“Think with your hands, listen with your eyes & ears. Tell a story with your model – everyone builds & everyone tells!”
This was part of Paul Kelly from Pandek‘s opening introduction to the Lego® Serious Play® Association of Facilitators’ (AoF) Learning Day in October and the above lego model presents “what I do, my facilitation style and why I enjoy working as a facilitator“.
It was fantastic to “sit on the other side of the table as an attendee” and experience fellow AoF peer, Paul’s use of the Lego® Serious Play® Method of Facilitation. Not only was the day great fun and creative, I certainly came away energised by the learning opportunity, but it really demonstrated how different facilitation tools and techniques can open up communication, give you time to reflect, make sense and articulate feelings and concepts more succintly.
I have included serveral of my individual builds from the day below but the communication really began to flow as we worked in teams to develop shared builds. The initial ice breaker activities were fast-paced and fun so that we quickly got used to the bricks and how they can convey meaning and help you communicate. I openly admit to initially finding it challenging to build against the clock but Paul put me at ease and expertly guided me through explaining my model in front of the group and when it came to creating the above 90 second model presenting ‘what I do‘ it felt easy and natural:
“I love to bring people together creating a space to communicate (3 lego people). I work internationally and love using my languages, French & Spanish (flags). As a linguist, I am a good listener and encourage space to listen and hear from all (yes that’s an ear!). I am friendly and use my smile to reassure, put attendees at ease, invite you to smile, have fun and engage in the conversation (red bricks are a smile :)”
As the day continued, we worked together in teams on an exercise to build a global vision using bricks to represent different parts of the organisation and strategy, we than ranked and reached consensus on different elements – the lego opened up the discussions to enable this. Paul allowed time for questions, reflections and feedback at the end so we could explore how we could apply the techniques to our own practice. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive, even those who were slightly sceptical or hesitant at the beginning could see how the activities had helped us connect, unlock conversations, reflect on our own experiences and come together as a team to support and work towards a common goal.
Thanks Paul for an insightful and fun learning day! For more details please see https://pandek.org/our-approach/lego-serious-play/
