of the types of challenges focuses less on the content and more on dynamics or structure. This aligns with our view of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY as a language. The manager may want to go beyond 20/80, lead to unlock, or break habitual thinking on almost any complex issue.

So, let's go into a bit more depth on the three types of challenges.

Beyond 20/80 and Creating Leaning In

The drawing in Figure 1.2 captures the flow, or lack of flow, of most meetings in many organizations.

Figure 1.2 Typical 20/80 Meeting

One or two individuals, often the most senior member and/or the meeting's host, control and enjoy the meeting. These 20 percent of the participants take 80 percent of the time, hence the title of 20/80. To make matters worse, these individuals typically contribute only 70 to 80 percent of their full potential in order to solve the meeting's issues. The remaining 80 percent of the participants contribute far less, arguably down to a few percent of their potential. In addition, they have a negative experience—a feeling that they may even carry into work after the meeting.

The main reason for this is that a couple of such dominant, extroverted or quick-thinking people around the table immediately start talking, prompting them to take over the agenda and the angle from which the content is discussed. There is no democratic process ensuring that everybody both has a voice and is obliged to use it.

These meetings very often have an additional characteristic: the participants are physically leaning out rather than leaning into the conversation. They push away from the table, slide down into their chairs, glance out the window, or check e-mails or status on social media on their smartphones. Their bodily actions mirror their state of mind, and highlight their rather unengaged position.

Both 20/80 and leaning out are dynamics that lead to lower-quality in-person meetings. The so-called attention density is low. We will refer to attention density further in Chapter 7; however, the key definition of it is that it is the combination of how long we pay attention to something and how much we pay attention to it. The how much can further be divided into are we listening, or are we listening and looking, or are we even listening, looking, and touching. Meeting attendees are creating very little or even no new knowledge, and thus no new solutions. These meetings may even destroy value—partly because the participants are taken away from value-creating activities, partly because employees haven't solved the complex issue the meeting was intended to address, and partly because the meeting itself destroys collaborative efforts between the individuals and may even create stress (which has a very negative impact on the brain).

Managers and leaders need to create 100/100 meetings, conversations where 100 percent of attendees are contributing their full potential—100 percent of what they have to offer.

Leading in Order to Unlock

Once the manager has succeeded in creating 100/100 meetings where all participants contribute, a new leadership challenge emerges: leading to unlock.

Specifically, managers must unlock potential in three areas: the knowledge in the room, people's understanding of the system, and the connection between the individual's and the organization's purpose. Let's look at each of these.

The Knowledge in the Room

Knowledge is the first area where the manager's role will change. We all have access to more data and information nowadays than any one person can handle, or even has the remotest chance of remembering. Very often, we aren't even aware of or certain about our own knowledge on a given topic. Therefore, when you have a number of very smart people suddenly eager to contribute but who don't necessarily know exactly how they can form a solution, it becomes the leader/manager's job to unlock each individual's knowledge and uncover patterns in what each is sharing.

We have just indicated an interesting angle that makes this challenge even more daunting: people themselves often don't even know what they know. This has to do with the intricacies of our brains; part of what we know is stored deeply in the brain but other elements are stored in different places in the cortex or even the hippocampus. And since we don't always know exactly how much we know, we're frequently not even aware that we know something.

Chapter 7 will go into more detail on memory. For now, the message is this: in order to innovate and transform businesses and activities, everyone needs to activate more of their knowledge and find underlying and often surprising patterns. Additionally, if we want to intentionally transform an activity—individually or as team—we need to make this clear and shared. And leading to unlock requires us to make this possible.

Understanding the System

The manager's second task is to help unlock the understanding or properties of the system. This includes creating a culture and process where there is an understanding that the organization needs to probe, sense, and then respond—...