MANUAL

Introducing
The LEGO ®SERIOUS PLAY ® Method
Introducing  the  LEGO®  SERIOUS  PLAY®  Method ..................................................2  
The  History  of  the  LEGO  SERIOUS  PLAY  Method.......................................................................2  
What  is  the  LEGO  SERIOUS  PLAY  Method? ...............................................................................3  
Why  use  the  LEGO  SERIOUS  PLAY  Method?..............................................................................5  
When  to  use  the  LEGO  SERIOUS  PLAY  Method? .......................................................................6  
The  Science  Behind  the  LEGO  SERIOUS  PLAY  Method...........................................7  
Play,  Learning  through  Exploration  and  Storytelling.................................................................7  
Constructivism  and  Constructionism:  Building  Knowledge  by  Building  Things.........................9  
Flow .........................................................................................................................................12  
The  Three  Kinds  of  Imagination ..............................................................................................14  
Metaphors...............................................................................................................................15  
Complex  Adaptive  Systems  and  Simple  Guiding  Principles.....................................................15  
Inspiration  and  Background  Reading. .....................................................................................16  

 
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Introducing  the  LEGO®  SERIOUS  PLAY®  Method  

Historically, the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method (LSP) has been both a methodology and a
business venture. As a method, it developed and progressed incrementally and robustly. As
a business venture, its history has been more turbulent. In this manual, we will introduce you
to both histories, and we will give you a solid understanding of the values and theories
creating the foundation of the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method. You will gain an understanding
of the methodology and why and when to use it.

At the very end we share some of the most important story lines.

The  History  of  the  LEGO  SERIOUS  PLAY  Method  

The method was created in response to an important challenge facing the LEGO Company in
the mid ‘90s. The original process was designed for internal strategy. Later LEGO decided to
introduce the process to the wider world. The story below describes why the originators
decided to introduce the process to the world.

LEGO is a family-owned company, and in 1995 it was led by Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen, the
grandson of the founder. The company had been very successful, but new toys such as
videogames were entering the market. Children were playing differently, “growing older
younger” was the term often used, and LEGO was starting to feel the impact of these
changes in the market. LEGO began to explore options for developing a new strategy.

Kjeld Kristiansen was dissatisfied with the results of the company’s strategy-building sessions.
While his business was about imagination, the results from these sessions were decidedly
unimaginative. At the same time, two professors from IMD business school in Lausanne,
Johan Roos and Bart Victor, were also concerned about the poor results from traditional
strategy-development techniques.

Kjeld Kristiansen connected with Johan Roos and Bart Victor in 1996, and the three noted
their similar frustration with traditional strategy techniques and shared values. They all
believed:

- People are the key to company success.

- Strategy is something you live, not something stored away in a document.

Kjeld agreed to fund research on this problem by creating a separate LEGO subsidiary called
Executive Discovery. The research would lead to a process the company could use internally,
and the professors could advance their academic work in a real-world setting.

The business school professors practiced and became more and more adept at the use of
building with LEGO® bricks to tap into the unconscious knowledge in each individual.

However, something still did not “click”, something was missing in their equation. Bart and
Johan had strong academic backgrounds in strategy making, complex adaptive systems,
leadership, and organizational behavior. This led to early versions of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY
strategy-building concepts like identity, metaphor, landscape, and simple guiding principles.
However, the hands-on processes, which are essential to surfacing the potential of the people
involved, were not running smoothly.

Ironically, what was missing from the equation was something at the core of the LEGO
business model: How humans learn and develop. To eliminate this void in learning theory,
Robert Rasmussen joined Executive Discovery in 1999. Robert came from a position as
director of product development for the educational market at LEGO. He immediately began

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to systematically investigate the feasibility of using LEGO bricks for strategy development.
Once the group realized that these strategy concepts could truly be more than just theory,
the work moved into developing the process itself and making the results reproducible and
the methodology robust.

Over the course of several years, there were more than twenty iterations of the formal
process. They also confirmed a pattern of working with the bricks that produced consistent
results across different groups – the germ of the LSP facilitation etiquette.

One of the themes that emerged from this early work was the value of helping groups see
the entire human system they are part of. Seeing the system helped them envision scenarios
and be better prepared for the future. By having a complete picture of their current system,
including team roles, relationships, and culture, and testing the system with specific
scenarios, team members gain more confidence, insight, and commitment in dealing with
future events.

With this methodology emerging as robust, and consistent with his own values, Kjeld saw it
was possible to change the way organizations work, and, consequently, launched an initiative
to bring the methodology to the market. Executive Discovery changed from being the vehicle
behind the research, to owning the methodology and having the responsibility for bringing
the methodology to market. The first employees joined in 2001 and included Per Kristiansen.
Per Kristiansen and Robert Rasmussen became the two master trainers. It was decided to
develop a partnership business model, where organizations would sign a partner contract
(later a license contract), and have a number of their employees complete the authorized
facilitator training.

