On the incompleteness of LEGO Serious Play...

I've been thinking about the different stages of LEGO? Serious Play? for awhile now. I read the open source document. I reread it. Two days later I read it again. Three weeks later I do the same. I read different parts of it each time. I reflect on it. Each time I read it I notice something different. A different nuance. A different layer of meaning. My sense of LSP is an ongoing journey.

Each time I do a workshop, I understand a little more.

Each time I do a workshop, I realise I understand a little less.

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The open source document outlines four 'learning steps' and three 'process steps' as follows:

• Open source/four learning steps: Connect - Create - Reflect - Apply (These four single words are my interpretation of the definitions of the four steps. You are free to choose your own four words).
• Open source/three process steps: The Challenge - Building - Sharing.
• The Association of Master Trainers defines their four step core process as follows: Posing the question - Construction - Sharing - Reflection.
• SeriousWork outlines a six step process*: Establish objectives - Develop questions - Set challenges - Build models - Share meaning - Reflect. (*Please refer to Sean Blair's comment below that clarifies SeriousWork's LSP process)

There are common elements in each of these approaches. If we take the open source three step process - The Challenge - Building - Sharing - as the genesis of LSP, then we might posit in some sense, that those that came later, either added something that was new or different, was felt to be missing or that they were simply trying to create something that whilst derivative, was largely unique to them. These are not criticisms, simply observations. Observations that are mine, and reflect my thinking at this moment in time.

I hadn't really paid too much attention to the four learning steps outlined in the open source document before. And yet, the more I reread the open source document, the more I spend a moment, and then more moments, considering them, the more I feel they have an important part to play. This is part of my ongoing journey of discovery with #LegoSeriousPlay. New and different aspects, nuances, subtleties are revealed, emerge over time, resulting in me creating new and different assumptions. This is an iterative journey of discovery, of curiosity, where new and different assumptions are being created. LSP requires us to be curious. Not to stand still. Not to create walled gardens of meaning. As we ask participants in a workshop to discover new and different meaning through the use of LSP, so too must we ask of ourselves, through the use of #LSP, to discover new and different meaning. New and different narratives. And in so doing, continually push out and discover the true extent of how we might understand LSP to be.

The act of questioning is not to undermine, but rather to solidify. To provide certainty. To make certain. To be curious. Where this does not exist, questioning leads us to a point of certainty. The key, however, as always with LSP, is knowing what question to ask...

Each step has its own characteristics and dynamics. One leads into the other, and onto the next. Each reveals a little bit more. Each implies there is more meaning to come. To emerge. To be uncovered. To be discovered. And yet, these steps seem incomplete. Perhaps they are not incomplete. Perhaps they are simply signposts along the way, allowing me some degree of freedom, whilst ensuring I never stray too far without being able to find my way back, should I need it?

But for me, it is in that awkward feeling of incompleteness, in that gap, that LSP can be explored further. And when I think of the incompleteness, words such as - observe, capture, play - amongst others come to mind. I try these words out in that gap, in that incompleteness. In that uncertainty.

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The LEGO bricks are not the hero. The bricks are the tool, the mechanism by which meaning is ultimately arrived at. Perhaps we have conflated LEGO bricks for this? And in making the bricks the hero, focus has been lost? Equally the LSP process only comes alive in the hands of the facilitator. I can know the LSP process inside out, but that does not translate to facilitation expertise. LSP training remains largely focused on the LSP process - the steps and applications - and not the facilitation of the LSP process, or the formulation of questions for example.

What is an effective question? How do I know? The end of the workshop is too late.

The steps serve as markers, way points to pass through from one phase of discovery to the next. But they should not be anchors that weigh me down.

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Observe. Capture. Play.

There are other words, but for the moment I keep coming back to these three.

We connect. We share. We construct. We reflect. Not in that order.

But when do we observe? When do we really take a moment to pause and observe what has been built? Or what has been said? Not as an aside. Not as an afterthought. Not as a recap. But observe with intent. To look at what lies in front of us on the table. To listen to the words that make up the story. To try to understand the relationship between specific bricks and their moment in the story. Why this brick with this meaning? Why not?

How the models are positioned. Why there and not somewhere else? What do the gaps between the models mean? What do the clusters mean? Do they mean anything?

What colours or bricks have been used. Why those colours and not others. Why that connector?

What happens if I disrupt someone else's model? Or their story. What happens if I share my interpretation of someone else's model?

To listen, really listen, to the stories being told. Just as much as what has been left unsaid.

When do we observe? Not as some curiosity. But with intent. When have we allowed time to observe? Built it into the agenda intentionally.

And what about 'capture'. This is something Michael Fearne 'observed' after a few months into lockdown. With the move into the online space, he realised there was a need to 'capture'. Capture the images of the models being made and then transferred into Mural, Miro or another similar platform. What do we do in the offline world? How do we capture those moments? Those stories. The models. The people. Their thoughts. Their reflections. Their observations.

It is here in such gaps that opportunities exist. Waiting patiently...

And what about 'play'. This was brought to my attention by Ben Mizen over a number of different conversations. Have we lost the art or craft of play within the context of LSP? Was it ever there? Was the notion of play simply wrapped into the process of constructing, and that was good enough? Adequate.

Do we really 'play'? Do we allow for it? Do we know what we mean by 'play' within a LSP context? Do we even know how to 'play'?

Why don't we allow time to play, to be unstructured for a moment, to go down potential rabbit holes. It took Alice to Wonderland!

Do we use 'play' (Google search 'define:play') as in 'play squash' ie. Let's go and play LSP to understand this question? Or do we use it in the context of engaging in an activity for enjoyment rather than a serious or practical purpose, as in - during the LSP workshop, the facilitator invited us to play with the LEGO models we had just made. If this is the case, the word 'serious', as in 'serious play' seems incongruous.

But you know me, I'm just playing with words...