Serious Play Forum

[Carlos Martinez]

Hi all,

I welcome all ideas, suggestions, tricks and so on to help me in the design of a workshop to deal with the following situation/background:
The customer – a fairly large multinational corporation – is going through a period of deep internal changes originated in the change of ownership. The focus of the workshop is the individual, how they live the situation and how they could live it better, for themselves and for the company. Extracting personal SGPs would be key to the success of the workshop.

[Eli De Friend]

Hi Carlos,
By focussing on the individual, you will be missing out on a lot of the power that LSP can deliver.
You might want to discuss with your client a slightly different approach.
1. the mandatory building skills
2. individual build of what has been lost since the change of ownership
3. individual build of what has been gained since the change of ownership
4. collective build of what will be the corporate culture, when the current change process is complete
5. individual build of who am i in my job, in this company
6. landscaping of the individual models
7. connections between the individual models and the company
8. connections between the individuals
9. individual build of what I can bring to the corporate culture and the landscape of individuals to support it
10 collective refinement of the landscape
11. collective what could happen
12. collective what should happen
13. collective why is it the right thing
14. collective set of SGPs

Any comments?

[Jody Lentz]

Eli: that is a terrific design.
Carlos: are there limitations on time?
what other logistical constraints do you have?
Sounds like the biggest challenge will be the *personal* SGPs you describe as “key” – that may be just a personal reflection time; I am not sure that can happen in the group setting…

[Walter Vannini]

Carlos: that’s quite a challenge. How much LSP methodology buy-in from the company do you have? That may be a key factor in following Eli’s suggestions.

Eli: yours would absolutely be the best way. Few external consultants have enough political power to pass such a design.

Carlos: I do use LSP in similar settings, and it *does* works like a charm. I say individual sessions would be best, but you can try a first step addressing attendees one at a time, then promoting discussion/collective build.

Hint: after Eli’s #5, individual build of “how company used to be”; then model what has changed. Here, some individual+group discussion would be useful.
Issue: how many people will there be?
Issue a workshop will NOT bring out any sensitive personal issue; you may want to use the workshop as a first step and then continue with individual meetings, possibly ending in a final collective workshop, once all personal issues have been settled.
Issue: you will need a lot of counseling skills; I find them invaluable, in change projects (and I deal with the hardest targets, IT people…)
Issue: you will have to debunk lots of self-serving myths and irrational beliefs; consider doing something in the very beginning to win attendee attention and trust. I usually use some behaviour analysis to accurately describe some of each attendees personal idiosyncracies. Very simple stuff, but very very effective. Once they suspect you know more than you let on, they will try less to outsmart you, and you can work with ease.

Hope this helps, le me know if I can do something else. Do post something after the WS, very interested
Best,
W

[Eli De Friend]

Dear Carlos and Walter,
The design I proposed is just standard. It’s what we should all be doing all of the time.

The political power comes from the sponsor, not the facilitator. The sponsor has brought the facilitator in a for a reason. If the participants don’t like the sponsor’s ideas, they can hand in their resignation (no one ever does).

As for the personal dimension, that is the whole point of LSP. The “Lonely Guy” is no longer lonely. There is a whole organisation around the lonely guy, waiting for this individual’s contribution, along with the contribution of all of the other individuals. But the methodology is not designed to be a massive ego-trip for the Lonely Guy, it is a way of embracing the individual contribution to become a part of a much more realistic and robust whole.

Coming to the emotions and other personal contributions that may come out during an LSP session, it may be worth establishing up front what is your role. A facilitator is an enabler for others to do work, a consultant offers professional advice, a coach helps people to develop, and a therapist helps people to repair.

Walter, I feel that some of the skills you mention are closer to that of coach or even therapist, rather than that of facilitator. If you start playing the role of coach during an LSP workshop, you have completely undermined your position, your role and your obligations as a professional – Just my own personal opinion.

If you are using LEGO bricks, metaphor and storytelling in a therapeutical or coaching context, many may argue (including myself) that this is not LSP. In this light you may wish to consider the fact that LEGO itself has decided to make a distinction between LSP (for business) and BuildToExpress (for Education).

