How LEGO® Serious Play® Helps Coaches Facilitate Deeper Breakthroughs
Coaching is all about unlocking insights, facilitating transformation, and guiding clients towards meaningful change. But sometimes, words alone are not enough. When clients struggle to articulate their thoughts, emotions, or challenges, traditional coaching conversations can hit a roadblock.
This is where LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) comes in. By engaging both hands and mind, this experiential methodology enables clients to explore their inner world in new ways, making the intangible tangible.
In this article, we’ll explore how LEGO® Serious Play® helps coaches facilitate deeper breakthroughs—whether you’re an executive coach, team coach, systemic coach, or leadership development facilitator.
Why Traditional Coaching Conversations Sometimes Fall Short
While structured conversations are at the heart of coaching, they have limitations:
Clients may struggle to articulate complex thoughts – Not every insight can be put into words easily.
Cognitive bias can limit self-awareness – Clients often unconsciously filter their responses.
Talking alone may not tap into deeper emotions – Verbal processing often stays on the surface.
By using hands-on, creative methods, LEGO® Serious Play® allows clients to bypass these challenges, helping them uncover subconscious patterns, limiting beliefs, and breakthrough ideas.
How LEGO® Serious Play® Enhances the Coaching Process
1. Making the Abstract Tangible
Many coaching topics—such as leadership identity, team dynamics, or personal growth—can feel abstract. Asking a client to build a model of a challenge or goal forces them to externalise their thinking in a physical form.
For example, an executive coach working with a leader on imposter syndrome might ask them to build a model of their internal self-perception versus their external leadership presence. This often reveals hidden fears, strengths, and insights they wouldn’t have verbalised.
2. Unlocking Deeper Self-Awareness
The power of metaphor and storytelling in LEGO® Serious Play® helps clients express emotions and ideas they may not even realise they have.
Consider a team coach guiding a group through trust issues. Rather than just talking about dynamics, each team member builds a model of what trust feels like to them. When shared, these metaphors create powerful conversations that drive self-awareness and collective understanding.
3. Bypassing Cognitive Bias & Engaging the Subconscious Mind
Verbal responses in coaching are often filtered through logic, social norms, or professional expectations. However, when clients build with LEGO® bricks, their responses are instinctive and unfiltered.
A leadership development coach might ask participants to build a model of their personal leadership style. Because the brain processes hands-on experiences differently from verbal conversations, the results often uncover new perspectives that traditional reflection alone wouldn’t reveal.
4. Encouraging Psychological Safety & Honest Expression
In coaching, especially executive or team coaching, power dynamics or fear of judgment can hinder honest conversations. LEGO® Serious Play® creates a structured, playful environment where everyone contributes equally.
For example, a systemic coach working with a leadership team might ask them to build representations of how they experience the organisational culture. This makes it easier to discuss challenges openly, as the discussion is centred on the models rather than personal critiques.
5. Enhancing Problem-Solving & Decision-Making
Complex decision-making can be overwhelming, especially in leadership and team coaching. LEGO® Serious Play® allows clients to prototype different scenarios, enabling them to visualise multiple outcomes before committing to action.
A facilitator leading a strategic planning session could have participants build their ideal vision for the future and then examine potential obstacles. This hands-on, iterative process encourages creative solutions and reduces resistance to change.
Real-World Applications of LEGO® Serious Play® in Coaching
LEGO® Serious Play® is a versatile tool that can be used across different coaching specialisations:
Executive Coaching – Helping leaders explore values, strengths, and leadership presence.
Team Coaching – Strengthening team cohesion, psychological safety, and collaboration.
Systemic Coaching – Mapping out relationships, hierarchies, and complex organisational dynamics.
Career Coaching – Assisting clients in visualising their ideal career path and future steps.
Leadership Development – Exploring leadership styles, decision-making, and resilience.
How to Integrate LEGO® Serious Play® into Your Coaching Practice
If you’re new to LEGO® Serious Play® but want to integrate it into your coaching or facilitation practice, here’s how you can get started:
Get Trained & Certified – A structured training programme will teach you how to facilitate with confidence.
Start Small – Introduce simple LEGO® Serious Play® exercises in one-on-one or small group settings.
Experiment with Different Prompts – Ask clients to build representations of challenges, goals, or team dynamics.
Combine with Traditional Coaching Techniques – Use LSP alongside classic coaching methods like the GROW model or systemic coaching frameworks.
At The Brick Coach, we offer a comprehensive online LEGO® Serious Play® training specifically designed for coaches, facilitators, and L&D professionals. Learn how to integrate this powerful method into your coaching practice from anywhere in the world.
The future of coaching is experiential, engaging, and hands-on. LEGO® Serious Play® is at the forefront of this shift, helping coaches facilitate deeper breakthroughs by unlocking new perspectives, enhancing self-awareness, and encouraging open, honest conversations.
By integrating LEGO® Serious Play® into your coaching practice, you can help clients move beyond words, tap into deeper insights, and create lasting, meaningful change.
Ready to take your coaching practice to the next level? Join our online LEGO® Serious Play® training today!
