Building a Better Business Using the Lego Serious Play Method

Chapter 14Contemplating LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® at Work

Three things stand out very clearly to us after more than a decade of working with LEGO SERIOUS PLAY.

1. It works across a very broad range of industries and areas.
2. It works for every person in any culture.
3. All workshops are customized.

Let's examine these three observations.

It Works across a Very Broad Range of Industries and Areas

We hope that the cases we have shared make it clear that the method works across many areas. Though created for strategy development in a family-owned toy company in Denmark, it has evolved into a thinking and communication method whose applicability is limited only by the nature of the problem and the beliefs of the organization seeking to solve that problem. As we have shown, it has worked well in organizations large and small, private and public, for-profit and nonprofit, as well as in education and in research.

We usually encounter limits in the nature of the challenges the organization wants to work on, and in how the organization works. LEGO SERIOUS PLAY is most effective when the challenge is a complex one with no obvious solution.

It takes a courageous manager to introduce LEGO SERIOUS PLAY. He or she has to be brave enough not only to bring in the LEGO bricks, but also to open up a very candid dialogue that will allow everyone present to speak their mind. There is an element of relinquishing control for a period of time. It takes courage to enter into a process where one allows oneself ...