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The following press release was copied from:
http://www.lego.com/info/pressspecific.asp?PressReleaseId=179&Year=2001
-Suz
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New LEGO system for business and strategy development
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Executive Discovery -- associated with LEGO Company -- has unveiled the first-
ever LEGO product specifically for adults -- a tool that helps business managers
develop strategy by using the creative dynamics of the LEGO Brick and play.
Using a new concept called LEGO SERIOUS PLAY, boardrooms are turned into
innovative environments, where managers and employees build representations of
their business and business landscape using LEGO Bricks. This changes the
concept of enterprise strategy from a static expression of words on paper to an
open-ended, flexible creation that people throughout the organization can get
their hands on.
The first application of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY, called Real Time Strategy, is more
than just a building set, however. It replaces strategic plans with flexible
Simple Guiding Principles. To be launched in 2002, it involves guided sessions
with a facilitator who helps participants make the most of a new way of
developing business strategy.
"It's amazing what happens when executives build a 3-D model of their business,
which they can take apart, change, and physically walk around and discuss. They
begin to see possibilities that never would have occurred to them with
traditional approaches", says Dr. Johan Roos, now Director at the Imagination
Lab Foundation, which conducted the research leading to LEGO SERIOUS PLAY.
"Strategies need to help businesses seize new opportunities and react to
challenges more quickly than ever before -- and the new concepts combined with
the construction material that makes up LEGO SERIOUS PLAY does just that."
A Real Time Strategy session begins with the participants building the identity
of their company using selected LEGO Bricks. This is not a model of the
buildings. Identity means using a wealth of metaphors and story making to
express the characteristics of the company, its processes, communications,
services, core competencies etc. E.g: Is your company more like a fortress or a
race car? Small and dense? Large and interconnected? The group then builds a
representation of the landscape around the business -- the suppliers, clients,
competitors, and how they're interconnected. From there -- with an emphasis on
how these "agents" are interconnected -- the model can be used to explore
different scenarios, and the complex network becomes a tangible prototype with
which to develop a strategy.
Using LEGO SERIOUS PLAY, Real Time Strategy sessions also take a different
approach to the strategy outcome. Instead of being built on mission and vision
statements and a set of plans to achieve them, the company strategy is based on
a set of Simple Guiding Principles. The process delivers a shared sense of
company-direction and empowers people to make the right decisions in the face of
the unexpected.
Real Time Strategy has been enthusiastically tested by a wide range of
companies, including Tetra Pak, Hydro Aluminum and TFL in the manufacturing
sector, Orange in the telecommunications sector, and RaySono and Weberize in the
service sector, as well as a number of start-ups. "It's fast, it's fun, it's
effective," says Cliff Dennet, Head of Strategic Alignment, ORANGE Plc.
According to Jean-Louis Cheyrou, Managing Director of Tetra Pak France, "Real
Time Strategy has changed the way we worked".
"The kind of creativity and learning we instinctively accomplished through play,
when we were children, is exactly the skill needed in today's business meeting
rooms," says Bart Victor, CEO at Executive Discovery. "We've turned the LEGO
idea of open-ended play into a model for business strategy."
Executive Discovery is the corporate entity - associated with LEGO Company -
that develops and manages the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY brand.
LEGO SERIOUS PLAY is the brand concept: An adult learning tool designed to
uncover insights about business and organizations.
Real Time Strategy is the first application of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY and will be
launched in early 2002. Real Time Strategy gives insight into an organisationís
Identity, Landscape and Simple Guiding Principles in order to transform the
companyís strategic planning events into a process of continuous strategizing.
Imagination Lab Foundation is the research institution that has developed the
thoughts behind LEGO SERIOUS PLAY. For more information see:
http://www.imagilab.org
If you would like to know more about Real Time Strategy and LEGO SERIOUS PLAY
please visit:
http://www.seriousplay.com or use the contact information below.
Questions about the idea, concept and background in general.
Please contact:
Bart Victor, CEO
Tel. 001 615 397 0984
Email: bart.victor@seriousplay.com
Questions about the business set up and business model in general.
Please contact:
Robert Rasmussen, COO & Creative Director
Tel. 001 860 763 7480
Email: robert.rasmussen@seriousplay.com
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