Teamwork with Lego Serious Play. Time to Play!

Time to Play!

A teamwork activity done with Lego bricks? It might sound surprising, but that's exactly what it is. Its official name is LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY™, and it's gaining more and more fans worldwide. Today we'll discover the goals of this original Team Building methodology that Lego offers, and how it can help build a company's future.

Basically, we can say it's a teamwork method aimed at solving problems within the group and improving communication between its members. To do this, three-dimensional figures are used, since, as experts confirm, problem-solving becomes much simpler with a visual, spatial approach than if we rely only on concepts and words. Through play, combining visual images with objects, we get more creative results, different ideas, more original and innovative ones. At the same time, it reinforces and fosters participation, collaboration and commitment from team members to effectively achieve and implement the shared goal.

So far, the theory sounds interesting. But how is all this actually put into practice? Let's move on to the practical part. A facilitator or workshop guide will be in charge of asking the team questions — a team made up of employees from different areas and departments of the company. The idea is to help them understand "why and how other colleagues might think differently from me", in order to build empathy and convey the message that each person's vision, knowledge and experience adds up, matters, and enriches the final result. In other words, the method's success is based on believing in the potential of the people who make up the team, the company.

Then, using Lego bricks, each participant will need to build their own three-dimensional model, which they'll later need to share with the group, and these models become the basis for teamwork, group discussion, knowledge exchange, problem-solving and decision-making. Ultimately, what's sought is a much faster, more effective way to reach mutual understanding.

Advantages of Teamwork with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY™

• Improves the team's work and effectiveness, increasing trust and connection between its members.
• Fosters creativity, new ideas, innovation.
• Helps better understand problems and solve them in a participative, collaborative and constructive environment.
• Makes it easier to set shared strategic goals and secure the team's involvement and commitment to achieving them.

LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY™ is undoubtedly a unique Team Building proposal capable of creating a new concept of teamwork, building a better work environment, and turning classic, tedious work meetings into a genuine event of productivity and creativity that contributes to more effective decision-making for the company. Because when we approach a problem as a challenge, it takes on a different tone. And if we add the appeal of play to that, the proposal couldn't be more tempting, right?

At Kaizen Team Building we know how important it is to include this type of challenge, which sparks team members' creativity while opening up new areas to work on that we may not have paid proper attention to until now. One of our fun challenges framed as a game is the Butterfly Effect Team Building activity, where teams compete to be the most efficient and creative, all based on the theory of chain reactions or the domino effect, where starting from one element, a chain reaction unfolds leading us to the goal.

Another clear example that teamwork, properly understood, works and undoubtedly benefits the company as a whole and the individual employee personally.

As a popular African proverb goes: "If you want to go fast, walk alone. If you want to go far, walk together". This is certainly a great example ;)