How LEGO® Serious Play® Supports Systems Thinking

LEGO® Serious Play® and Systems Thinking

LEGO® Serious Play® is an incredibly valuable tool for systems thinking. While the original Build Level 3 application “Real Time Strategy” is now perceived by leading practitioners as a flawed approach, new Build Level 3 applications are unlocking vital conversations.

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SeriousWork LEGO® Serious Play® Training Schedule

Here is a full list of all trainings scheduled from December 2024 to December 2025.

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The Four C’s: Why LEGO Serious Play in Education… and Why Now?

LEGO® Serious Play® is a facilitated meeting, communication, and problem-solving method where participants use LEGO® bricks to build models that represent their ideas, insights, and stories. It encourages creative thinking.

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Impactful Teaching Strategies for PSHE and Student Wellbeing

Last year I was invited to work with students, staff and parents/carers at the Bavarian International School in Munich. Over the course of two days, this whole-school community engaged in workshops focussed on an incredibly powerful – and incredibly relevant – question:

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ONLINE LEGO® Serious Play®

It is fair to say that LEGO Serious Play is a ‘hands-on’ experience. You would be forgiven for thinking that using bricks to build models and tell stories does not lend itself well to ‘being online’ or working remotely. You’d be wrong.

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Podcast / Finding your Facilitator Flow. Presence and Focus.

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Podcast / Facilitating with and without LEGO® Serious Play®

Myriam Hadnes runs the Workshops Work Podcast. In her own words…

“Three (soon to be four) books on the subject, decades of experience facilitating workshops, and experience of training facilitators in it… Sean Blair is a LEGO SeriousPlay oracle! I was hoping to uncover some new insights and ideas from our conversation, but I actually found a great deal more.”

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乐高 工作法 实战手册 – SERIOUSWORK Book In Mandarin

Well this is exciting news, our first book SERIOUSWORK, first published in English in 2016, is available for readers in China.

This translation been the work of Vicky Qu and Xiaotsing Ma who have also bought Cheers Publishing onboard as our publisher in China. We are incredibly grateful to Vicky and Xiaotsing for all their hard work in bringing these ideas to readers in China.

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Back to School: LEGO Serious Play @ United World College South East Asia

From the moment I heard about LEGO Serious Play, I knew that it was something that I wanted to learn more about and – thanks to a fantastic online course run by Sean Blair – last February, whilst on a ‘cruise to nowhere’, I was lucky enough to complete the LEGO Serious Play Online Build Level 1 and 2 workshop.

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Virtual LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® – Is Online Shared Model Building possible?

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The key skills you need to facilitate LEGO® Serious Play®

Watch videos of a shared models built by participants on SeriousWork LEGO® Serious Play® training courses to explain the fundamental skills needed to facilitate LEGO® Serious Play® .

The process was also facilitated by the course participants. (The build question was “Build a model to show the fundamental or key skills you need to facilitate LEGO® Serious Play®”.)

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What do graduates of our training say?

“Literally seven days after our training, I facilitated my first LEGO® Serious Play® strategic workshop. I can’t imagine any other training program that would’ve given me the skills, resources and confidence to run my own session (with a fully fledged paying client!) within such a short timeframe.”

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My first workshop: 3 days after training. Report by Jesse Lui

Jesse works at Cathay Pacific in Hong Kong and flew to London in October 2018 with his colleague Christina. A couple of days after completing his training and certification (and flying back to Hong Kong!) Jesse ran his first workshop.

Jesse has kindly allowed us to share the email he wrote to the other graduates of his class, reporting on his first workshop.

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What happened after training in London? By Philipp Rosenthal

Phillipp works at a large consulting firm in Abu Dhabi. He flew to London in October 2018. A week after completing his training and certification Phillipp ran his first workshop. His objective was “to understand different meanings of ‘identity’ and create a common, group understanding”.

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LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Reflection Questions – a cheatsheet!

The 4th stage of the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® process is reflection. This note sets out guidance about how to use this stage effectively and offers questions you might ask when you facilitate.

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Observations. A Graduate’s perspective on a live workshop

SeriousWork training graduate Rebecca Godfrey shares her observations from a live workshop

I had the great pleasure of joining Sean for a full day event bringing together a large team (approximately 45 people) to look at their vision for the future. I was invited to observe and to serve as general helper for the day.

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How a pointy stick became a magic stick

In shared model building we teach our students to: “Lead the discussion through the brick” or “Mediate the conversation through the model”.

At last weeks LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator training in Stuttgart, this idea all-of-a-sudden developed to the next level!

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My First Workshops – by Dr Tammy Watchorn

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What would you do if you had all the free time in the world?

This is a (brilliant) guest blog post from SeriousWork graduate Stella Kasdagli, Co-Founder Women On Top

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Report from Build Level 3 System Model ONLINE training pilot

In March 2021 we ran our second pilot of our online build level 3 – systems models class. Below you can read a detailed write up from LSPConnect co-founder Guy Stephens.

