5 tips to leverage LEGO® Serious Play® in coaching
If you’re an executive coach, a leadership coach, a leadership development professional or even a team coach, it’s time you considered adding LEGO® Serious Play® to your coaching toolkit!
In this extensive guide, we cover what’s LEGO® Serious Play®, why use it in your coaching session, and offer you 5 tips to help you get started on your LSP journey.
Keen to learn more? Check out our LSP x Coaching training here.
The Science Behind LEGO® Serious Play®
LEGO® Serious Play® is based on theories of constructivism, storytelling, and metaphors. It’s a proven methodology in use by some of the biggest brands out there since the mid 90s.
It taps into the brain's ability to create and understand complex systems, making abstract concepts tangible. The methodology ensures active participation, giving everyone a voice and fostering a collaborative environment that encourages authentic transformation.
It creates a kinaesthetic and immersive experience where all senses are engaged.
For executives and leaders, it encourages brave conversations on complex problems.
For teams, it fosters a sense of safety through play that enables even the shyest of team mates to express their opinions.
And it does all this fast.
While avoiding “blank page syndrome” - aka that blocker that some clients have when it comes to touching complex topics they’ve not fully processed yet.
Transformational Benefits of LEGO® Serious Play® in Coaching
1.Enhanced Communication
LEGO® Serious Play® helps articulate thoughts and ideas that might be difficult to express verbally. This is especially valuable in leadership coaching, where complex emotions and abstract concepts need to be conveyed. And don’t forget, execs and leaders are time poor - and LSP can help fast track a conversation that would have typically taken much longer to crack!
Example: Say you’re running a leadership development session, and a manager uses LEGO® bricks to build a model of their vision for the team.
The physical representation can spark a deeper conversation about goals and strategies, leading to a clearer and more cohesive action plan. And the very tangible artefact would act as a constant reminder to stay on track and be accountable to the action plan you would have helped your client come up with.
2.Fostering Creative Problem Solving
LEGO® Serious Play® encourages out-of-the-box thinking. By playing, experimenting and repositioning the bricks, participants can break free from conventional thought patterns and explore new perspectives.
Something doesn’t quite make sense? They can break the model and reshape it into something that feels right. The risks are low and the options are endless when it comes to creatively thinking through solutions.
Example: During team coaching sessions, participants often get to build models of their biggest challenges. In one of our sessions, a participant created a maze, symbolising a complex problem leaving them stumped for a solution, and a bit lost when it came to their own personal direction.
Discussing the model led the team to identify creative solutions to navigate the "maze," which they hadn't considered before.
3.Building Team Cohesion
The interactive nature of LEGO® Serious Play® strengthens team cohesion. Sharing models and stories helps team members understand each other's perspectives and strengths better.
Even in the toughest rooms, being able to playfully and more lightly explore complex or touchy topics can create the psychological safety teams crave in order to be able to work better together.
Example: At a corporate retreat, you can get team members to build models representing their contributions to the team. This exercise can reveal hidden talents and foster a new appreciation for each other's skills, leading to improved collaboration and morale.
And don’t be surprised if someone builds a model showing how little they feel they’re contributing to the team - this is often a reflection of how fragmented the team is or how isolated some team members might be feeling. If that happens, use it as an opportunity to explore ways to bring that team member closer to the rest of the group.
4.Encouraging Reflection and Insight
LEGO® Serious Play® provides a reflective space where participants can explore their thoughts and feelings safely and in a structured way. This reflection is crucial for personal and professional growth in coaching - some clients tend to use their models as an ongoing guide to keep them focussed or accountable to commitments and goals they’ve made.
So don’t be surprised if a client ends up keeping a model on their desk for months at a time to continuously reflect and stay on track!
Example: I recently asked a client to build a model of their ideal leadership style. The client, an MD, was blocked when it came to expressing who they were as a leader as they were still recovering from a bad burnout.
By incrementally encouraging them to build a model that represented unique traits, facets and strengths of their leadership style, they ended up uncovering underlying beliefs and values they hadn’t come to terms with previously, and the process ended up providing them with a solid foundation for defining who they were as a leader.
Tips for Integrating LEGO® Serious Play® into Coaching
1.Start with a clear outcome in mind
Tip: Define the session's purpose clearly, whether it's a team coaching session, a 1:1 coaching session or a leadership development session. A clear objective guides the process and ensures meaningful outcomes. And as it’s a coaching session, you might want to keep your objective fairly broad to allow your client(s) time to explore, visualise and reflect.
Example: Before a session, outline specific goals like improving team communication. This clarity will help you design an effective session, as well as measure the success of the session you deliver against your stated outcome.
2.Ladder up your exercises towards the defined outcome
Tip: As a coach, facilitate the process without dictating it. Make sure you’re structuring the conversation or the exercises you prepare to ladder up towards the key outcome you’ve set. The key here is to incrementally get clients moving towards the stated goal, in a way that feels supportive, structured and comfortably paced.
Example: let’s take the same example as the one above, the outcome you’re trying to achieve is improving team communication. You might want to start by exploring current communications do’s and don’t’s, then move on what the team needs from each other to be able to feel heard effectively, before landing on concrete habits, rituals and processes to improve team communication.
3.Invite exploration and curiosity
Tip: Ask open-ended questions to prompt deeper thinking and reflection. Questions like "What does this model represent to you?" or “How do you feel looking at your model” encourage clients to reflect critically about their builds. Encourage them to explore, add, remove or move parts until they feel satisfied with their models.
Example: we ran a team coaching session where the goal was to explore what great leadership looks like for the team. Towards the end of the group build, we asked the team how they felt about the model - one person mentioned they were missing a crucial element: the ability to self reflect. The team had a deep conversation about the importance of self reflection and self awareness, and collectively agreed to bring that into the shared model.
4.Encourage storytelling at regular points
Tip: Encourage participants to tell stories about their models. Storytelling adds depth and helps participants connect on an emotional level. As LSP is all about metaphors, you want to encourage your clients to think more deeply about what they’re building - invite them to observe shapes, colours and positions to tell a more complete and holistic story.
Example: in a previous LSP x Coaching training course, one participant build multiple symmetrical models. Someone in the group was curious about that, and asked the participant about it. This encouraged the participant to notice a pattern of thinking they weren’t aware of, and that was manifesting itself in the models they were building. They went on to incorporate that observation in the way they perceived, and told the story of, their models.
5.Reflect and integrate the learnings from the session
Tip: After building and storytelling, take time to reflect on the insights gained. Discuss how these insights can be integrated into real-world actions and strategies. As in any coaching session, you want to encourage your clients to embed their learnings and reflections into their every day lives!
Example: Towards the end of the session, we always ask clients “ looking at your model, what’s one thing you will start/ stop doing or change going forward”. Try it out in your next session!
If you’re curious to learn more about LEGO® Serious Play®, come join us for the next LSP x Coaching course. All the details are here.
