Before You Book the Away Day

If you work in HR or L&D and you are evaluating team building options, you have probably seen a lot of formats that promise more than they deliver. Away days that generate energy on the day and little else. Workshops where the same three people dominate and everyone else disengages by lunch.

LEGO® Serious Play® tends to work differently because participation is built into the process from the start. Every person builds, every person shares. That changes the quality of conversation quickly, and often changes what teams leave the session with afterwards.

This article is written for HR professionals, L&D managers, and team leads considering LEGO Serious Play team building for UK-based teams. It covers what a session actually involves, what outcomes organisations typically see, and what to think about before bringing it into your business.

What is LEGO Serious Play team building?

LEGO Serious Play team building is a facilitated workshop approach that uses model building to help teams communicate more openly, align more clearly, and work through challenges together.

Importantly, it is not an icebreaker activity bolted onto a conference day. Nor is it simply a creative exercise designed to keep people entertained.

The methodology has been used for more than 25 years within organisations across leadership development, strategy, culture work, team integration, and organisational change.

At its simplest, participants respond to carefully structured questions by building models using LEGO bricks. They then explain the thinking behind what they have built. Very quickly, conversations move beyond surface-level discussion and into something more reflective and honest.

For a broader overview of the methodology itself, LEGO Serious Play Workshops for Leadership and Team Development is a useful starting point.

Who is it for?

LEGO Serious Play team building is used across a surprisingly wide range of organisations in the UK. Corporate teams, public sector organisations, professional services firms, charities, start-ups, universities, and leadership teams all tend to use the methodology slightly differently.

In practice, it works particularly well for:

• Leadership teams trying to align around strategy or culture
• Newly formed teams establishing ways of working
• Teams navigating restructuring or organisational change
• Cross-functional groups that need better understanding between departments
• Senior teams working through complex challenges
• Teams where communication or trust has started to break down

Group sizes can vary quite a bit. Sessions often work best with around 6 to 20 participants, though larger organisational groups are usually split into smaller facilitated tables.

What happens in a LEGO Serious Play team building session?

One of the useful things about LEGO Serious Play is that the structure tends to feel clear quite quickly, even for people who arrive sceptical.

Sessions usually begin with a short introduction and a series of warm-up builds. This gives people time to get comfortable with building and sharing without feeling put on the spot. Most participants relax into the process far faster than they expect to.

From there, the session moves into individual model building. Participants build responses to questions linked directly to the team’s objectives. That could involve:

• How the team currently works together
• What good leadership looks like
• Barriers to progress
• Sources of frustration
• Team culture
• Shared goals or priorities

Everyone builds. Everyone shares.

That part matters more than people often realise. The process naturally creates more balanced participation because quieter team members contribute as fully as more dominant personalities.

As sessions develop, teams often move into shared model building. This is where groups physically build collective models together, representing shared goals, challenges, or future direction. Those models become a visible reference point for the conversation rather than ideas floating abstractly around the room.

Good facilitation also creates enough space for reflection. Not just activity for the sake of activity.

A half-day session can work well for introductory team development. Full-day sessions allow more depth, particularly where strategy, culture, or organisational change are involved.

What outcomes should you expect?

This is usually the real question underneath everything else.

Most organisations already know when a team is not functioning particularly well. The difficulty is usually creating enough space for people to talk honestly about what is happening without the conversation becoming defensive, political, or superficial.

That is often where LEGO Serious Play becomes useful.

Some of the most common outcomes include:

Stronger shared understanding

Teams often leave with a clearer picture of how different people experience the same challenges. Perspectives that had previously stayed hidden become easier to discuss openly.

More balanced participation

Because everybody contributes through building and sharing, quieter voices tend to enter the conversation more naturally. This often shifts the dynamic of the group beyond the workshop itself.

Clearer outputs

Unlike many team away days, LEGO Serious Play tends to leave teams with something concrete. Shared models, agreed priorities, photographs, actions, language, and points of alignment that can actually be revisited afterwards.

Better conversations around difficult topics

The focus moves slightly away from the individual and onto the model. That subtle shift makes difficult conversations feel less confrontational and more productive.

Momentum

When teams build solutions together rather than simply being presented with them, there is usually more ownership afterwards. The outcomes feel shared rather than imposed.

