Think Outside the Blocks: How Playing with Lego Can Help Develop Your Career Skills
It's time to take playtime seriously. You've likely heard the common advice to "think outside the box," but now I think we should look deeper at what that really means.
Lego, a cornerstone of childhood creativity, has become a powerful tool for workplace success. I'm putting pen to paper, or better yet, fingers to keyboard to help you discover how playing with Lego can boost your career - and help you become more innovative and productive at work.
What is Lego and How Can it Help Your Career?
Lego is a Danish toy system and construction set that consists of plastic interlocking blocks that allow children and adults to construct custom creations. It is notoriously popular among kids and adults alike, offering hours of fun problem-solving and build-your-own projects. Lego has been around for almost a century, but in the past decade especially, it has gained huge popularity for its use in creativity and collaboration skills development.
Lego activities can help you and your team improve problem-solving abilities, critical thinking skills and communication skills in order to simplify complex structures into successful strategies. By combining colors, shapes and sizes while creating your own Lego projects, you can practice planning and discerning actions while developing ideas quickly amidst conversations among peers. Even if you don't have all the pieces required to complete a step, you can use brainstorming sessions to come up with creative solutions that might lead to more productive outcomes than previously thought possible.
Let's explore how playing with Lego can help employees work together, be more creative thinkers, and achieve their objectives faster yet still maintain high standards of quality workmanship in the office environment.
Benefits of Playing with Lego in the Workplace
Playing with Lego can help foster creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving skills in employees. Engaging in construction play can have profound positive impacts on emotional intelligence and professional development.
For example, working with Lego encourages people to think outside the box and craft creative solutions to tasks they are assigned. The act of manipulating physical pieces allows individuals to better visualize their ideas and develop an appreciated sense of spatial understanding. Additionally, this practice encourages employees to break down large projects into achievable subtasks–as you construct your Lego models brick-by-brick–thereby providing an intuitive framework for navigating complex problems.
Collaborative interactions are also enhanced when employees play with Legos in the workplace. Individuals learn how to negotiate ideas, identify common goals, work together towards collective objectives, grow trusting relationships within teams and establish more effective communication strategies between team members. These are all essential components required for promoting a successful work environment.
Plus, let's remember playing with Lego provides an enjoyable outlet for stress relief during these busy times!
How to Encourage Creative Thinking with Lego
Finding creative solutions to the workplace's toughest problems can require novel thinking and unconventional brainstorming -- and Lego is an excellent tool for helping to achieve this. It also helps to break down silos and connect employees in ways that wouldn't normally occur in the traditional work environment.
Whether during team meetings or on an individual level, using Lego can spark new ideas and bring real innovation into your workplace. While it might allow you to tap into some of your childhood dreams again, you don't even need any creative design experience either!
Using Lego in the office environment provides a structure for creative collaboration, which will not only result in unique ideas but also enhance conflict resolution strategies. In addition, engaging with people from different departments allows them to develop relationships that will benefit them later when working together on bigger projects or tasks.
At its core, playing with Lego is all about exploration and creativity — two qualities anyone trying to build the job of their dreams should strive for! So if you're looking for new ways of thinking or want to get your colleagues involved in finding innovative solutions that all parties can agree on – then roll out some figurines and get building!
How to Foster Collaboration and Teamwork with Lego
When a group of coworkers gets together to build something with Lego, everyone brings different skills, perspectives, and creativity to the table. Ideas are more freely exchanged without judgement because the building process allows all participants to use their expertise in a playful way to reach a common goal.
Building with Lego also lets participants practice interpersonal skills such as listening and communication with each other – important tools that they can take back into the workplace. Everyone working on the project is also learning how to think beyond their current experience as well as develop empathy towards one another's ideas. This understanding of diverse perspectives will help cultivate a better team environment overall.
By fostering collaboration through constructive play, individuals can develop trust and respect for one another's opinions which ultimately leads to higher quality ideas being shared within the team environment. Creativity abounds in a collaborative atmosphere, and this will prove beneficial when it comes time for any big decisions or projects at work – this could potentially offer solutions that would otherwise not have been thought of without these tools at hand!
