Вы находитесь на странице: 1из 8

PRODUCTION

When You Build in the


World, You Build in
Your Mind
by Robert Rasmussen

W ith their multiple perspectives and


insights, teams bring added value to
resolving all manner of business challenges.
But only if the dynamic among team members is collaborative, motivated, and
informed. Robert Rasmussen reviews how Lego Serious Play facilitates this positive
interaction and allows managers to tailor “real-time strategies” for moving through
various kinds of decision-making situations.

“I am willing to give this merger a lenge we had set ourselves two years
chance, but I want to let you know that I earlier: Can we design a thinking, com-
brought my weapons just in case.” This munication, and problem-solving tech-
was the opening statement from one of nique for teams?
the managers in the service department But first….
of an entertainment company for
which we were conducting a two-day Why work in teams at all?
Robert Rasmussen, Director, merger workshop. This company had Why do we gather designers in groups
Business Development, Tufts
Center for Engineering
decided to merge two of its depart- to deal with opportunities and chal-
Outreach, Principal, Robert ments—but the climate between the lenges? We do it because we believe that
Rasmussen & Associates two was hostile and untrusting. One working together in teams brings more
department felt its contribution wasn’t value to the business than working as
being valued, and the other tended to individuals. Teamwork offers the possi-
behave more like an acquiring compa- bility that the insight and knowledge of
ny than an equal partner. each team member eventually becomes
This was in 2001, during one of our the insight and knowledge of the whole
real-life tests of LEGO Serious Play,1
then in its final stages of development. 1. LEGO® and Serious Play™ are trademarks of
Serious Play was the result of a chal- the LEGO Company.

56 Design Management Review Summer 2006


When You Build in the World, You Build in Your Mind

team, and that this makes the team more confi- results of his strategy sessions with LEGO staff.
dent in achieving its goals. However, increased Although his business was about imagination,
insight and greater confidence don’t bring value the results from these sessions were decidedly
to the organization unless everyone on the team unimaginative. At the same time, Johann Roos
also commits to act as part of a shared effort. and Bart Victor, professors at the International
The goal of LEGO Serious Play, or LSP, is to Institute for Management Development (IMD)
encourage each individual’s desire to make that in Lausanne, were noting similarly poor results in
commitment. Our job is done when: companies using traditional strategy develop-
• New insights have been uncovered and the ment techniques. (The LEGO Company had for
experience, knowledge, and understanding several years used IMD for executive and leader-
of each member have been accessed. ship development purposes.) When Kristiansen,
• Team members feel more confident and Roos, and Victor connected, they noted their
motivated to act on the knowledge that has similar dilemmas, as well as the values they
been shared. shared—which saw people as the key to company
• Team members feel more committed to success, and strategy as something you live rather
shared action. than something stored away in a document.
• The team is better prepared to respond opti- In 1999, I was director of research and devel-
mally to the unknown. opment for the educational division of the
The central theme that emerged from our tests LEGO Company. I was asked to head a project
of the LSP idea was the importance of helping to investigate the feasibility of applying LEGO
groups to see the entire system they are a part of bricks to the process of strategy development.
in order to be better prepared for the future. By When we realized that this idea could be more
using this approach to build a complete picture than just a hypothesis, our work moved into the
of their current business system, including team development phase. Over the course of several
roles, relationships, and culture, and by testing years and after more than 20 iterations, our team
the system with future-specific scenarios, team made LEGO Serious Play the reproducible and
members can gain insight, confidence, and com- robust methodology it is today.
mitment in dealing with complex business chal-
lenges (Figure 1). Teams in action
And as for the merger workshop, those two The following example captures many of the
teams managed to successfully disarm them- organizational experiences that drove our work
selves and remove all weapons from the table. with the development of LSP.2
Let us consider a project team consisting of
The concept
Kjeld Kristiansen, owner and CEO of the LEGO 2. Thanks to J. T. Bergqvist, a senior executive in the
Company, found himself dissatisfied with the Nokia Corporation, for help with this story.

