Published on Mar 25, 2015 LEGO Serious Play (LSP) is a facilitated thinking, communication and problem solving technique for use with individuals, teams and organisations. Source: LEGO Serious Play - Imaginopedia LEGO Serious Play: what isLEGO Serious Play: how does it work? LEGO Serious Play: why does it work? WE DON’T STOP PLAYING BECAUSE WE GROW OLD WE GROW OLD BECAUSE WE STOP PLAYINGLEGO Serious Play (LSP) is a facilitated thinking, communication and problem solving technique for use with individuals, teams and organisations. It draws on extensive research from the fields of business, organization development, psychology and learning, and is based on the concept of “hand knowledge”. LEGO Serious Play: hand knowledge? If someone asks you a question … … and you answer verbally, you activate your short & long term memory (= +- 13% of your brain) … and you start building with your hands, 80% of your brain is activated. LEGO Serious Play is a ideal way to help individuals, teams and organisations get a clear view of: 1/ their current situation, 2/ their aspirations and goals, 3/ the way to get there.
LEGO Serious Play: constructionism LEGO Serious Play is based on the ideas of Seymour Papert, which built in turn on the Constructivist theories of his colleague Jean Piaget. Papert argued that learning happens exceptionally well when people are engaged in constructing a product, something external to themselves such as a sand castle, a machine, a computer program or a book. LEGO Serious Play Play is unique because it produces benefits that span multiple functional domains including: physical, emotional, mental, and social. Play is defined as a limited, structured and voluntary activity that involves the imaginary. It’s an activity limited in time & space, often structured by rules, conventions or agreements among the players, uncoerced by authority figures, and drawing on elements of fantasy & creative imagination. LEGO Serious Play: imagination Throughout history, the term "imagination" has been given many different cultural and linguistic connotations.
While all share the basic idea that humans have a unique ability to "form images" or to "imagine" something, the variety of uses of the term "imagination" implies not one, but at least three meanings: 1/ to describe something, 2/ to create something, 3/ to challenge something. LEGO Serious Play: imagination From the point of view of LEGO Serious Play, it is the interplay between these three kinds of imagination that make up strategic imagination – the source of original strategies in companies. LEGO Serious Play: strategic imagination What Napoleon did with tin soldiers, we do with LEGO bricks. CREATIVITY IS INTELLIGENCE HAVING FUN. LEGO Serious Play: how does LEGO Serious Play: visual storytelling Storytelling is an age-old tool because it is a memorable method of communicating what has happened or what is currently happening. Storytelling with LEGO models makes a situation come alive before it occurs in real life and allows you to test what might happen if you make certain decisions.
It is the next best thing to actually “doing” in the real world - but without the threat of those annoying real life consequences. LEGO Serious Play: The 4 core steps Step 1: Facilitator poses the question Participants are asked to build and create stories in response to a question. The question should be clear, yet very open- ended. core steps Step 2: Individuals build a model Each participant builds his or her own 3-D model in response to the question that has been posed. Participants work with the special set of LEGO bricks designed to inspire the use of metaphors and story making. core steps Step 3: Individuals tell their story Each participant shares his or her model’s meaning and story with the rest of the team. It is absolutely critical that every person shares their story. This enables 100% participation during the session which builds commitment to shared action. core steps Step 4: Questions and reflections The facilitator and participants crystallize key insights, and ask clarification questions of the models.
The facilitator sums up surprises and connections. LEGO Serious Play: use of metaphors Metaphors can serve as powerful tools leading us to think about our realities in new or different ways. By unleashing our imaginations to describe the world as we see it, metaphors help us form entirely new descriptions that might challenge assumptions and beliefs, revealing new possibilities. By drawing on more of our senses, metaphors also help us convey complex ideas that may be difficult to communicate with words. LEGO Serious Play: why does LEGO Serious Play: flow When you go through the LEGO Serious Play workshops, you will experience what some call a “roller coaster ride”. You will feel varying comfort levels as you move through the process and the challenges. The processes are designed deliberately this way so as to greatly increase the chances that real changes and long term learning will take place, along with a deep feeling of accomplishment. LEGO Serious Play: flow This
roller coaster is best described by the “Flow Model”, modified from work done by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi in 1991. A PICTURE IS WORTH A LEGO Serious Play: 100% participationA manager has a meeting with his team of 10 people. He has a problem and asks the team for possible solutions. The first person ("Mr Loud") brings up an idea. The second person ("Mrs MBA") adds or adjusts that idea. The third person ("Mr Popular") fills in the last details of the idea. "Do we all agree?" asks the manager. The tenth person ("Mr I need some time to think things through") also has a great idea, possibly the perfect solution for the problem, but by now, he doesn't dare to say it anymore, because it's completely different from the idea, everybody just agreed on. With LEGO Serious Play the manager will get access to all ideas in the group. Because everyone has to build a model and share the story. LEGO Serious Play: 100% openness Even though your idea didn’t make it. You have said it.