Tips for Making the Most of Your Lego Experience
Suppose you're interested in tapping into the power of collaboration, creativity and problem-solving. In that case, Lego is an excellent tool to use. It provides a fun way to engage multiple stakeholders, such as coworkers and clients, in the brainstorming process. And because everyone places blocks on top of each other and watches their project take shape before them, it can be a rewarding experience that yields unexpected results–not just in terms of job performance but also in terms of personal growth.
To ensure that your Lego experience is an enriching one for all involved, remember to keep the following tips in mind:
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Provide clear direction by assigning roles and tasks. This will help everyone understand what they are supposed to do so that the focus is on completing the project within its timeframe rather than repeating tasks started by others.
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Encourage creative thinking by challenging people to come up with alternative ways of looking at the same problem or situation. Perhaps there is an essential Lego piece missing and the team has to find a work-around! This helps unlock different perspectives for tackling even the most complex ideas.
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Foster collaborative work by emphasizing cooperation and appreciation for every contribution made. A team effort not only increases productivity but also strengthens relationships among colleagues.
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Take some time for reflection after each building session to recap progress made and identify areas that need further development or improvement. Doing this regularly showcases how productive hands-on participation can be when striving towards a common objective.
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Finally, keep the atmosphere lighthearted while at it – laughter can often provide insight into problems forgotten during more serious deliberations.
Examples of Companies Who Have Successfully Used Lego
Lego has become one of the most popular toys across all generations. Over the past years, many successful companies have improved productivity and employee satisfaction by using Lego in their workplaces.
- Google is one of the most well-known companies that uses Lego in the workplace. The company uses Lego to encourage creativity and innovation among its employees. Google has even created a Lego room where employees can go to build and create.
- Deloitte, a professional services firm, uses Lego in its leadership development programs to help participants learn about team dynamics, communication, and problem-solving.
In addition to these examples, there have been countless more cases where organizations have implemented Lego activities through the Lego Serious Play (LSP) training methodology. This involves asking employees to tackle company issues or goals by creating a miniature Lego model using a limited number of bricks, followed by explaining their creation and the reasoning behind it.
LSP has been employed by notable institutions such as the U.S. Naval Warfare Division and Harvard Business School. Leading companies like Google, Ernst & Young, Microsoft, Visa, Lexus and Procter & Gamble have also utilized this tool.
These companies all prove how important playtime is at work; the activity fosters teamwork by increasing communication between individuals who would normally remain distant from each other due to hierarchical structures like managers with subordinates or departments maintaining walls between them.
This enables colleagues from diverse backgrounds with varying levels of seniority to come together through play, which can break down said walls-- aiding creativity when needed most under tight deadlines with seemingly unsurmountable obstacles blocking progress.
Conclusion: The Benefits of Using Lego in the Workplace
The creativity and collaboration skills gained from playing with Lego are valuable in any modern workplace. Playing with Lego encourages out-of-the-box thinking, allows for more creative solutions to difficult problems, and helps build teamwork and collaboration among employees. These same qualities are also highly prized skills for employers.
The structure of Lego pieces, along with the physical act of stacking interlocking parts at different angles, can help inspire higher levels of creativity among colleagues. The challenge of working together to form something larger than any one person is also valuable in terms of developing trust within a team. From problem solving to designing something grand, working with Lego can equip companies and their teams with the tools they need to succeed in today's business world.
So don't be afraid to get a bit playful in your workspace! Those childlike skills will never fail you in your professional life—heck, you might even be surprised how far they'll take you!
Honestly, I could talk about Lego all day!
If you’re coming to Team23 and you love lego as much as we do, come visit us at booth #28! You can win some pretty sweet lego prizes and even play with some lego while chatting with our team.
See you there!
Sean // Izymes
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Sean Manwarring _Izymes_
About this author
Head of Marketing at Izymes
Izymes
Australia
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