Case study illustrating the use of the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method courtesy of Robert Rasmussen:
“The founders of a large architectural firm based in the United States had passed the reins of leadership over to two senior architects who had been groomed to lead the firm. The new leaders could see that shifting market demand and increased competition required a radical change in the firm culture. In the past, the founders (now retired) had been responsible for getting new clients, leading project design and managing the firm. The new leaders envisioned a culture of market-focused shared leadership.
The new leaders worked with LEGO SERIOUS PLAY facilitators to design a workshop that would surface the “skeletons in the closet” (separate today’s firm from the cultural “rules” established by the founders), help develop nine emerging leaders, and begin to design and implement a market-focused culture of shared leadership.
The workshop helped all participants see each other in a new light. The two workshop sponsors were able to assess the interests and drives of their nine emerging leaders. The emerging leaders were able to form new bonds and also play an integral part in shaping the future direction of the firm. The collective aspirations voiced during this workshop became the foundation for firm planning goals. During the workshop sub-committees were formed for each of four areas of focus – design, technology, marketing and finance. These four committees became internal designers and advocates for change. All workshop participants became stakeholders in the changes they designed together.”
Case study illustrating the use of the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method courtesy of Robert Rasmussen:
“A team leader, employed by a global communications company headquartered in the United States, faced communication challenges among members of her own geographically dispersed team. The team was responsible for coordinating logistics, nationally. To be effective, team members needed to develop a deep understanding of each other’s critical success factors, understand how individual roles and responsibilities impact team objectives, and function as an integrated team. Reliance on virtual communication further complicated team interaction.
The team leader decided to bring the team together in a central location, and worked with a LEGO SERIOUS PLAY facilitator to design a workshop to improve team communication and productivity. The workshop building challenges clarified each team member’s responsibilities, functions, constraints and the interdependencies of all the members. Individual special strength models and team identity models were also constructed. Using the visual landscape they created, the team replayed a number of team breakdown situations. Using their new team knowledge, they played out alternative responses.
The workshop had a dramatic impact on the team morale and productivity. In the words of the team leader, “We continued talking about the business scenarios after the workshop. My team wants to discuss a different scenario at each staff meeting, and they want to get together once a quarter, face-to-face. The staff meeting will be much more about how we can help each other. Dinner that night was so different from the previous night. We had become a team overnight.””
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Case study illustrating the use of the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method courtesy of Robert Rasmussen:
“Banking / New Initiative Launch
A US bank planned to strengthen their core business by launching a new retail business development strategy.
Historically, the managers responsible for the new launch had resisted business strategies handed down from the top. The initiative would require the regional branch managers to assume new responsibilities and to work together as a team. Geographically dispersed, they had little reason to interact on a regular basis. Instead of functioning like a team, they operated like a group of individuals who occasionally work together.
Working in close partnership with the program sponsor, a LEGO SERIOUS PLAY team building workshop was designed to help the branch managers develop a deeper understanding of each other and how, together, they could advance the new retail business development strategy. In the words of the retail operations leader, “The entire team now has a better understanding of the team’s goal and each person’s value to the journey of reaching the goal. Everybody was completely exhausted at the end of the day – exhausted after a good day of teamwork!”
Lasting results followed. The branch mangers came together as a team, discovered each other’s strengths and how to work together. The retail strategy has been in place for over five years. The LEGO SERIOUS PLAY process was so successful that it is now integrated in the bank’s business planning process.”
Case study illustraing the use of the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method courtesy of Robert Rasmussen:
“In response to the Colombia shuttle disaster, NASA put together a team of their best engineers to create the NASA Engineering Safety Center—a cross-organizational group with the responsibility of ensuring safety in NASA programs. The team kick-off was a five-day event, after which the head of the new group would be reporting out to Congress on the mission of this group. The request from NASA was firm: “We need a team-building session, no more than 6 hours in length that enables these forty hand-picked scientists from all parts of NASA to align around the mission of this new team. Oh, and by the way, there will be more than one skeptic in the room, given that most of these people are career NASA employees that have experienced numerous team-building sessions in the past. They believe they have seen it all and done it all, so why should this be any different? Can you help?”
We said yes to the request from NASA and decided to use LEGO SERIOUS PLAY. The process worked very well, even with engineers used to working in their heads and on whiteboards. To the surprise of many, the team found that building with their hands improved their thinking—the depth of insight, the clarity of ideas, and the speed with which it all took place. And in the end, the group rallied around their new mission, saw the larger picture develop from multiple perspectives, and increased their commitment to the work because they had a hand in defining it.”