The first facilitator training was in September 2001, and the LSP process was officially
launched a few months later, on January 1, 2002. Approximately two years later, LEGO made
the business decision to merge Executive Discovery into LEGO, and put LEGO resources
behind the continued development. Per Kristiansen, who had been part of Executive
Discovery and one of the two master trainers (Robert being the other), assumed the role of
director of the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY business line. Robert became a LEGO SERIOUS PLAY
partner, a path Per pursued a few years later.

After exploring a variety of avenues for further growth, LEGO decided in 2009 to launch a
community-based business model. This strategy was selected because it is closely aligned
with Kjeld’s original vision of changing the way people work.

What  is  the  LEGO  SERIOUS  PLAY  Method?  

The LEGO SERIOUS PLAY® method (LSP) is a facilitated thinking, communication and
problem-solving technique for organizations, teams and individuals. It draws on extensive
research from the fields of business, organizational development, psychology and learning,
and is based on the concept of “hand knowledge.”

The LSP method is based on a set of fundamental beliefs about leadership and organizations:

• Leaders don’t have all the answers. Their success is dependent on hearing all voices
in the room.
• People naturally want to contribute, be part of something bigger and take ownership.
• Allowing each member to contribute and speak out results is a more sustainable
business model.
• All too often, teams work sub-optimally, leaving team member knowledge untapped.
• We live in a world, which can best be described as complex and adaptive.

These beliefs create the foundation for the methodology. The methodology is based on the
Core Process and the seven Application Techniques.

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The  Core  Process    

The Core Process is at the center of the method; it is the source code that, in essence,
defines whether a workshop or strategy session follows the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method. It
has four essential steps:

Step 1

Posing the Question: The challenge, which should have no obvious or correct solution, is
presented to the participants. The framing of the challenge has to be clear and concise for
the participant to connect.

Step 2

Construct: The participants make sense of what they know and what they can imagine. They
do this by constructing a model using the LEGO materials, and developing a story covering
the meaning in the model. Through this process, they construct new knowledge in their
minds.

Step 3

Sharing: The stories are shared among the participants.

Step 4

Reflect: As a way of internalizing and grounding the story, participants are encouraged to
reflect on what was heard or seen in the model.

For a workshop based on the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method to be successful, it is essential
that the participants follow the Core Process steps.

The  Seven  Application  Techniques  (Fig.  1)  

All applications of the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY methodology make use of the above Core Process
and one or more of seven LSP process layers. Each of the seven application techniques is
based on mastering the previous one(s). The higher Application Technique numbers (from 1
to 7) can address increasingly complex problems.

Fig. 1

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The complexity increases not only in terms of problems that can be addressed, but also in
terms of how the core process is applied, i.e. how the facilitator designs and facilitates.

The full facilitator training program provides you an in-depth training in how to design and
facilitate workshops using all seven application techniques.

Why  Use  the  LEGO  SERIOUS  PLAY  Method?  

At the center of the answer to this question are the notion that we know much more than we
know we know, and the belief that we live in a world that is neither linear nor predictable.
Only by articulating what we know, and what we can imagine, can we intentionally work
towards changing the world to be more consistent with our values. This is “why” one would
use LSP.

Why then does it then work? Why is it an efficient way of optimizing all the knowledge
present in a given individual or team:

The  Power  of  “Hand  Knowledge”  

Our hands are connected to between 70 to 80 percent of our brain cells. Our brains are
limited in how much information they can consciously handle at one time, the so-called
working memory. But with the help of all the neural connections in our hands we “know“ a
lot more at any given moment than we think we know.

The LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method taps into the human ability to imagine, to describe and to
make sense of a situation at hand, to initiate change and improvement, and even to create
something radically new. When our hands are used in learning, a complicated process takes
place that generates a powerful emotional charge. As a result, not only do thoughts and
ideas that are built with our hands tend to be expressed in greater detail, they are also more
easily understood and remembered.

The process is not reliant on the typical verbal jousting that goes on in meetings, or filling up
a “blank page”. Instead, participants use a carefully chosen selection of LEGO® bricks and
elements and a unique process where people “think through their fingers” – unleashing
insight, inspiration and imagination.

Leveling  the  playing  field    

The LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method is based on the belief that everyone has something unique
and valuable to contribute to discussions, decisions and outcomes. Its methodology releases
and enables individual and team insights and imagination. People gain understanding and
clarity regarding the identity and dynamics of their organization. They are empowered to
make effective decisions and do so with confidence and commitment.

Think of the many times people meet during the business day to have a conversation to solve
a problem, brainstorm ideas, initiate a project, develop a team, deal with a crisis or create a
new strategy. Whatever the purpose of the meeting, it’s the people in your organization who
have the potential to contribute to the solutions. They also have the natural desire to
influence and impact the things that are important to them.

Traditional ways of working together do not always offer an opportunity for each person to
express critical insights. In particular, the over-reliance on assertive verbal interactions that
characterizes most business practices creates inevitable “winners” and “losers.” LEGO
SERIOUS PLAY levels the playing field, engaging 100 percent attention and participation.
Wise leaders recognize that the only sustainable source of competitive advantage is the
experience, knowledge and imagination present in the people of the organization. Too often,
it remains simply an untapped capacity.

