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Hi Hisham

I live in South Africa. It’s so far away from Europe and the US that Lego won’t deliver their Serious Play products here. I have to have them delivered in the UK and courier them to South Africa myself.
I have been earning my living for 11 years using LEGO for team building and now Serious Play. I was trained by one of the so-called “Master Trainers” and now offer facilitator training here in South Africa as well as facilitating workshops for numerous clients for up to 100 delegates at a time.

It’s important that I state categorically I am a huge fan of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY, believe in it being grounded in sound principles, have seen its utility and am interested in applying it efficiently and effectively where I can. (I’m even researching using it in substance abuse rehabilitation counselling.)

So, my immediate response to your questions is “Yes, subject to the methodology being meaningfully applied to the circumstances each training course is designed to address.” And don’t stress about demographic differences between the UAE and Europe and the States. Too often we forget we’re all Human Beings together and it is at this basic level that the methodology works. Demographics are dealt with at a surface level like courtesy and protocol.

In answer to your first question, LSP is a methodology, a specific way in which to handle a specific issue, be it a group decision that needs to be made, a problem the group needs to solve, or a group approach to innovation and creativity. So, if a particular training course requires the delegates to jointly address a clearly defined issue like “What is the most efficient management style in our company?” then, at this stage of the course, you can include the LSP methodology to get the delegates to come up with a consensus. The huge benefit of LSP is not only will consensus to reached, a shared bond arises amongst the participants and there is a high level of commitment to the agreed solution. For example, using this approach I have presented a similar issue to participants of a graduate training programme who now use their answer as a goal and as a benchmark.

My answer to your second question is counter to the view shared by most LEGO SERIOUS PLAYERS. I can find no believable, rational, experimentally proved beyond doubt reason for each participant to receive a brand new set of LEGO pieces that have to be exactly the same as what all the other participants receive. When I was trained as a facilitator, again, by a “Master Trainer” I was told this story while, at the same time being told to tell the participants “Remember, if it’s an elephant for you, it’s an elephant for us.” Purely and simply, that means the 3 dimensional object could be anything, not even a LEGO piece. We don’t have the time or space to put all the arguments and counter arguments on the table. I do believe LEGO pieces work extremely well, but I believe they are not a logically necessary ingredient of the Methodology. My practical advice is use LEGO but you don’t have to use the kits sold on the legoseriousplay website, and you definitely don’t have to buy new kits every time you facilitate a LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshop. I put heaps of LEGO in the middle of the table and each participant has equal access to the LEGO.

of course you can tailor make LEGO SERIOUS PLAY training courses. I’d go so far as to say that is an essential ingredient in successfully using LSP. The agenda of the workshop (the buzzword is “roadmap”) taking into account the logical structure of the issue being faced and at what stage(s) along the way you need to include the individual opinions of the participants so that these individual opinions can be collated into one consensual one.

Hisham, you’re welcome to email me – pete at teamgel . co. za, to discuss this matter further. The business model for LEGO SERIOUS PLAY is an open source one – one of sharing and growing by thinking outside the box.

Kind regards
Pete Smith
Teamgel