LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® For Team Building

Why LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® for Team Building?

Developing a group into a high performing team can be a real challenge. In many organizations, the teams often function more like hubs than actual teams. The lack of cooperation and creativity sharing is a real issue. Enter LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® for team building. The LSP method brings the creativity and inspiration of play to the serious concerns of the business world making team building, team development, and teamwork easier through a structured and fun approach.

Get an introduction to LSP and the effectiveness of the tool here. Or find out how you can use the method to build a strategy for your company or organization here.

How to use LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® to develop a high performing team?

The LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method is a unique approach for turning groups into teams, or to help good teams work even better together. The Real Time Identity application of the LSP method, enables teams to build a strategy to improve their teamwork and to achieve their full potential both individually and as a team.

Through guided and structured exercises, the team members use LEGO® to actively construct a number of possible development areas. This process allows each team member to explore, challenge and better understand their identity and role within the team. It increases team bonding, teamwork, and team skills

Through exercises, a comprehensive physical knowledge landscape consisting of LEGO® bricks is created. The landscape becomes vivid via story telling and strong metaphors connected to the different models. This, in turn, creates a strong common understanding of the possibilities and challenges that the team is facing.

The output of a LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® team building workshop

A LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® team building workshop creates a shared language and vision for the team. And, it strengthens the bond between the team members. At the same time, the process identifies the main obstacles to engage in genuine teamwork by helping the team create an action plan on how to increase effectiveness at the team level as well as at the individual level. A set of guiding principles for the team’s unique way of working are also part of the outcome.

The content of a LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® team building workshop

Two LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® workshops are never completely alike. At Inthrface, we design and deliver professional and tailormade workshops, adapted to Your unique organizational context. However, LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® team building workshops always progress through the following seven stages:

1. Basic Skills Building in the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Method

The aim of this opening part of the workshop is to get acquainted with the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method. Participants work with the basic LSP elements such as construction, metaphors, story telling and imagination. This is done through hands-on team building exercises that engage the participants and generate “flow.” Flow occurs when people are so involved in an activity that they focus their full attention on the activity. The result is, that they become energized, focused and enjoy what they do. The combination of using your competences, imagination and your hands enables this experience of flow, which makes it very effective and efficient in work situations.

2. Building identity models

Every single individual in the team brings different nuances and aspects of themselves to work. To develop a team further, it is important to get a clear and shared picture of the different contributions in the team. LSP stimulates this process by having the participants develop three different parts of who they are (their identity):

• Their core identity:

The unique element, that defines our essence – the stream from which our values are sedimented.

• Their external identity:

The characteristics of the team member that other people see and interact with.

• Their potential identity:

The sides of the team member that can be beneficial to the team – but have not yet been shared with the team.

By building the different parts of the individual identity in LEGO® and giving the models life using metaphors and shared stories, the LSP method improves communication and understanding between the members of the team.

3. Identifying Team Life

Team Life is “the spirit of the team”. It is the feeling of the way the team works. It focuses on how the team behaves and handles their functions and tasks right now.

The participants present a metaphorical view of that part of their Team Life that is most important to them. Through dialogue, stories and movement of physical models. a shared understanding of what works well and what should be improved emerge. This group team building activity greatly improves shared understanding and team bonding.

4. Landscape and connections

By placing the Team Life models on the table, the team makes a common and shared story about the behavior and environment within the team. Additionally, the team members are asked to place themselves (their identity model) oriented towards parts of the Team Life models. The connections between e.g. team members are then built in LEGO®, and the nature of the connections are explained.

5. Explore events & test scenarios

The participants play out historical team incidents and talk about the consequences. The purpose is to find the repeated patterns of outdated team habits and arrangements and to identify good team habits.

The participants also play out and discuss scenarios and future scenarios. Particular attention is placed on the possible impact that these scenarios will have on the Team Life, team coherence and change in connections. From this, possible actions are outlined and discussed. This leads to a final decision on how to proceed. As well as, a discussion on why it is the best way to move forward.

6. Deduce the Team Wisdom

The underlying causes of how things are done and how the team reacts to new situations is rooted in what is called the “Team Wisdom”. This wisdom is transmitted imperceptibly between team members. It is the unwritten rules of how we act within the team. Team Wisdom appears as habits and patterns, and it contributes to create the culture within the team – for good or bad.

Uncovering a team’s wisdom is achieved through common experiences. It does not tell us exactly what to do, but it leads and guides the team to identify the areas to focus on and how to act.

Through playing out the past and the present, the workshop participants gain insights into how they behave individually and as a team, as well as how they ought to behave in the future to improve teamwork. These insights can lead to the formulation of a set of principles that will guide the team in future actions and decisions.

7. General actions for the team or the team members

Based on the exercises and the knowledge gained through teamwork, the participants create action plans for both the team and for the individual team members. These action plans will help the team develop and create the foundation for a high performing team in the future.