Warm regards,

Eli

[Carlos Martinez]

Hi all,
just saw your comments. I am so grateful.

Let me add a few words about the context:
– there will be around 20 people per workshop (I know it is too many!). I will have some assistance though not certified, and not even a senior facilitator. Actually help will be more on logistics and arrangements.
– The customer isn’t really that much into understanding the power of LSP, so to say. They hope it will work, and my impression is that they expect results from the methodology being fancy and innovative
– workshop is 1 day ~ 7 hours (say 6 hours discounting coffee break and a short lunch)
– Participants are in the “blue-collar” level mostly. The program involves between 15 to 25 equal seminars
– The company wants to do “something” at this level as well. Being this “something” almost anything that can help them and help the company.

I know it sounds quite fuzzy and “cynical” – at least this is how it sounds to me – but this is how it is!
Still, as you can imagine, it is very important to yields results that are practical and help the individual to live better through this period of change – also for the company.

Well it is a bit late now and I am tired. I will comment on your suggestions, just let me have a deeper look at them, they certainly deserve it before I make any comment.

Again, thanks a lot Eli, Jody and Walter.

Best regards,
Carlos

[Eli De Friend]

Dear Carlos, you mention “blue collar” workers. The only time I had a genuine “blue collar” worker, who was an assembly line team leader, in an LSP workshop, the results were very surprising.
When asked to model the different aspects of his life (job, husband, neighbour, etc.) he modelled his job as a small black box and then his home life as a pretty house with a flowering garden and explained that his job was just to pay the rent and it didn’t really matter what he has to do while he is at work, as long as he gets paid. He therefore questioned the rationale for inviting him to the workshop.

You may find a few of those in your workshop. Be prepared.

Eli

[Carlos Martinez]

Hi again guys,

Eli:
I like your approach, however I don’t think can be accomplished in 6 hours.
I am also in doubt on whether they can actually build about company culture. What do you think about building on their perception of what change is how they feel they are impacted? though from there I am not quite sure how to continue so they could develop their own individual SGP…?

Walter:
Unfortunately there is no budget to arrange for individual coaching

Eli:
I appreciate your experience with blue-collar workers.

Look forward to further comments and ideas.

Thanks and regards, Carlos

[Carlos Martinez]

Hi again guys,

Eli:
I like your approach, however I don’t think can be accomplished in 6 hours.
I am also in doubt on whether they can actually build about company culture. What do you think about building on their perception of what change is how they feel they are impacted? though from there I am not quite sure how to continue so they could develop their own individual SGP…?

Walter:
Unfortunately there is no budget to arrange for individual coaching

Eli:
I appreciate your experience with blue-collar workers.

Look forward to further comments and ideas.

Thanks and regards, Carlos

[Eli De Friend]

Hi Carlos,
You might find it a worthwhile investment to interview a representative of the workers to ask what seem to be the major concerns of his/her colleagues.

The client might not have any budget for your preparation work, but you still have to do it. LSP is not a solution, it is a methodology. So you still have to design the workshop, which usually requires getting as good an understanding of the objectives AND the participants as possible. We usually budget 4 days preparation for a 1-day workshop + debrief or 8 days preparation for a 2-day workshop.

You suggested “building on their perception of what change is how they feel they are impacted”. This seems quite complex. Remember that, you need to keep your clients more or less “in the flow”.

How about breaking it down into:
1. What has changed
2. How has that change impacted you
3. Refine your model to reflect how you feel about that impact

However, you don’t want to give people too long to complain. They need to be able to express their anger, frustration, etc. (to give them a framework for this, you can present the Kübler-Ross stages-of-grief model which has been adapted by many people for corporate change). But in order to change the attitude of the staff, you need to get them to explore the possibilities for the future and actually have a hand in shaping that future.

If you feel that individual coaching could be useful, you might want to suggest that the HR department takes on this role. If the client challenges the value of the coaching, you can ask your client what would be the impact of a small group of workers demotivating everyone else.

All the best,

Eli

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