LEGO SERIOUS PLAY & STRATEGY: AN INTERVIEW WITH CO-INVENTOR JOHAN ROOS

The way we work with strategy is changing – and one of the forerunners leading this change is Johan Roos – the co-inventor of Lego Serious Play, an innovative facilitation methodology that sees thousands of practitioners across the globe and growing.

Leading up to the Drucker Forum in November 2019, where both Johan Roos and Christian Rangen will be speaking, they got together with to discuss the evolution of Lego Serious Play since its advent in 2006, and the advancement of strategy today.

The rapidly changing business landscape over the past decade or so has nudged many companies away from the traditionally rigid annual strategic-planning process. Companies today are rethinking their approach to strategic planning, with many opting for more frequent and more creative ways of getting the dialogue going.

Used across the world in their strategy processes by prominent organizations like Ikea, Samsung, Oxford University, Virgin Atlantic and even the UN, Lego Serious Play is a facilitated meeting, communication and problem-solving process using Lego elements.

Unconventional facilitation techniques such as these are gaining momentum in today’s strategy processes, not simply because they are radical and innovative, but because of how effective they are at creating engagement and tangible results.

Late last year, our team also began experimenting with game-based strategy development through strategy simulations that create an experiential and interactive strategy journey. We brought this to our clients running complex strategy processes to lighten things up – to great success.

While the mechanics were rather different – we see some parallels with the principles behind Lego Serious Play and Strategy Tools’ Strategy Simulations, and decided to get together with co-inventor of Lego Serious Play, Johan Roos for a chat about strategy today.

CHRISTIAN RANGEN

What is Serious Play in relation to the field of strategic management?

JOHAN ROOS

It’s a different kind of approach to thinking about serious matters – a seemingly oxymoron to say that you can actually do something playful while it’s serious.

The underlying idea is that if you want to change the outcome of what you are focusing on, like a strategy, you should change the process by which you arrive at it. So that is the “big idea”.

CHRISTIAN RANGEN

Over the past 15-20 years, what are some of the highlights that you’ve seen in this field of strategy around the principles of gamification, including the evolution of your own work?

JOHAN ROOS

If I stick to the concept of play – the very idea of breaking up the traditional way of doing things has evolved a lot. 

It is more common today to work differently with strategy than it was decades ago – when “doing strategy” was strictly separated from the more “soft aspects” such as team building exercises.

The separation back then was very distinct – first you did this, then you worked hard, then you partied, then you worked hard, and so on. 

What we did was integrate the two – and now I think that people understand that it’s not mutually exclusive. 

CHRISTIAN RANGEN

Today, there are thousands of practitioners in Lego Serious Play – how did it all start and how does that connect into the evolution that you were on? 

JOHAN ROOS

It was serendipity that led us to develop our ideas in an unconventional, playful way. We began to focus on the medium and mode constraints of traditional conversations about important matters – like the future of a company. To burst open the conventions of discussion, we sought to find techniques that would encourage imagination, surprise, and even shock – and we were drawn to the toy industry.

That’s in a sense how it got connected to Lego. It turns out that Lego was uniquely well-suited because this material has “clutching power.” It connects and fits, constructs and deconstructs. That stuff is fantastic.

Read more about the origins of Lego Serious Play and how it all began here.

CHRISTIAN RANGEN

Going back to that first experiment with the Lego management team, has there been any kind of key inflection points or key triggers that has really taken Lego Serious Play to where it is today, or did it happen kind of organically? 

JOHAN ROOS

It started out as an experiment in a subsidiary of Lego, who then opened it up to the world under the Creative Commons license. Then this practice really took off and the method has grow in all kinds of directions. The practitioners – in this case typically consultants – were doing their own versions of Lego Serious Play all the way in Australia and New Zealand, adding to it. Lego tried to hold onto the reins a bit, but now is taken on its own life constrained only by trademark guidelines. Yet, many still follow the”real time” process we developed two decades ago.

I am positively amazed people find the original approach to real-time strategy so valuable. Yet, others have modified it to fit their own needs, for example using it with the Three Horizons. It’s evolved extensively.

CHRISTIAN RANGEN

It’s particularly interesting to see how the Lego family has been involved at some point, and that it has basically turned into more of an open source movement and spread organically. We’ve seen the same thing here in Norway, and also other markets where I operate that it’s really growing as a phenomenon and as a brand.

