LEGO® Serious Play® Workshop

I was a little skeptical when I saw that I would be doing a three hour LEGO® Serious Play® workshop, because I had no prior knowledge to this methodology. However, Janja Song carried out a really effective workshop in my opinion.

It was essential for us to understand that this methodology involved three different levels of building: Individual models / Shared models / System models. Once we understood what the purpose for each one was, we quickly got into building.

This workshop was definitely more challenging than I thought it would be, yet it was also really nice to just let yourself build whatever came to mind without being able to rethink your decisions. Everybody has different visions and interpretations, so something like the LEGO® Serious Play® workshop pushes each individual to explore their visions and learn how to present them to others. Here are some examples of the skill builds we covered within the session:

1. Build a model of a duck with exactly 7 blocks in 2 minutes, then remove 3 blocks: I'm still not very convinced my model looks like a duck, if I'm being pretty honest I forgot what a duck looked like in that moment.

2. Build a shared model of a tower: My team happily won this challenge by having the highest tower 😊

3. Build a model that represents how the 'Creative Thinking' unit has changed/developed your creative thinking: I enjoyed creating this model because I got to share a more personal side with my team, showcasing how the unit has stressed the importance in overcoming hurdles during the creative process and the value in believing in and holding onto your own ideas.

4. Using elements from individual models, create a shared model and story that explains how to enhance creativity in an organization: This model was not necessarily the most visually appealing but it held a lot of meaning behind it. As a group we all came together and noticed that we had similar ideas of what needs to go on within an organization to enhance creativity. We focused on things like setting aside capital for employees (both financial and in terms of time), allowing collaboration between all individuals and helping each individual achieve a growth mindset.

Following the session we were asked to reflect on the following questions:

What are you learning about yourself ? The workshop did not give me time to second guess my creations and just made me produce something in a limited time and believe in my build when explaining it to others. Through the workshop and unit combined I have learnt more about my view on creativity and my ability to produce something creative. What are you learning about others? Everybody sees things differently and there's a beauty in each creation and interpretation of something. The individual model showcasing our creative thinking brought to my attention the fact that we all have different areas of ourselves we want to focus on and improve, we all have our strengths and weaknesses and we all have some really good ideas. One specific thing you've learnt that you can apply moving forward? Moving forward I need to believe in what I produce and give myself the opportunity to showcase my ideas to others too. There's value in allowing everyone to express themselves and their ideas, because this could lead to new perspectives and understandings.