The LEGO® Serious Play® Superpower: Shaping the future and transforming teams

LEGO® Serious Play® is not just a method, but a transformative force that supports teams in shaping the future and achieving it proactively. Over 20 years of experience in using this method has shown us that it consistently inspires participants by bringing their ideas and thoughts to life, making them tangible and usable. This enthusiasm is reflected in the unique benefit we need in our uncertain times: the ability to use LEGO® Serious Play® to think far beyond the current status quo and create a new, promising vision for the future.

Playful transformation and team dynamics

The LEGO® Serious Play® method briefly explained

Transformation is everywhere. We have to change so much and constantly adapt to changing conditions: We as a team, our way of leading, our organizational culture, our offering or our positioning in the market. LEGO® Serious Play® is the ideal method for this, supporting transformation and innovation and turning those affected into joint creators. It enables teams to develop innovative visions of the future and strategies and to keep them in their heads as a helpful orientation.

The process: The unique creative process

LEGO® Serious Play®(LSP) is now well known, but people don't always know what is really behind it. It is more than just "playing" with LEGO®. LSP can be an excellent tool for joint prototyping of ideas, thought models, target images and strategies for teams and organizations. LEGO® is more of a building material than a toy.  

A LEGO® Serious Play® process begins with an entertaining warm-up to get the participants ready for the topic and the method. Afterwards, each individual develops a target image for the project. On this basis, the entire team develops a shared vision and embeds it in its context. This involves building the entire ecosystem from stakeholders and other external players through to trends. In this step, the group achieves a holistic understanding of the project, its interactions and external dependencies. 

Based on this new knowledge, a "real-time strategy" is developed. To this end, the participants run through possible future scenarios on the model and simulate their effects in order to derive insights, measures and guiding principles for successful future action and decision-making. 

In short: With a LEGO® Serious Play® process, you design the target image of the intended project and learn what will make it successful in the future and how you can proactively bring about this success now.

Transforming teams and promoting innovation

Changing the team dynamic for the better

The key to the success of LEGO® Serious Play® lies in its unique creative process. Participants think with their hands and get into a co-creative flow that allows them to share and develop complex ideas, thoughts and visions. This not only promotes individual creativity, but also mutual understanding and an appreciative discussion within the team. 

By bringing ideas and thoughts to life through models, participants are better able to remember what has been said. They discuss on the basis of what they have built, can locate points directly, pick them up and think or build on them. Working haptically on the model not only makes it easier to understand the flow of ideas, but also encourages fun and commitment to collaborative design.

As a result, the participants not only understand better what the content is about and what is important. They also get to know each other better because they listen to each other and build on each other's thoughts in an appreciative way.

The key role of the LEGO® Serious Play® Facilitator

The role of the facilitator is crucial to the success of the process. This person guides the process through inspiring questions and tasks, but in such a way that the responsibility for the content and autonomy remains with the participants. The facilitator helps to get the potential out of people's heads to contribute thoughts and ideas to the LEGO® Serious Play® models and the process without interfering with the content. This enables each individual to make full use of the creative scope in order to then think further together.

With LEGO® Serious Play® develop common visions and goals

LEGO® Serious Play® is characterized by the benefit of making uncertain futures tangible and thus promoting imagination and strategic thinking. The method uses the connection between head and hands to stimulate new neuronal connections and create a high level of tangibility of topics. This not only leads to high-quality discussions and a deep mutual understanding, but also prepares the participants to recognize early signals of a changing future and to act accordingly.

This makes trends such as "New Work" tangible so that participants can shape and live the topic for their organization and their needs. We even work on abstract challenges such as a future "networked European security policy" with our clients. We also work a lot with teams on their shared understanding of how they envision their future, what they want it to look like in the future and what they are prepared to do to achieve this.

LEGO® Serious Play® is the ideal method for shaping the future with teams in a short period of time, as it combines creativity, collaborative understanding and strategic foresight in a unique and exciting process.