Strategic Planning using LEGO SERIOUS PLAY

"Only 11% of executives are highly satisfied that strategic planning is worth the effort."
Research in 2005 by Marakon Associates and the Economist Intelligence Unit among senior executives from 156 global companies on the disconnect between planning and decision-making.

Michael C. Mankins, managing partner of Marakon Associates, San Francisco goes on to say:

"In most companies, strategic planning isn't about making decisions. It's about documenting choices that have already been made, often haphazardly. Leading firms are rethinking their approach to strategy development so they can make more, better and faster decisions."

Yet, decisions are the essence of management. They are what managers do - or avoid doing. But if those decisions are to have an impact, the organization must also, as a whole, decide to carry them out.

This is where LEGO SERIOUS PLAY comes in to the picture. With LEGO SERIOUS PLAY we design and facilitate decision making sessions for teams pertaining to important problems or strategic matters that involve debate and potentially conflict of interest.

LEGO SERIOUS PLAY used as the decision- making tool allows for all opinions, data, assumptions and options to be identified and fairly discussed. It invites a full range of views including unpleasant truths, spontaneously offered. And it points the way to action.

What makes the tool work?
Decision-making becomes a dialogue that encourages incisiveness and creativity and brings coherence to seemingly fragmented and unrelated ideas. It creates a setting that fosters openness, candor and informality and lets us surface conflicts. It draws energy from the different viewpoints instead of creating frustrations.

When decision-making becomes a search for truth rather than a contest, people feel emotionally committed to the outcome. The outcome seems "right" because people have helped shape it. This builds energy, commitment and readiness to act.

(Ram Charan, Conquering a culture of indecision, HBR 2001).

LEGO SERIOUS PLAY also allows us to construct in reality what is in our mind and in this way you will experience how fast the entire team sees the diversity in solutions, ideas and rationales.

What’s more, LEGO SERIOUS PLAY is a tool for teams that need to ‘zig-zag’ to stay focused on their goal.

Take a moment to reflect on one of the change, project or strategy development processes you have been involved in. Which of the three illustrations below best describes your experience?

• Pink: Everything went 100% as planned and predicted. No surprises, no changes, on time, on budget, on target.
• Blue: Very little went as predicted. Filled with misunderstandings, often 1 step forward and 2 steps backward, going in circles, lack of direction, delayed and off target.
• Yellow: We adapted to changes and continuously moved forward. We knew when to zig-zag to stay in control and maintain focus, direction and momentum.

If you experienced yellow-style there is a good chance that your team had what we call a REAL-TIME STRATEGY for strategic decision-making on the fly.

A Real-Time Strategy is a dynamic and continuously changing set of Simple Guiding Principles that improves the speed and quality of the team's day-to-day critical decision-making and helps the team stay on track when deciding choice of action. The Simple Guiding Principles enable the team to heed, when to zig and when to zag.

One of our areas of expertise is developing Real-Time Strategies using a LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshop. See the Management Consultancy International course outline to view the content of the 2 day intervention.