Our society tends to dismiss play for adults. The notion is that once we reach adulthood, it’s time to get serious about personal and professional responsibilities. In my opinion, a lack of play during adulthood has made us too aware of our surroundings, business hierarchies and stereotypes, leaving our minds closed to questioning, improving and growth. Research has shown that play has the capability to help us think in a third or fourth dimension, perfect for problem solving and inspiring innovation.
In 2014, I was re-introduced to the idea of play by LEGO and Make Happy, who use it in the workplace to inspire collaboration, creativity and innovation.
The goal of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY is to allow teams to develop their ideas by creating 3D models of their organizational experiences thus allowing more creative conversations. One of the key reasons the technique is so powerful is that everyone has to build and discuss their own model before contributing to a shared model, ensuring that all participants contribute equally to the discussion. There is also a body of academic research that shows learning happens particularly well when people are engaged in constructing something external to themselves like a LEGO model.
LEGO SERIOUS PLAY works off the theory that Hands + Minds = Connection. Our hands serve as the search engine tool to access all the stored information in our minds – both in the conscious and the subconscious. Just as we would use Google’s search bar to access all of the information stored on the internet, we can use our hands to access the information and memories stored in our own brains. This is important because the things we have been exposed to, the sights we’ve seen, and the people we’ve met, make us who we are. Add it all up and it means we all don’t process information in exactly the same, uniform way.
For example, the ‘Build A Tower’ exercise is a quick way to warm participants up to the idea of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY. In this exercise, each participant is given the exact same set of LEGO bricks and is asked to build a tower. You will find that, without fail, each participant builds a different tower; no matter how often you repeat this experiment, you will never find two identical towers.
Someone glancing through a window at a LEGO SERIOUS PLAY session might think it looks like fun and games. When you’ve experienced it for yourself, you’ll know nothing could be further from the truth – LEGO SERIOUS PLAY is serious business! Participants come away with skills to communicate more effectively, to engage their imaginations more readily, and to approach their work with increased confidence, commitment and insight. It’s play with purpose.
