If I listen, I grow

It's already been a while since I saw The Lego Movie and think that my little sons Francesco and Riccardo insisted so much for me to go with them to the cinema: “Come on, dad! It will be amazing!”

I have to say it was fate, another little but important signal which was unintentionally sent by our children. Since then I remembered things about my childhood that I had forgotten for a while: what an inventive and brilliant thing is creating many different shapes with a single little brick, even shapes that haven't been imagined by designers, though the packaging shows a clear illustration with detailed instructions.

Applying this method to the working day was funny, but a challenge too. It isn't easy when someone wants to follow only the instructions, without breaking the rules to create something new and original. You need team play, like Lego. When you are in a working group with other people building a shape all together, there's someone who puts a brick here and someone else who does the exact opposite, then there is someone who intervenes in an imposing way, like a cartoon king, and says: “Come on, take the instructions, let's follow the illustration”.

A great deal of effort! Because there are companies and organizations that have well-defined methods. That's why the involvement of all the friends of the organization in the bricks repositioning process was wonderful!

So you let them do whatever they want and when the shape develops according to the rules/instructions, only then you begin to move some bricks, creating always different shapes. You let your imagination and intelligence run wild. It seems like the one who creates the most different and bizarre shape from the original illustration suddenly becomes the best.

Oops! At the beginning it was the opposite! Didn't we have to follow a plan, the instructions, the rules, did we?

If you let others gradually decide where they can arrive, it's a continuous challenge, but if you imagine it as a game, it's a real satisfaction, wonderful indeed!

But that's not all…

As in The Lego Movie there's someone who wants to stick bricks (and works) together, freezing them forever; but even when a work is good, it doesn't mean that it should stay still for the rest of its life, it sounds like “it has always been the same”. In the world of Companies, you must be brave and have prompt creativity. Nowadays the world runs so fast and we must create always different shapes (innovation). When we talk about renewal, we can involve all the people of the Company, let them join the first row, in order that they can actively contribute with their knowledge and points of view.

This will be the way to set our imagination free, a unique and different creativity. You only need to frame people correctly, you need to guide them, trying to know them and to help them in their proposals.

The achieved shape isn't always the best, or it doesn't have the effects that we want, however sometimes people react as we expected.

Therefore, I remember another movie scene in which the Lego man walks into a bar in the morning to have a cup of coffee and the barman tells him a very high price. He reacts: “It's wonderful!”

I believe that the right way is...thinkPOSITIVE! You have to remove doubts and fears from your mind, focus on your achievements and behave as if you turned your desires into reality. Perseverance will help us to carry on with any plan or project, even if they are very hard and difficult.

When you understand how beautiful life is and how wonderful relating to other people is, you must share everything, every notion and any discovery with people who still think that the day is hard, difficult or even inconclusive and unsatisfactory.

I've just tried to impart my awareness of what my little children, friends and colleagues everyday teach me, but I also say to myself: “Nobody can do the work that we must do”, we will grow only through our direct experience, when we put into practice methods and attempts, we will go beyond our problems. The action will bring us new chances. Then, if I listen, I grow and everything can be wonderful!

Based on a true story. Dedicated to Francesco and Riccardo. (Franky & Ricky)

Oops! There's another thing that my children (always unintentionally) let me discover...

www.dottorsorriso.it