Figure 1. “It made it easier to describe complex relationships in a complex process.”…“LSP gave us a tool to have fierce conversations, interrogate
reality, provoke learning, tackle tough issues, and enrich relationships.”... “It equalized diversity and differences that were inherent in the group.”

Design Management Review Summer 2006 57


Managing, Inspiring, and Enabling Design Staff

four persons. They gather in a meeting room. these young and hungry lions. They believe they
Here they interact, meaning that their individual command the world. He himself is not quite as
effects multiply. We can illustrate the overall eager as he once was to board the next plane to
impact of the interaction by multiplication: 1 x 1 Hong Kong. He sighs, thinking: You would expect
x 1 x 1 = 1. there to be some respect for experience in our com-
In real life, however, things do not work that pany, and enters the room as a 0.8.
way, given the perceptions and beliefs that peo- Each of the team members enters the room
ple have about one another. as less than a 1, and their interaction results in
Imagine a situation in which the first person an outcome that can be summed up as follows:
to enter the meeting is a 50-year-old Finnish 0.7 x 0.9 x 0.6 x 0.8 = 0.30—a far cry from the 1
engineer, Jaska. Jaska is technically at the top of x 1 x 1 x 1 =1 they could have achieved.
his game, but he’s somewhat of an introvert and
not comfortable with spoken English. As he Imagine if it could have gone like this:
comes in, he is thinking about 32-year-old Mark,
How lucky it is that Mark could make it to the
an Australian engineer. Like many Aussies Jaska
meeting, thinks Jaska. Mark is so quick on his
has known, Mark is incredibly self-assured and
feet, and so articulate. And because Mark
articulate—a man-of-the-world who believes he
knows Jaska isn’t all that comfortable with
knows everything. Actually Jaska finds him arro-
the English language and with situations in
gant; he never listens, particularly to someone
which you have to impress a lot of other peo-
like Jaska, who is a pretty awkward with spoken
ple, he tends to cover for Jaska, who is now
English. These thoughts make Jaska’s entrance
able to enter the room as a 1.3.
rather subdued. He comes into the room having
lost some of his excitement and energy, with the
For his part, Mark is thinking he’s lucky to
result that 30 percent of his “edge” vanishes. He
have Jaska’s technical expertise on his team.
enters the room as a 0.7 rather than the 1 he
He’s shy and even a bit innocent, Jaska is, but
should have been.
he has tremendous integrity. And it feels great
Mark approaches the room through another
to be able to help him out in the language
corridor, already demoralized by his expecta-
department, Mark thinks. When I was working
tions of this meeting. Finnish guys are such a
in Australia, it never occurred to me that I was
depressive lot. They might be pretty good techni-
particularly articulate, but it sure helps here.
cally, but you would expect them to be able to say
Mark’s thoughts give him a boost of some 20
something without having three beers first. I’m
percent, and he enters the room as a 1.2.
tired of sitting in saunas all the time just to have a
discussion. Let me try to be a little provocative
Imagine if Paula and John also enter the
today. Even so, by the time he walks into the
room uplifted by the projection they have of
room, Mark has shrunk to a 0.9.
one another—adding another, let’s say, 30
The next team member to enter is Paula.
and 40 percent. The team’s interaction multi-
She’s a financial controller, who feels she always
plies the effects: 1.3 x 1.2 x 1.3 x 1.4 = 2.83.
must act like a “tough broad” and finds that irri-
tating. Of course, she can play that part, but she
does it at the cost of some of her sensibilities. In The key to optimizing teamwork
truth, she is a 38-year-old loving mother of two We have found that LSP builds a 2.83+ capacity
fabulous children, but she can never talk about into teams—and that teams can use this capacity
them with these guys, who seem to be so tough to improve the quality and speed of their ongo-
and task-oriented all the time. She, too, enters ing decision making, which again leads to faster
the room at less than a 1—let’s say an 0.6. and better implementation of solutions.
The last to show up is John, a 54-year-old All too often, executive, design, and manage-
senior vice president of marketing. He’s a bit ment teams work sub-optimally, resulting in the
weary already at the prospect of meeting with following:

58 Design Management Review Summer 2006


When You Build in the World, You Build in Your Mind

• Valuable knowledge remains untapped in able business. And the more people know about
team members. the system they are a part of and how they fit in,
• The team makes poor decisions based on the more impact they can have in terms of input
illusion rather than reality. to discussions and decisions (Figure 3).
• The team reacts to events unconsciously
rather than consciously and with intention.