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With increasing connectivity and truly global teams, where all members are part of the team
because they possess unique knowledge, creating a level playing field where both the known
and unknown unknown can be surfaced, is at the center of an organization’s competitive
advantage.

Efficient  decision-­‐making  
Using the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY process is highly efficient. Within just a few days, a group or
team can have a clear, shared direction with people who are confidently aligned and
committed to a course of action. Suddenly, insights have real impact on their work and choice
of actions. Implementation begins to happen naturally, without requiring a complex Gant
chart of accountabilities.

A LEGO SERIOUS PLAY process surfaces the emotional element of decision-making. Recent
studies demonstrate that emotions always play a role when an individual makes decision, it
not whether they should or should not. It is about being aware of it, and thus intentional
about it.

When  to  use  the  LEGO  SERIOUS  PLAY  Method?  

What  kinds  of  problems  and  organizations?  
First you have to ask yourself: Is the challenge complex, and is the organization/team ready
for an approach that will allow for several different, but equally valid, answers emerge,
before reaching one shared answer?

It is sometimes said that a good LEGO SERIOUS PLAY context takes ”a complex problem and
a courageous manager”.

In short, the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method works well when there is no obvious solution, or
no right answer, and when the manager is courageous, meaning he/she admits to not
knowing all the answers, and is ready to gain insight from all his/her employees.

However, there is no one standard answer for when using LSP is especially beneficial. Using
this approach for thinking, communication and problem solving will always generate a high
level of engagement, participation and enjoyment. You can use the checklist below to
determine if a given challenge can be effectively addressed with this approach. One or more
checkmarks means a workshop based the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method will enhance your
outcomes in the situation.

• When asking each team member or participant the same question results in
substantially different answers.
• When everyone in the group has an interest or stake in what is on the agenda.
• When it is highly important that everyone participates in the discussions.
• When you want to increase team understanding and at the same time avoid
frustration.
• When you want to use the time efficiently and avoid having anyone tune out.
• When you would like to provoke new learning and new ways of thinking.
• When you want to deal with tough and complex issues in a constructive atmosphere.
• When it is highly important members can speak their true feelings without
intimidating anyone or being intimidated.
• When you have a situation where a few members tend to dominate the discussions
and you want to break that routine without offending anyone.
• When you have a group that feel meetings tend to be a waste of time.
• When you want to create a level playing field for discussion
• When it is highly important that the group finds an answer or solution they can fully
commit to.
• When your meetings or learning events tend to focus more on the messengers than
on the messages.

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Some of the client challenges where workshops based on the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY
methodology have been successfully used include: strategy development and execution;
mergers and re-organizations; development and implementation of culture, team and
leadership development.

What  group  size?  

Processes based on the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method are for groups and teams of any size.
Any LSP process requires a trained and certified facilitator or a process leader. The ideal
group size for an in-depth workshop is from 6 to 12 with one facilitator. When LSP is used for
larger groups with fewer facilitators than one per ideal-size group, participants work in
smaller groups ranging from 6 to 8. The minimum length of a beneficial LSP workshop is
approximately 2 to 3 hours, and we do not recommend workshops longer than two, possibly
three, days. The intensity of the thinking, and the following dialogue, simply mean that the
participants are eventually “worn out”.

The  Science  behind  the  LEGO  SERIOUS  PLAY  Method  

“SERIOUS PLAY” is the name that has been given to the process we have been using to bring
the creativity, exuberance, and inspiration of play to the serious concerns of adults in the
business world. Here we explore the key theories and one belief that make up the LEGO
SERIOUS PLAY foundation. We will look at:

1) Play

2) Constructionism

3) Hand-mind connection and flow

4) Imagination

5) Using metaphors

6) Complex adaptive systems (belief)

We will explore the science behind the value of using the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method to
accomplish such tasks as constructing a metaphorical 3-D model of your business in a playful
manner. Doing so will unleash the creative imagination required to develop an innovative
and dynamic business strategy based on a clearer sense of a company's identity.

 Play,  Learning  through  Exploration  and  Storytelling  

Play is our natural way of adapting and developing new skills. It is what prepares us for
emergence, and keeps us open to serendipity, to new opportunities. (Brown Stuart: ”Play”,
Avery, 2009).  

We define three key components of play (in organizations) as an intentional gathering where
participants:
1. Want to utilize their imagination (not fantasy).
2. Agree that they are not directly producing a product or service.
3. Are getting together with these two objectives in mind and agree to follow a special set of
rules.

In addition, adults play with one or more specific goals in mind: social bonding, emotional
expression, cognitive development, and constructive competition.

At first glance, all this emphasis on play may seem incongruous. Most people view play as the
very opposite of work, as something frivolous, as an activity to fill the leisure time when we

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are not attending to our more serious concerns. Indeed, the very term “SERIOUS PLAY” may
seem like an oxymoron. The LEGO® Group has always taken play very seriously.