JOHAN ROOS

And I think it will grow much more. But it’s time to help it innovate a little bit more – and that’s why I have cycled back into this world. Now is the right time to see what we’ve learned, gather a community of research capable and interested serious players and uncover how this method can be improved.

While there’s been some initial research and a few consultancy manual-books, I don’t see a lot of serious intellectual contributions in this field as of now. There are possibilities to learn more about what are some of the antecedents for success or failures, which levers we can pull, and how we can help facilitate the process even more. There is much experience, excitement and willingness to contribute among quite a few. That is what I am focusing on now.

CHRISTIAN RANGEN

Building on that – what are some of the application areas that you could imagine that’s not currently / typically within the Lego Serious Play realm? 

JOHAN ROOS

I’m currently interested in breakthrough innovations and implementing change. Having been the top leader in a couple of organizations, I know both are easier said than done. I’ve thought a lot about antecedents for breakthroughs and readiness for change and these are research projects we’re working on right now. I am very optimistic about some of new and exciting serious play applications I am prototyping aimed to help people be more imaginative and effective innovating, and making change happen.

CHRISTIAN RANGEN

Going back to the field of strategy, you’ve been working or researching for probably the better part of 25 years. What’s the evolution of the field of strategy both now and looking ahead?

JOHAN ROOS

Strategy for me is ultimately about making choices – making a decision between A and B and dealing with the tradeoffs from your choices. I think a lot of the work that Henry Mintzberg did in the 80s still holds. I met him at the last Drucker Forum and found him a very forward-looking person. His work on emergent strategy, as opposed to planned strategy, is more valid than ever. The more complex and more intertwined the world becomes, the more things suddenly happen because of interactions you cannot predict. 

So we know that strategic planning is no longer sufficient. But what is coming after? In 2001, Bart Victor and I put together a paper called “Real-Time Planning”. It was never published – still sitting in my inbox – but it is more valid than ever. Real-Time Strategy. That’s why we called the Lego Serious Play application that as well. It was to play with the idea, without solidly anchoring it, and see what happens. And I think it has worked really well.

This idea of real-time strategy is absolutely one of the strongest trends today. There are no certainties, but certain kinds of probabilities, and you try it out and fix it. This is exactly what we do at my current organization. We have a guiding principle called “try it out and then fix it”. We don’t plan many years ahead. We have a three-year strategy map because we have to for formal reasons, but it’s really about planning through the brochure cycle which is quite different from traditional strategy.

And then it becomes the question: “What do you hold onto when the plan doesn’t work?” And ultimately this is why I’ve pushed the notion of guiding principles so far in every organization I’ve been in as well as Lego Serious Play. The answer becomes ultimately your values. That’s what you hold on to. That’s the strength and stability you have. Everything else is changing. 

That’s why the mother of all guiding principles is “when in doubt, do the right thing”.

CHRISTIAN RANGEN

What does this mean in practice for strategists and strategy leaders today? What are the implications?

JOHAN ROOS

This is a super interesting question. With the availability and speed of big data analytics at your fingertips, we are starting to see patterns in massive amounts of data that used to be very difficult to underline before. These allow for decisions to be made much quicker than before. This sharpens the requirements of human judgment, which is based on experience. One day, the machines might surpass us, but for now, I think it just calls for judgment based on experience. To go back to the ultimate theory, namely the Aristotelian ethics on the notion of practical wisdom to understand the foundation of making decisions, taking actions that are not just for me but for the community as a whole. 

In strategy making, this ultimately boils down to what are the right and good decisions, and where are the wrong and bad decisions. It’s a story about practicing your moral judgment.

CHRISTIAN RANGEN

Thanks a lot for your time, and best wishes on developing the next chapter of Lego Serious Play, Johan.

Catch up with Johan Roos and Christian Rangen at the Global Peter Drucker Forum 2019. Get your tickets here.

Learn more here

Learn more about Lego Serious Play in the following papers:

• Lego Serious Play – How it All Began
• Playing Seriously with Strategy

ABOUT JOHAN ROOS

Co-founder of the LEGO Serious Play methodology, Johan Roos’ background is in higher education, mostly in leading business schools. He’s currently the Chief Academic Officer and Professor at Hult International Business School, headquartered in London and Boston, with campuses in SF, Dubai and Shanghai. Before joining Hult, Roos served as a leader and faculty member in several European Business schools as well as a research foundation.

www.johanroos.se