Using the LSP technique, individuals build


three-dimensional models using a special mix of
LEGO bricks designed to inspire the use of
metaphors and story-making. They build in
response to questions on relevant challenges—
everything from “What’s your vision for this
project?” to “What’s your worst nightmare for
this design outsourcing initiative?” to “How can
we benefit from this technology?” Once the
model is built, members share its meaning and
story with the rest of the team (Figure 2). The
use of metaphors, imagination, and story-telling Figure 2. This team felt they had a unique new technology product
is integral to the process. The culmination of the (symbolized by the panda), but it wasn’t selling. The LSP workshop
whole exercise is a scenario-testing phase, which helped them to realize what the problem was. The team was very proud
(the pink house) of their invention, but they were also afraid of copy-
leads to action plans and guiding principles for cats, so they had become too protective (the panda in a cage, fences all
the team’s decision-making on the fly. around, the team acting as guards in a last defense). The team could
People naturally want to contribute—to be see the customers (in the glass hut) and the customers could see the
team, but the two couldn’t communicate with each other. Once the
part of something bigger than themselves and to team understood the problem, they could start playing what-if games
take ownership. And leaders don’t have all the (scenario testing). What if we removed the guards? Who would be get-
answers. Their success depends on hearing and ting closer to our panda? What would happen to our panda? What
engaging all the voices in the room. Design could our guard people be doing instead? Would the fences be enough?
By playing out the consequences, the team was able to decide the best
processes that allow each individual to con- way in which to get the panda out of its isolation and into the hands of
tribute and speak out result in a more sustain- the customers.

Figure 3. These team members had a hard time understanding the actions of their colleagues. Building a team system enabled them to see what was
going on: “We all have responsibilities” (symbolized by the hats); “we each work with different tools” (symbolized by the tools); “there are external
factors that affect us…” (the gear wheels)“…and force us to turn” (the meshing gears); “and although ‘blue helmet’ reports to ‘red cap,’ she is
affected” (turns) “when the middle man” (top hat) “moves.” From here, it was easy for the team to decide who should interact (mesh) directly and
which in-between wheels could be moved or removed entirely.

Design Management Review Summer 2006 59


Managing, Inspiring, and Enabling Design Staff

The Science of Optimized Design Teamwork LEGO Serious Play uses an etiquette that
with LEGO Serious Play ensures all participants have a chance to express
Research shows that people are changed signifi- their own viewpoint before being influenced by
cantly and irreversibly when movement, the rest of the group (Figure 5). In a meeting,
thought, and feeling fuse during the active pur- when a question for group investigation is
suit of personal goals.3 Learning is deeper and posed, some members of the group typically
the experience becomes memorable, almost think and speak more quickly than others. This
hard-wired. The limbic brain gets engaged. LSP immediately determines how the conversation
users make use of multiple intelligences—visual- proceeds. Often, the rest of the group do not
spatial intelligence, linguistic intelligence, and finish their own thinking or express their
bodily kinesthetic intelligence—and discover thoughts. Having everyone in the group “build”
what they didn’t know they knew in a very direct an answer to an initial question avoids that
manner. Quite simply, users bring the uncon- short-circuit, while simultaneously providing an
scious to the conscious by building, giving it enriched way for individuals to express their
meaning, and telling others the story of what thoughts. Use of physical constructs enhances
they’ve built (Figure 4). the depth and clarity of individual contribution
LSP was greatly influenced by work done by to the conversation. Our experience with LSP
Seymour Papert, a founding faculty member of has shown that the best insights in a team come
MIT’s Media Lab. Papert gave us the theory of from the individuals who don’t normally share
constructionism, which proposes that we gain what they are thinking.
knowledge when we construct something exter-
3. Wilson, Frank R. The Hand: How its use shapes the
nal to ourselves. Papert was also interested in brain, language, and human culture. New York, NY:
concrete thinking—thinking with and through Pantheon Books, 1998.
tangible objects. Research has shown that the use
of objects as part of an inquiry process can make
hidden thought more discussable. Building
external models that can be examined, shared,
and discussed makes it easier to construct inter-
nal mental maps. When you build in the world,
you build in your mind.