While play is usually fun, it is seldom, if ever, frivolous. The literature on play is in agreement
on this fact: play always serves a purpose. We define play as a limited, structured, and
voluntary activity that involves the imaginary. That is, it is an activity limited in time and
space; structured by rules, conventions, or agreements among the players; uncoerced by
authority figures; and draws on elements of fantasy and creative imagination.

Yet, adult play is not precisely the same as a child's play. When adults play, they play with
their sense of identity. Their play is often, though not always, competitive. Adult play is often
undertaken with a specific goal in mind, whereas in children the purposes of their play are
less conscious. We have identified four purposes of adult play that are especially relevant to
our discussion of the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method:

Social bonding

Emotional expression

Cognitive development

Constructive competition

Social bonding is a significant benefit of play. It brings a sense of partnership, cohesion,

security, cooperation and cultural expression.

Social bonding is an important purpose because it brings a sense of partnership, cohesion,

security, and role attribution through cooperation and cultural expression. Moreover, social
bonding provides numerous possibilities to develop leadership, cooperation, teamwork,
perseverance, altruism, etc., all of which contribute to the development of a discriminative
self-appraisal and a constructive concept of the self.

The motivational basis for play is described in the literature as primarily emotional (Fein
1984, Vygotsky 1978). The representations used in play are in fact representations of the
player's own affective knowledge. Emotions such as love, anger, or fear motivate and shape
the different forms of play in which a player engages, as well as the symbolic expressions the
player produces. Since play involves the capacity to pretend, and to shift attention and roles,
it provides a natural setting in which a voluntary or unconscious therapeutic or cathartic
experience may take place.

Play can “drive home” abstract concepts and complex issues that may otherwise be difficult
to comprehend. It has been described as the fertilizer for brain growth.

In terms of cognitive development, we will see, in our discussion of constructionism, how

play can contribute to learning and understanding. Through the use of modeling and
metaphor, the objects of play can take on meanings and can embody abstract concepts, thus
concretizing formal relationships that can otherwise be quite difficult to comprehend.

By constructive competition, we mean the sort of competition that allows us to measure our
own skills against those of our opponents, not only for the purpose of "winning" but to
enable us to strive to perform at our best. Huizinga believed that the major form of human
play is contests, and that contests have a civilizing potential, developing social interest
around which the society constructs its values (Huizinga, 1955). These “contests” need not
be amongst the players, but can just as well serve a cohesive group “competing” for a shared
objective. The critical feature is that play for adults can be as much tied to the real
challenges of life as it is for children. Play is uniquely suited to hone our competitive
intelligence.

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Storytelling  and  Metaphor  

Storytelling and the use of metaphor are both key components of serious play.

When children play, ordinary objects are transformed into mommies and daddies, animals,
trucks and cars, and all sorts of characters in the narratives that children create in their play.

It is not only children who engage in such activities. Storytelling has been an integral part of
the whole human experience. Through myths, sagas, fairy tales, and family legends, people
have used stories as a means for expressing ideals and values that are important to them. In
stories, we deal with issues of culture, religion, social and personal identity, group
membership, good and evil, etc. We often use the characters in our stories to express our
hopes, deal with our fears, and resolve our conflicts.

Storytelling – or, more accurately, story-making – is a fully active and concrete endeavor. As
active participants, we step in and out of the process to elaborate, refine, or evaluate the
characters, the setting, or the plot, as we go along. In doing so, we place ourselves in a
unique position to make sense of the social, cultural, and interpersonal material that makes
up the story in an active, dynamic way.

In organizations, stories contribute to the production, reproduction, transformation, and

deconstruction of organizational values and beliefs. Organizational members dramatize
organizational life through stories transforming mundane events into symbolic artifacts that
contribute to the organization’s history. In this respect, members have the power to
“challenge” their organizations with a new story (Boje, 1991). Boje defines the storytelling
organization as follows:

“…a collective storytelling system in which the performance of stories is a key part of
members’ sense making and a means to allow them to supplement individual memories with
institutional memory.”

⎯–- Boje, 1991

In organizational contexts, narratives serve a number of purposes: the socialization of new

members, the legitimization of bonding and organizational identification, cultural control, and
they serve as a lens through which organizational action may be understood and interpreted
(Putnam, 1995).

The most vivid storytelling makes ample use of the linguistic construct known as metaphor;
that is, a form of thinking and language through which we understand or experience one
thing in terms of another. MIT professor Donald Schön has argued that metaphors can
actually generate radically new ways of understanding things (Schön, 1971). He observed
how product development researchers, trying to make an artificial bristle paintbrush, had a
breakthrough when one member of the group observed, “A paintbrush is a kind of pump.”
According to Schön, metaphor is much more than just “flowery language”; it can play an
active, constructive, and creative role in human cognition.

Constructivism  and  Constructionism:  Building  Knowledge  by  Building  

Things  
The method draws on many ideas from the fields of psychology and behavioral science. In
this section we will explore two ideas, constructivism and constructionism.

Constructivism  
We build knowledge structures based on our experience in the world.