Making the case internally

For HR and L&D teams, one of the challenges is often explaining why this type of session is worth investing in.

The reality is that poor communication, misalignment, and unresolved friction inside teams already carry a cost. Leadership time disappears into managing issues indirectly. Decisions slow down. Energy gets lost in misunderstandings and repeated conversations.

LEGO Serious Play is rarely about creating a “fun day”. Most organisations use it because they need teams to think differently together.

Compared with more traditional away days or presentation-led workshops, the outputs also tend to feel more tangible. Teams leave with models, shared language, agreed priorities, and clearer understanding of each other’s perspectives.

For organisations wanting to build capability internally over time, LEGO Serious Play facilitator training is also worth considering.

There is also an in-house training option specifically designed for organisations developing internal facilitators.

LEGO Serious Play for common organisational challenges

Across UK organisations, LEGO Serious Play tends to appear repeatedly around a handful of team challenges.

Post-merger integration

Bringing together teams with different histories and ways of working is difficult. LEGO Serious Play helps externalise assumptions and frustrations before they become bigger issues.

Hybrid teams

Distributed and hybrid teams often struggle with shared culture and alignment. The structured nature of the methodology works surprisingly well online because everyone still participates equally.

Leadership alignment

Senior teams are often the hardest groups to get into genuine dialogue. Building models changes the rhythm of the conversation and tends to move people away from rehearsed positions fairly quickly.

Culture and values work

Many organisations have values written on walls that nobody really talks about honestly. LEGO Serious Play helps teams explore what those values actually mean in practice.

Team formation

For newly formed teams, the methodology accelerates understanding and trust-building in a way that would otherwise take months to emerge naturally.

Online vs in-person team building

Both formats work well, though they create slightly different dynamics.

In-person sessions allow for richer shared model building and often work particularly well for teams dealing with trust, communication, or culture challenges.

Online delivery tends to work well for distributed and hybrid teams. Participants receive LEGO kits in advance and sessions are facilitated specifically for remote participation rather than simply adapting an in-person format awkwardly onto Zoom.

SERIOUSWORK delivers both online and in-person sessions across the UK, including London-based delivery where required.

What to ask a LEGO Serious Play provider before booking

Not all LEGO Serious Play facilitation feels the same in practice.

A few useful questions to ask:

Has the facilitator been properly trained?

The methodology requires structured facilitator training and experience applying it with real teams.

Do they regularly work with organisations?

There is a difference between facilitation experience in organisational settings and more general workshop delivery. Case studies and examples help here.

How are sessions designed?

Strong LEGO Serious Play sessions are designed around the specific context of the team rather than pulled from a standard template.

What outputs will the team leave with?

Good facilitators should be able to explain clearly what the session produces beyond simply “better conversation”.

What experience sits behind the methodology?

SERIOUSWORK has contributed extensively to the development of LEGO Serious Play over many years, including four books authored by founder Sean Blair. That practical experience shapes how sessions are designed and facilitated.

Taking the next step

For most organisations, the starting point is simply a conversation about the team itself, what is happening currently, and what needs to improve.

Contact SERIOUSWORK directly to discuss your requirements.

If you are exploring internal facilitation capability as well as external delivery, the in-house training option is also worth looking at.

For a broader introduction to the methodology itself, What is LEGO Serious Play covers the foundations in more detail.

FAQ

What is LEGO Serious Play team building?

It is a facilitated workshop method that uses model building to improve communication, alignment, and collaboration within teams.

How many people can take part?

Sessions generally work well with groups from around 6 to 50 participants. Larger groups are usually split into smaller facilitated tables.

How long does a session last?

Half-day sessions work well for introductory work. Full-day sessions allow more depth around strategy, culture, and action planning.

Is LEGO Serious Play available online?

Yes. SERIOUSWORK delivers online sessions for distributed and hybrid teams across the UK.

Is LEGO Serious Play available in London?

Yes. SERIOUSWORK delivers sessions in London and throughout the UK.

How is it different from a normal team away day?

Participation is built into the structure. Everyone contributes, which creates more balanced conversations and clearer outputs.

Can organisations develop internal facilitators?

Yes. Many organisations eventually build internal capability through facilitator training and in-house programmes.

What outputs does a session produce?

Sessions usually produce shared models, agreed priorities, action points, and documented reflections that teams can revisit afterwards.