Figure 4. In a team improvement workshop, one member built this Figure 5. This is a metaphor used by a designer to express that the
model as her answer to “What is my best on this team?” Her story: “It company’s decision-making was inefficient and dominated by outdated
depends on which of my multiple heads is most appropriate for the situ- thinking and turf wars. LSP focuses attention on the model, not on the
ation.” When the facilitator asked her why she had placed all the heads creator of the model. Hence the environment remains safe, even in the
on top of her real head, she reflected for a minute and then said, “I face of emotionally charged issues. LSP allows “dark spots” in the con-
guess that must mean I believe I am at my best when I can use all my versation to be more openly discussed by separating the speaker from
heads all the time.” what he is saying. He is, after all, just describing a model.

60 Design Management Review Summer 2006


When You Build in the World, You Build in Your Mind

Real-time strategies sion-making and helps the team stay on track


My colleagues at LEGO originally posed this when deciding on a choice of action. They are
question: How can we be better prepared as a not instructions that tell the team and its mem-
design team to respond intentionally and opti- bers what to do or how to do it. Instead, they
mally in the moment, all the time? Here’s what specify where to look, and in what spirit and
we learned: Develop and use real-time strategies direction solutions must be chosen in order to
to support your ongoing decision-making achieve the goals.
process.
Most design teams, as well as other executive How to develop a real-time strategy
teams, live in an unpredictable environment, A design team can have multiple real-time strate-
where changes happen faster than the speed of gies, each one guiding decision-making pertain-
planning. It is difficult to plan ahead and make ing to a specific field. Examples might be blend-
predictions about the future. Yet to run a suc- ing in-house and consultant staffing; dealing
cessful business, you need to heed the landscape with the expanding breadth of expertise needed;
continuously and be prepared for the unknown communications with customers and within the
so you can decide to change directions in the design group; or how to keep staff motivated,
blink of an eye (Figure 6). creative, and up to speed on design trends.
A real-time strategy is expressed as a dynam- Getting to the simple guiding principles for
ic and continuously changing set of simple, your real-time strategy happens through a one-
guiding principles that improve the speed and to two-day tailored LSP workshop. It is a four-
quality of the team’s day-to-day critical deci- step process for the team, in this order:

A
START GOAL

B
START GOAL
A

C
START GOAL

Figure 6. (A) Real-time strategies are for teams that need to continuously strategize. The real-time strategy informs the team when it is time to change
course and in which new direction the team should aim. (B) What we like to believe is possible—and which can indeed be the case when the land-
scape is highly predictable. (C) What the reality often looks like—a situation that easily leads to frustration and conflict.