Jean Piaget is perhaps best known for his stage theory of child development. But even more
fundamental than his stage theory was his theory that knowledge is not simply “acquired” by

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children bit by bit, but constructed into coherent, robust frameworks called “knowledge
structures.” Children build these structures based on their experience in the world.

Piaget discovered that children are not just passive absorbers of experience and information,
but active theory builders. In one of his more famous experiments, Piaget discovered that
young children believe that water can change in amount when poured from a short, wide
glass into a tall, thin one. These children have built a theory – which, indeed, works most of
the time – that states “taller means more.” This theory was no doubt built out of many
experiences (measuring children’s heights back to back, building block towers, amount of
milk in one glass) into a robust structure. Mere insistence could not convince these children
that the water did not change its amount. In other words, you could not simply tell these
children the “right” answer. They wouldn't believe you if you did. They have to build a new,
more sophisticated knowledge structure that takes into account the theory, again based on
their experience, that “wider” can also mean “more”, before they will consider that the water
does not change its amount.

Piaget’s theory of knowledge, stipulating that knowledge is built or constructed by the child,
is known as constructivism. Children are not seen as empty vessels into which we can pour
knowledge. Rather, they are theory builders who construct and rearrange knowledge based
on their experiences in the world.

Constructionism  
Seymour Papert was a colleague of Piaget’s in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. He was
convinced of Piaget’s theory of constructivism but wanted to extend Piaget’s theory of
knowledge to the fields of learning theory and education. He wanted to create a learning
environment that was more conducive to Piaget’s theories. He saw conventional school
environments as too sterile, too passive, too dominated by instruction. Such environments
did not allow children to be the active builders that he knew they were. Papert eventually
called his theory “constructionism.”

It included everything associated with Piaget’s constructivism, but went beyond it to assert
that constructivist learning happens especially well when people are engaged in constructing
a product, something external to themselves such as a sand castle, a machine, a computer
program, or a book.

Since constructionism incorporates and builds upon Piaget’s theory of constructivism, two
types of construction are actually going on, each reinforcing the other. When people
construct things out in the world, they simultaneously construct theories and knowledge in
their minds. This new knowledge then enables them to build even more sophisticated things
out in the world, which yields still more knowledge, and so on, in a self-reinforcing cycle.

Learning happens especially well when we actively construct something external to us.

Papert first began thinking about constructionism in the late 1960s, after observing a group
of students, over several weeks, become deeply and actively engaged in creating soap
sculptures in an art class. The experience left a deep impression on him. Several things struck
him: the level of engagement of the children; the elements of creativity and originality in the
actual products; the interaction and collaboration among the children; the longevity of the
enterprise, and the sheer sense of fun and enjoyment that permeated the experience.

Being a mathematician by training, Papert could not help wondering why most mathematics
classes were so unlike these art classes. He observed that math classes, by comparison, were
dull, boring, un-engaging, passive, dominated by instruction, and anything but fun. Why was
this so? He knew from his own experience that mathematics was exciting, beautiful,
challenging, engaging, and every bit as creative as making soap sculpture. Why was it being
ruined for so many children?

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Papert’s contemplations on that soap sculpture class led him on a many-year journey to
design a more constructable mathematics. He knew he would have to work with media more
sophisticated and powerful than simple art materials.

In the 1970s, Papert and his colleagues designed a computer programming language called
Logo, which enabled children to use mathematics as a building material for creating pictures,
animations, music, games, simulations (among other things) on the computer.

Then, in the mid-1980s, members of his M.I.T. team developed LEGO TC Logo, which


combined the computer language with the familiar LEGO construction toy. LEGO TC Logo
 

enabled children to control their LEGO structures by creating programs on the computer. The


resulting behaviors of such machines can be arbitrarily complex. It was out of the repeated
experience of seeing children use these sorts of materials – not just in order to learn about
mathematics and design but to actually be mathematicians and designers – that led Papert to
conclude, “Better learning will not come from finding better ways for the teacher to instruct,
but from giving the learner better opportunities to construct.”

The  Value  of  Concrete  Thinking  

Although Papert’s constructionism embraces and builds upon Piaget’s constructivism, over
time, Papert eventually came to see some drawbacks to Piaget's stage theory. In 1990,
Papert wrote:

“...I think now that the ...most outstanding corrections one must make to Piaget’s
epistemology are related to his super valuation of the logical, the formal, and the
propositional forms of thought. His most important contribution is recognizing the importance
of what he calls concrete thinking. His major weakness is his resistance to giving up the value
system that places formal thinking “on top.” This resistance leads him to see concrete
thinking as children's thinking, and so keeps him from appreciating the full breadth of his
discovery of the “concrete” as a universal form of human reason.”

⎯– Papert, 1990

Papert came to view the notion of “concrete thinking” not as a stage that children outgrow,
but rather as a style of thinking that has its benefits and uses, just as logical or formal
thinking has its benefits and uses. In other words, unlike Piaget, he does not see concrete
thinking as the cognitive equivalent of baby talk. He sees concrete thinking – i.e. thinking
with and through concrete objects – as a mode of thinking complementary to more abstract,
formal modes of thought. It is a grave mistake, in Papert’s view, to forsake or cast off
concrete thinking, (as a snake sloughs off its skin,) in favor of purely abstract thought, for to
do so would seal oneself off from valuable modes of thinking and pathways to knowledge not
as accessible by other means.

