What does LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® have in common with Laloux and Teal?

In my experience a lot – and with a group of professionals I recently had the opportunity to run a workshop, combining these two topics.

The “2in1 Meetup”, as Beat Fraefel, one of my co-organizers named it, promised quite a lot: learning practical matters of Teal while experiencing the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP) workshop method.

What did we learn together about Teal on the Meetup?

After the warm up we built models of Swiss small and middle-size companies, how would they operate according to Teal. There have been a lot of exciting stories shared. There were companies which has been described with moving models – as the story developed, the elements of the models were in motion to reflect for example fluidity and agility.

To go into even more practice and knowledge sharing, we created ideas about goal setting, budgeting and fair remuneration in Teal organizations. Here a lot of useful hints and tips were visualized and shared.

As I also learned about Teal while facilitating this workshop, I thought of sharing my point of view about the similarities between Teal and LSP.

“Teal organizations are characterized by self-organization and self-management. It has a decentralized structure consisting of small teams that take responsibility for their own governance and for how they interact with other parts of the organization. Assigned positions and job descriptions are replaced with a multiplicity of roles, often self-selected and fluid.”

These are also key features of a “lean in” workshop – which is another synonym for the LSP methodology: there is no central structure in it and there are no separate roles for the participants (apart from being facilitated). Listening and the stories are major elements of a successful LSP workshop.

Another aspect to highlight is how team and community building works. According to Laloux, in Teal “connection is supported by the development of a common language for people to express their feelings and thoughts. When everyone can freely express their feelings, thoughts, emotions and needs, space is created for everybody to be themselves and better understand others.”

I can confirm that LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is very much about a common language and same “airtime” for all. As it is based on play, it utilizes positive psychology, so nobody feels him- or herself at risk while sharing their ideas, which guarantees everybody’s contribution and creativity.

Thank you for Beat Fraefel and Sonja Stocker and the Reinventing Organisation Meetup community for the opportunity!

I hope to trigger some interest for both topics, and I would be delighted to hear your point of view as well. Maybe your organization also would like to experiment with more productive workshops and more creativity?

(definitions are from http://www.reinventingorganizationswiki.com)

Alexandra Mandoki is a chief guide and innovator at Sparks Guide. She is passionate about people and collaboration, and has gained her experience in innovation, marketing and strategy with global companies. She is a certified facilitator in LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and Design Thinking methods. Her motto: The sky is not the limit!