Design Management Review Summer 2006 61


Managing, Inspiring, and Enabling Design Staff

1. What is going on right now? This step team member makes wise decisions, even
involves building and defining the current when situations are complex and new. They
identity and nature of the issue and the land- are the team member’s beacons of light in
scape of the business system it is part of. It is stormy seas, a tool that allows for the group
a bit like a complete, real-time SWOT to act optimally and with intention in the
(strength, weaknesses, opportunities, threat) face of the unexpected.
analysis in 3D.
For example, here is what the management team
2. Imaging the future. This is what-if brain-
in a company facing severe competition and a
storming, imagining what could happen in
sharp decline in sales extracted as their “beacons
the future that might have a direct or indirect
of light” for improving their competitiveness in
impact on the issue—something that, if it
an uncertain future:
happened, would give us opportunities to act
• Tip the sacred cows.
or force us to act.
• Take risks with good intent.
• Improve technical skills.
3. Scenario testing. We imagine that the
• Mobilize 10 brains instead of only one.
future what-ifs happen today and use the 3D
• Build trust, build trust, build trust!
LEGO landscape to play out the impact. We
• Make sure we can implement.
test which decisions and actions we would
take and why we would choose those deci-
On their own, these simple guiding principles as
sions and actions.
a real-time strategy can seem like basic plati-
tudes. How do they specify “where to look, and
4. Extracting simple guiding principles. By
in what spirit and direction solutions must be
playing out and scenario-testing which deci-
chosen?” The deeper meaning in each state-
sions affected the systems favorably and
ment is only understood by the team members,
studying why that was the case, the team can
who extracted them through the four-step
extract the principles they want to guide their
process explained above. The statements below
future decision-making. These become the
capture the lessons they learned from their sce-
guidelines that can ensure that each design
nario testing.

Figure 7. Build trust, build trust, build trust.

62 Design Management Review Summer 2006


When You Build in the World, You Build in Your Mind

Tip the sacred cows: Embodies the strategic A real-time strategy’s simple guiding principles
discovery that new solutions radically differ- are a dynamic strategic tool. They need to be
ent from those the team currently favor continuously checked for usefulness. Six months
played out much better than expected. on, the team ran such a check and replaced
Moving forward, the team therefore wanted three of their original principles with others they
to make sure they constantly challenged cur- found more helpful in dealing with new situa-
rent practice and looked for radical new ways tions.
of operating.
Summary
Take risks with good intent: The scenario Results from dozens of organizations over the
testing showed that a strategy aiming for rad- past five years have lived up to our aspirations
ical changes to current practice meant taking for LEGO Serious Play and the real-time strategy
risks. This simple guiding principle should idea. This approach is particularly adept at level-
remind the team that it is okay to take risks, ing the playing field so that the power of a
as long as you continuously heed and assess team’s diverse resources and competencies can
those risks. be realized. The depth of knowledge and wis-
dom in groups is typically left untapped. Groups
Improve technical skills and mobilize ten have access to plenty of information, yet it is
brains instead of only one: This part of the knowledge that businesses lack—information
real-time strategy captures the insight that applied to a specific context. And even more
coming up with radical new ways of doing than knowledge, organizations yearn for the wis-
things requires prioritizing the use of dom that builds confidence and commitment to
resources, including time. Priority should be shared action.
given to improving technical skills to avoid It is my experience that the most motivated
wasting valuable time by working in isolation. and effective teams are those that embrace the
ever-changing nature of their roles and responsi-
Build trust, build trust, build trust: Playing bilities. They operate in a highly dynamic and
in the workshop, the impact of the best sce- constantly changing business landscape, where it
nario decisions revealed the high importance is almost impossible to predict the future
of the human factor. Trust emerged as the with any degree of certainty. One can prepare
glue that could keep the business system from for the unexpected by constructing new knowl-
collapsing under the heavy load of changes edge, by sharing meaning with others, and by
(Figure 7). Whether a decision increases or maintaining an open, poised, and curious atti-
decreases the level of trust should therefore tude toward change. LEGO Serious Play is a
be top of mind again, again, and again. process tool that prepares teams emotionally to
embrace change. 
Make sure we can implement: The manage- Reprint #06173RAS56
ment team discovered during the workshop
that coming up with new radical operating
ideas was easy. Playing out various imple-
mentation approaches exposed the weak
ideas. Consequently, the team realized that
checking the implementation strategy early
on would be a good way to weed out the less
promising ideas.

Design Management Review Summer 2006 63

Вам также может понравиться