Thus, constructionism is not just a theory about how to facilitate children’s learning. It applies
to adults as well. Constructionism is a way of making formal, abstract ideas and relationships
more concrete, more visual, more tangible, more manipulative, and therefore more readily
understandable.

When we “think through our fingers” we release creative energies, modes of thought, and
ways of seeing things that may otherwise never be tapped.

The emphasis that constructionism places on concrete thinking is obviously important for the
LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method. At the core of both ideas is the notion that when we “think
with objects” or “think through our fingers” we unleash creative energies, modes of thought,
and ways of seeing that most adults have forgotten they even possessed. But we were all
children once, and we all knew how to play. The LEGO SERIOUS PLAY approach stakes its
reputation on the belief that adults can regain their ability to play, can dust off those modes
of concrete thinking and put them to use again, and when they do, great benefits are in store
for them.

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A business or company is so much more than a building and the people in it. It is a vast
network of interconnections and complicated relationships on many different levels.
Conveying such abstract relationships on paper through graphs, flowcharts, block diagrams,
etc. often fails to capture the dynamic nature of the enterprise. While computer modeling and
simulations are a step up from static models, these too are limited. It is often very difficult to
comprehend the totality of these complex interrelationships. The LEGO SERIOUS PLAY
method is a bold attempt to take the power of constructionism and apply it to the complexity
of the business world, thereby making the abstract network of interrelationships that make
up any business, concrete, appropriable, and comprehensible.

In our experience, when such a “model” of a business is constructed – not of the buildings,
but of the business in a systemic sense – people see things they couldn’t see before. They
can look at a 3-D metaphorical model of their business and its landscape and visualize
strategies that were formerly opaque and closed off to them. They can see their business
enterprise in a more holistic sense. They can manipulate it, play with it, and ask all sorts of
“what if” questions by physically manipulating their business model.

“What if our key supplier goes bankrupt?” “What if we relocated our marketing team to
Asia?” “What if our sales suddenly doubled?” Getting managers and employees to “play” with
their business may seem like a radical departure from the serious concerns of the boardroom.
But that depends on your notion of play. Play is not a leisure pursuit but a serious activity
that can unleash creative energies sorely needed in the business world today.

Flow  
When participants go through workshops using the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method, they will
experience what some call a “roller coaster ride”. Participants will feel varying comfort levels
as they move through the process and the challenges. The processes were designed
deliberately this way so as to greatly increase the chance that real changes and long-term
learning will take place, along with a deep feeling of accomplishment. The “Flow Model”,
modified from work done by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, in 1991, best describes this roller
coaster experience.

∞ Anxiety

High A3  A4

↓ 

Challenge ↓ 

↓ 

↓ 

Low A1  A2 Boredom

0 Low Competence High ∞

Model 1: Flow: The natural balance between challenges and skills (Knoop 1997 after
Csikszentmihalyi, 1991).

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The model illustrates how we arrive at the condition of “flow” – when our competence and
the challenge we face are in balance with each other. The model also shows how a lack of
challenge leads to boredom and how being faced with challenges that are beyond our
capacity to solve creates anxiety. The model further shows how our personalities become
more complex (competent) as a result of experiencing flow (high-point experiences / high
quality of life).

Enjoyment and learning are two sides of the same coin. We can see how adults appear to be
happiest when they are learning most effectively, and we can even go so far as to assert that
“effective learning is experienced as playful” – where “play” is considered broadly as the
preferred mode of human being. Effective learning is what takes place when we are
genuinely engaged in something, when we are doing something we really desire to do.”

⎯– Csikszenmihalyi, 1991

The  Hand-­‐Mind  Connection  

We often distinguish between “blue collar” manual laborers and “white collar” knowledge
workers, and thus may have a tendency to believe there is no meaningful connection
between what one does with one’s hands and what one does with one’s mind. Yet, this
distinction says more about our class structure than it does about the real facts of intelligence
and the mind. There is well-grounded scientific evidence pointing to the profound
interdependence of the hand and mind.

The work of anthropologists and paleontologists like Louis and Mary Leakey, their son Richard
Leakey, Don Johanson, and Sherwoood Washburn shows very clearly the development of the
relationship between the hand and brain.

Starting about 3.2 million years ago, the human ancestor species we call Australopithecus
Afarensis (the “Lucy” skeleton) is the first to show clear bipedalism (walks on 2 legs only),
which meant that the other extremities (the hands) could be used for other things. Already
“pentadactyl,” that is, five-fingered, the hand of “Lucy” also begins to show the first clear
signs of a modern opposable thumb – the crucial development that makes the “precision
motor grip” of the human hand possible. Lucy’s brain size was about 400-500 cc. The
opposable thumb appears in a more clearly modern form with the species we call “Homo
Habilis.” This is dated to about 2.1 million years ago, and has a brain size of 600-700 cc.
Homo Habilis is a watershed in the human experience, because this is the first prehuman
species also associated with what are clearly manufactured “tools,” in this case, chipped
stone implements used for pounding, cutting, cleaving, etc. As Wilson explains, “the whole
list of recently acquired and uniquely human behavioral attributes must have arisen during
the long process of brain enlargement that began with the expansion of novel and inventive
tool use by Homo habilis.” (Wilson 1998).

