Dana Energy Uses LSP Methodology To Foster Creative Thinking

In an effort to learn the brilliant methodology of Lego Serious Play, I participated in a four-day workshop held in Copenhagen earlier in December.

Lego Serious Play (LSP) is a facilitation technique which helps foster creative thinking through team building metaphors and experiences using Lego bricks.

We know for certain that the hands-on, minds-on learning process produces a deeper, more meaningful understanding of our potentials, as the LSP methodology deepens the reflection process and supports an effective dialogue for everyone in the organization.

Through the intense workshop, the participants, including me, learned how to go through an innovative, experimental process to extract what our managers have in mind.

Indeed, using the LSP methodology, a trained facilitator tries to make the managers participate in a process or a brief typical workshop to make a number of metaphors of their basic mental concepts, using Lego bricks. The endeavor begins with a series of questions raised by the facilitator and will eventually lead to visual responses (metaphors) that directly come out of the involved managers’ minds.

Lego experts believe that people are able to use their hands to express themselves much more clearly than they do through speaking, arguing that hands are in direct and close connection with brain. So, they try to extract Simple Guiding Principles or basic mental concepts of the managers using Lego bricks.

During the workshop, it would be the duty of the facilitator to help participants interpret what they have made as metaphors through a standardized process of building, sharing and reflecting. The participants are tasked with building models to illustrate their understanding of various concepts. Then they have to share what they have built through telling others about the model. And finally, it would be the turn of reflection, which allows deep insight. So the process of hands-on building combined with dialogue and reflection enables participants to develop a deeper understanding of what they already knew.

At the end of the typical LSP workshop, the participating managers would become more committed to the outcomes, as they find themselves deeply and directly involved in the process.

Dana Energy is now among few companies in Iran which has employed a trained LSP facilitator.

Mohammad Reza Iravani
Chief Administrative Officer