Building a Better Business Using the Lego Serious Play Method

Chapter 6Building Knowledge—Giving Your Mind a Hand

Without the LEGO bricks, there would be no LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method. The bricks are to the process like sunlight is to a solar cell; without sunlight, no energy is produced. Yet many people who have not experienced LEGO SERIOUS PLAY find the process puzzling. They wonder why building and telling stories with LEGO bricks is a more effective use of the team's time than employing traditional methods for dealing with and finding solutions to complex problems and challenges—like merely talking.

It can also be a challenge to both understand and accept that children's preferred way to learning about the world—through concrete hands-on interaction—is indeed also a more efficient method for adults. Many find it inconceivable that such a learning process works more effectively than using formal abstract thinking and communication in the form for words, tables, spreadsheets, and graphs.

This chapter presents you with the theories that address three topics intimately connected to the use of the LEGO bricks:

1. Building knowledge by building things in the world
2. Concrete thinking versus formal abstract thinking
3. Using the hand as the leading edge of the mind

Let's look at each in detail.

Building Knowledge by Building Things in the World

In short, we build knowledge by building things!

Try this: think about the aspects of your work that are especially motivating for you—the activities and events and people that give you energy and really ...