The intimate link between the hand and the brain in human development appears clearly in
modern human physiology. Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield developed a “map” of the
brain that shows the proportions of it dedicated to controlling different parts of the body.
What immediately strikes one is the enormous size of the part devoted to the hand. This
clearly shows the profound interconnection between the hand and the brain. But what does
this have to do with the higher mental processes of abstraction and reasoning?

Jean Piaget, the father of our modern understanding of intelligence, introduced the idea that
intelligence grows from the interaction of the mind with the world. Thus, the complex,
abstract ideas such as time, causality, space, etc. are all active operations that grow from the
feedback processes between the living mind and the encompassing world. A proselytizer of
Piaget’s work, Hans Furth, argues that the key insight of the great psychologist’s work is that
“knowledge is an operation that constructs it objects.” As we know from the work of human
paleontologists, the connections between the hand and the mind are central to the

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development of the human being. This fact, together with the scientific insights of Penfield
and Piaget, would suggest that using the hand to manipulate and construct the world is not
only a profoundly human thing, but also a primordial way that the brain uses to construct its
own knowledge of the world. Whereas manipulative play is common to all primates, symbolic
play is exclusively human, and many play theorists have regarded it as an essential precursor
of adult conceptual abilities. Piaget claimed that symbolic play stems directly from the earlier
manipulations of the child, and that in fact there was no play, only exploratory manipulations,
before the child acquired the possibility to act symbolically, at around 3 years of age.

Three  Kinds  of  Imagination  

Throughout history, the term "imagination" has taken on many different cultural and linguistic
connotations. While all share the basic idea that humans have a unique ability to "image" or
"imagine" something, the variety of uses of the term "imagination" suggests not one, but at
least three meanings. The strategic imagination is the result of the unpredictable and rich
interaction among the three kinds of imagination, fueled by essential information and
relevant experience. The three kinds of imagination are descriptive, creative and challenging.

Descriptive  Imagination  –  Are  you  caught  in  a  rut?  

Descriptive imagination not only reveals what is happening in the often-confusing world “out
there”, but it enables us to make sense of it and to see new possibilities and opportunities.

Our descriptive imagination is about seeing the world "out there," as it is. It enables us to
identify patterns, find and label the regularities that allow us to cut through and perceive the
mass of data that surrounds us. This need and ability to mirror the world is central in
strategic management practice. For instance, modeling Porter's 5 industry forces, value
chains, and the ubiquitous 2x2 matrices all invoke our descriptive imagination. Also, the use
of metaphors, such as landscapes, to describe the world in different ways helps us to expand
our (descriptive) imaginations. This is the way that humans typically deal with confusing or
complex information. By adding structure to information we are effectively using descriptive
imagination to focus on repeating patterns, and see things in a new way.

Creative  Imagination  –  Can  you  think  outside  the  box?    

Creative imagination allows us to see what isn’t there. It evokes truly new possibilities from
the combination, recombination or transformation of things or concepts.

Creativity takes a central role in the strategy process, and is often associated with
"innovative" strategies. There is, however, a clear division between creative imagination –
where one focuses on possible realities and the making of reality, and fantasy – the domain
of the impossible. The creative imagination, when taken to a negative extreme, risks
indulging in fantasy, the impossible and the improbable. Strategy–makers who lose touch
with their experience risk fantasizing.

Challenging  Imagination  –  Deconstruction  and  Beyond    

Challenging imagination, often using deconstruction and sarcasm, overturns all the rules and
wipes the slate clean.

A third kind of imagination is completely different from the other kinds. The challenging
imagination encourages us to negate, defame, contradict and even destroy the sense of
progress that comes from descriptions and creativity. Some common methods used by the
challenging imagination include deconstruction and sarcasm. It might require throwing away
and starting all over. This fuels the fire in the angry assaults on business strategy by such
"mainstream" writers as Tom Peters, Gary Hamel, as well as the hugely popular Dilbert by
Scott Adams. The challenging imagination enables us to see the disillusioning, the absurd and
the outrageous that is often present in everyday life. The inherent risk of the challenging
imagination is to have nothing new to put on the slate once it has been wiped clean.

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Summary  
We call attention to the value (and danger) of each of the three kinds of imagination because
we have found that most people tend to view imagination as the product of only the creative
imagination and as being only positive. While the challenging imagination, for example, is
commonly viewed as being wholly negative because of its social effects on group interactions,
it can also provide tremendous imaginative power. This suggests that the facilitator has an
important role in creating space for the expression and positive benefits of each of the three
types of imagination, while being sure to discourage the common negative social affects.