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Podcast / The LEGO® Serious Play® Facilitation Method with Sean Blai‪r‬

William Corless from YellowWood recently made a podcast with Sean.

“Sean Blair author and co-author of three books on the Lego Serious Play (LSP) facilitation method, joins fellow LSP facilitator on the podcast. Sean provides an understanding of this facilitation method, the surprising benefits and the importance of play.

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#FacWeek and #Book launch. Martin Gilbraith’s introduces ‘How to Facilitate the LEGO® Serious Play® Method ONLINE’

#FacWeek and #Book launch. Martin Gilbraith’s introduces ‘How to Facilitate the LEGO® Serious Play® Method ONLINE’

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How COVID-19 created our ONLINE book

Here’s the back story to our book about how to facilitate LEGO® Serious Play® Online…

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Learning to facilitate LEGO Serious Play Online – By Dr Rebekah Wilson

The blog post below was written by SeriousWork graduate Dr Rebekah Wilson who works at Exeter University. Rebekah first published this post on the Exeter University Incubator website and we are grateful for her permission to re-post it here.

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After LEGO Serious Play Faciliation Training – SeriousWork Graduates

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5 tools to help you check the alignment of your group

When running a workshop, how do we know we have true agreement on a shared model?
Superficial agreement will kill your session and undermine your objectives and so we suggest you explore questions and concerns instead.

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The Speed of Trust

When trust is high, things happen faster and at lower cost, than when trust is low.

Stephen M.R. Covey’s book The Speed of Trust: The One Thing that Changes Everything, contains a great set of ideas that bring clarity to some of the often paradoxical parts of our relationships. It’s also a framework that holds exciting potential to be explored using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®.

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How to know when you need to buy more LEGO

SeriousWork team member Caroline shares how her participants builds told her she needed to buy more bricks.

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Make your own Landscape and Identity Kit

I understand there is a shortage of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® kits at the moment. If you need a Landscape and Identity kit but can’t get one… you can make your own!

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#LEGOHACK 5: Duplo to LEGO

In many workshops participants struggle to connect LEGO bricks to Duplo bricks. They do connect.

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#LEGOHack 4: Flexible axle-head

Sometimes builders want to express shared ideas, people connecting, thinking the same, being aligned etc.

The flexible axle found in the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Starter Kit and the much bigger Landscape and Identity Kit can be used in many ways, this simple hack is a good way to use this brick.

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#LEGOHack 3: Join End Plates (loved by LEGO)

Whilst training LEGO in LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® in Switzerland we were delighted to introduce them to a new way of connecting bricks with one of our LEGOHacks. It was a little unexpected on our part, but a great moment to share learning and build the participants repertoire.

What was it we shared?

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#LEGOHACK 2: Reverse Stud

Sometimes builds need the brick stud direction to be reversed, if you ever need to do this (or help someone else) then you can use our ‘$100 Stud to Stud hack’. Simply use any 2×1 tile (a brick with no studs, like the $100 brick) as a way to connect studs to studs.

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#LEGOHACK 1: LadderLegs + Our First Newsletter

Yea! we just published our first newsletter packed with: Ideas – Things that you can steal and make your own. Tips – Ways to be more awesome.
Inspiration – Stories from the field. Opportunities – Ways for you to grow your skills.

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Serious Work Masterclass Review

Experienced professionals practicing facilitation

By SeriousPlayPro founder and SeriousWork co-author Marko Rillo

In July I attended Serious Work LEGO Serious Play masterclass with Sean. When I entered his training venue I met enthusiastic Sean who graciously introduced us to the venue, to the bricks and to each other.

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Facilitation Super Powers!

In the Serious Work Training in May 2017 we set the students the build question “Build a shared model to show the super powers facilitators have”.

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Homo Ludens, Man the Player

I have been doing a bit of research into the theory’s underpinning LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, and have come across a book first published in 1944 by Johan Huizinga called Homo Ludens, Man the Player. You can read it yourself on the PDF link from Yale University below, but just these two excerpts from the first chapter highlight the ancient and serious importance of play.

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A LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® meeting identification flowchart

If you are a trained LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator perhaps you’ve heard the odd debate about what is (or isn’t) LEGO Serious Play. This diagram seeks to demystify the obvious. Obviously.

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What does our LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitator Training look like?

Serious Work does not teach LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®. Instead we train you how to professionally facilitate using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®.

This re-frame means we provide lots of opportunities for participants to practice their facilitation skills and build their confidence to use the method.

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What is LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®?

If you ask different people what LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is you might well get different answers. The reason? Because it’s many things in the same package.

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​A very brief history of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®

The serious play story began in 1996 when Institute for Management Development (IMD) professors Johan Roos and Bart Victor created the “serious play” concept and process as a way to enable managers to describe, create and challenge their views of their business. LEGO joined the story during an IMD program for the top 300 leaders in the LEGO® Company.

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