LEGO® Serious Play®: A case Study in Leadership Development 

In today’s fast-paced, ever-changing world, leaders are expected to navigate through uncertainty, make tough decisions, and keep their teams motivated and engaged. 

As a result, it is imperative for leaders to have insights that they never needed previously. They have to be flexible, think on their feet, use their imagination and find solutions that aren’t always obvious. 

Why LEGO® Serious Play® and leadership? 

Leadership training has been around for years – but is it effective?  Is it really driving results so that leaders are able to guide their teams through challenging times and truly engage them with the organization’s values and purpose? 

We firmly believe that there is an incredibly powerful methodology that makes all the difference in a leadership program – integrate he LEGO® Serious Play® method into leadership training programs. It works as effectively for in-person or virtual sessions. 

The LEGO® Serious Play® method is a powerful tool that can help leaders learn and develop their skills in a fun and interactive way. The method involves the use of LEGO® bricks to build models that represent a concept or an idea. The process encourages participants to think creatively and express their ideas in a visual and tactile way. 

An example of LEGO® Serious Play® in action 

Recently, a top healthcare organization in the USA integrated the LEGO® Serious Play® method into their virtual leadership training program. 

The program was delivered via Microsoft Teams, and the goal was to encourage participants to reflect on what they had learnt in the overall learning program and set steps in motion to achieve their goals as being the best leader that they could be. 

How did the session come together? 

Because the session was virtual, there were logistical challenges: 

• To implement the LEGO® Serious Play® method, the organization had to mail LEGO® bricks out to the participants. 
• A moderator was also needed in the Teams session to help with managing the break-out rooms and other technical issues.  The moderator was also able to bring up the whiteboard which added a great dynamic to the session and helped avoid fatigue from being in front of the screen. 
• Participants were able to build models and tell stories that gave them deeper insights into how to apply the lessons from their leadership program to make a real difference for their team and for the organization. 
• The use of LEGO® bricks helped to make the session more engaging and interactive, which in turn, made it more effective in achieving the goals of the program. 

Why was the program successful? 

The success of this program should serve as an inspiration for other organizations to integrate the LEGO® Serious Play® method into their virtual leadership training programs.  This part of the program as an experiential process ensured that post-session all goals and commitments would have a far faster implementation cycle. 

While there may be additional logistics involved in implementing the method, the benefits of doing so are clear: 

• Firstly, the LEGO® Serious Play® method helps to make virtual training programs more engaging and interactive. It encourages participants to think creatively and express their ideas in a visual and tactile way, which can help to keep them more engaged in the session. 
• Secondly, the method helps to deepen participants’ understanding of the concepts being taught. By building models and telling stories, participants can gain a deeper insight into how to apply the lessons from the training program in their own work environments. 
• Thirdly, the method can help to create a sense of community among participants. By working together to build models and tell stories, participants can develop a sense of camaraderie and connectedness, which can be particularly important in virtual training programs. 

The feedback from participants was as follows: 

• “Instead of feeling tired at the end of the session, I was so engaged.  It really pulled all the key thoughts together for me”. 
• “I got so excited to receive my box of bricks.  It gave me great memories from when I was younger.  I enjoyed listening to the stories from my colleagues.” 
• “Who would have thought that leadership training could be such fun!  I liked reflecting on what we had learnt.” 

More information about the LEGO® Serious Play® process: 

LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® has grown in stature in educational, business and professional scenarios. It furnishes a novel approach for groups to cooperate, swap conceptions, and develop ingenious solutions to obstacles. 

Through utilizing this method, teams obtain insights into how others think to boost camaraderie within the collective. Given its concentration on teamwork, ingenuity, and connection this is an incredible way of doing something unique that has a major impact on behaviour change. 

Here are some tips to get started: 

• To use the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method, participants are given a set of LEGO® bricks.   
• The group is asked to build brick models that represent their thoughts and feelings about a particular topic.  Following the question, the participants construct models to reflect their perspective 
• They then tell stories about their models, which can help them to gain insight into how others think and develop trust within the group.  It’s a form of collective knowledge that forms between group members. 
• The method is designed to be both fun and engaging, while also helping participants to learn new skills and come up with creative solutions to problems. 

For more information on how you can be trained in using the LEGO® Serious Play® method, please click here.

We have a range of options to suit different budgets and to ensure that you build your confidence in applying the method in the work you do! 

To buy sets of suitable bricks, go to the LEGO® Shop.