What we might call STRATEGIC IMAGINATION is a process that emerges from the complex
interplay among these three kinds of imagination. While this interplay of imaginations is not
directly observable, what we can observe are the manifested social dynamics among the
strategy makers. These social dynamics fall into three categories:

1) The construction of knowledge gathered from knowledge

and experience.

2) The sharing of meaning emerging from that knowledge.

3) The transformation of identity after assimilating the new

knowledge.

Metaphors  
Metaphors are forms of thinking and language in which we understand or experience one
thing in terms of another thing. We use metaphors drawn from the natural and physical
sciences routinely in our business conversations – niche, life cycle, peaks and valleys, for
example. Thus we might assert that, “Our current CEO will guide us through the choppy seas
of competition”. We also make widespread use of the world of sport: “The sales team really
dropped the ball on that client lead”. Or, “We want to be first past the post with this one”.
Unfortunately, most people believe that the use of metaphor is an unusual, an uncommon, or
an artistic way of speaking – that is, a sort of “color” we use to make language more
interesting. In some cases, it is even regarded as a bad form of language and thought, as if
metaphors are used when you can’t say something accurately. In fact, these common views
are not true.

George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics, and Mark Johnson, a professor of philosophy,

provided clear evidence in Metaphors We Live By (1980) that metaphors are actually common
and widespread features of language – and that most verbal interaction is almost impossible
without their use. Donald Schön (1971) argued that metaphors could actually generate
radically new ways of understanding things. He observed how product development
researchers, trying to make an artificial bristle paintbrush that mimicked the properties of
natural bristle, had a breakthrough when one member of the group proposed the metaphor
that “a paintbrush is kind of a pump”. So, instead of being viewed as “flowery ways of
speaking”, Schön proposed that metaphors actually play a practical and constructive role in
human cognition. More recently, Morgan, in Images of Organization, details how a series of
dominant metaphors shapes the way we understand the organizations in which we work.

Metaphors, therefore, are not something that we should instinctively mistrust or avoid. It has
long been argued that how we think about experience, and the way we understand meaning
in the world, are both founded on figurative schemes of thinking that include metaphors.
(See, for example, the early writings of Quintillian, Ramus, or Vico.) Thus, metaphors should
not be viewed as false ways of presenting experience. Instead, they are innately human ways
of giving a deeper meaning to our surface understanding of reality.

Complex  Adaptive  Systems  and  Simple  Guiding  Principles  

Finally, it is worth briefly mentioning that the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY method was developed
based on a systems understanding (belief) where agents and identity co-evolve, and neither
constrains the other completely.

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This indicates non-linear relations and that the system is understood as complex and
adaptive. Such systems are prone to emergence, i.e. a small event can lead to a new state in
the system.

Consequently, focus should not be on predicting, but paying heed. The concept of Simple
Guiding Principles was developed to allow business leaders to respond to new opportunities
and challenges using a cohesive, predetermined and pre-agreed framework.

Inspiration  and  Background  Reading.  

Below is a list of articles and books which can help cast light on the foundation of the
method:

Csikszentmihalyi, M. Flow—The Psychology of Optimal Experience. New York City:

HarperPerennial, 1991.

Hamel, Gary. ”Strategy as Revolution.” Harvard Business Review July-August 1996: 69-80.

Harel, L. and Papert, S. Constructionism. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1991.

Lissack, Michael and Roos, Johan. The Next Commons Sense, Mastering Corporate
Complexity through Coherence. Nicholas Brealing, 1999.

Mintzberg, Henry. ”The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning” Harvard Business Review January
– February 1994: 107-114.

(See also the book of the same name published by Prentice Hall, 1994.)

Oliver, D. and Roos, J. “Constructing Organizational Identity.” Imagination Lab Working Paper
2003- 10, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2003.

Oliver, David and Roos. Striking a Balance: Complexity and Knowledge Landscapes. McGraw-
Hill, 2000.

Roos, Johan and Victor, Bart. ”Towards a New Model of Strategy-Making as Serious Play.”
European Management Journal August 1999: 348-255.

Roos, J., Victor, B., and Statler, M. “Playing Seriously With Strategy.” Imagination Lab
Working Paper 2003-2a, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2003.

Said, R., Roos, J., and Statler, M. “Lego Speaks” Imagination Lab Working Paper 2002-7,
Lausanne, Switzerland, 2002.

Weick, Karl E. and Roberts, K.H. “Collective Mind in Organizations: Heedfull Interrelating on
Flight Decks.” Administrative Sciences Quaterly September 1993: 357-381.

Recent publications that have chapter on or focus entirely on LEGO SERIOUS PLAY include:

Gauntlett, David . Creative Expressions, New approaches to identities and audiences,

Routledge, 2007.

Møller, Louise. Personal- and Shared Experiental Concepts. Ph.D dissertation. Aalborg
University, 2009.

In following Manuals, you will occasionally find references to other books. These are often for
inspiration, and not books which formed the development of the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY
method. The copy of the original LEGO SERIOUS PLAY booklet at the end of this section
expands on the above outline, focusing on the learning and development perspective.

You will find more suggested readings in the Appendix Section (of the entire set of Manuals).

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