Lego Team Building using Serious Play

Luke Battye from http://seriousplayworkshops.co.uk has written the following blog post.

Ever since its creation, LEGO has allowed people to make the most out of their creativity, and so it should be. Creativity is the core process behind LEGO’s creation, encouraging children (and adults alike) to create anything their imagination could conjure up. They would build everything from castles to spaceships, police stations to alien bases. That was the joy of LEGO – through using it anything is possible.

LEGO Team Building

There is a popular misconception that only children can benefit from playing with LEGO. It is true that the multi-coloured blocks were initially designed as a child’s toy, however, in recent years the boost to creativity LEGO enables has been seen as beneficial to anyone who cares to play.This has been harnessed within the LEGO Serious Play (LSP) philosophy and something that we would like to explore here to some degree.

Over the past fifteen years LEGO have been gaining momentum as an adult toy as well as just as something children play with. They have released ranges like the Architect range to back this up, as well as some of their more complicated build kits. More interestingly, playing with LEGO affects adults differently to children, having a different effect on a fully formed brain compared to a developing one.

This is where Serious Play comes in. Serious Play was developed by LEGO in the 1990s. Video games were becoming commonplace in the family home and LEGO realised they needed to change. They needed a revolution, and that revolution came with binding their team together with the little coloured bricks they had created. Through playing with LEGO the LEGO employees managed to unlock ideas they hadn’t previously thought of.

What is the benefit of LEGO Team Building?

LEGO Serious Play (LSP) is a team building phenomenon. It allows for teams to get together and brainstorm ideas in a way that encourages them to unlock their full potential. You can read all about the science here.

LSP is both a methodology and philosophy guiding the exposure of incredible ideas. It is a problem solving technique based in constructivism, where we learn through using our hands to build. This means everyone in the group can build their ideal solution to any given problem, but, most importantly, those ideas can then be shared with others in the group. It allows for groups to explore their ideas and what makes them unique as a group. They can expand their skill set, discover each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and ensure that everyone in the group is listened to. Through building together a team can grow stronger.

What team building activities with LEGO allow for is for the adults and children within all of us to meet and create something truly remarkable.