Lego pieces are being used by management consultancies to help companies explore their strategies and organizational issues through metaphorical models. Companies like PricewaterhouseCoopers and Google use Lego building exercises in recruiting to demonstrate a creative work environment. The Danish Lego company has a "Serious Play" program where consultants use Lego to coach managers, having them build representations of concepts like corporate strategy. These workshops can produce insightful revelations for participants about issues within their companies. The use of Lego is effective because play allows unconscious thoughts to emerge in "Eureka" moments of understanding.

1. 19/12/2014 Management: Piecing things together | The Economist
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Management
Piecing things together
What companies can learn from playing with Lego
WHEN recruiting at British universities, PricewaterhouseCoopers, a consultancy,
presents candidates with an unusual exercise. They are asked to build a tall and sturdy
tower using the smallest possible number of snap-­together Lego bricks. Similarly, at
Google Games, a recruiting event first staged by the search-­engine giant in April,
candidates are invited to build Lego bridges—the stronger the better. In each case, the
company is trying to convey the idea that it offers a creative, fun working environment. “It
was as much advertising as a way of trying to get recruits,” says Brett Daniel, a student at
the University of Illinois at Urbana-­Champaign who built the Google Games' weakest
bridge.
The eponymous Danish firm, based in Billund, Denmark, has embraced the corporate
use of its coloured plastic bricks. As part of a scheme called “Serious Play” it is certifying
a growing number of professional Lego consultants, now present in 25 countries. They
coach managers by getting them to build “metaphorical abstractions” of such things as
corporate strategy, says Lego's Jesper Jensen, who runs the scheme. Hisham El-­Gamal
of Quest, a management consultancy based in Cairo that offers Serious Play workshops,
says demand for the two-­day, $7,000 courses is booming.
Firms in crisis, such as those besmirched by scandal or in the throes of a takeover, tend
to be most receptive to the idea of Lego workshops, says François de Boissezon of
Imagics, a consultancy based in Brussels. The results can be embarrassing, particularly
for senior managers. Tsai Yu-­Chen of UGene Mentor, a Serious Play consultancy based
in Taipei, says a common exercise is modelling, but not naming, “the people you hate
most”. One chief executive was modelled as a figure so fat that he blocked a hallway,
suggesting he was clogging up the company.
Lego workshops are effective because child-­like play is a
form of instinctive behaviour not regulated by conscious
thought, says Lucio Margulis of Juego Serio, a consultancy
in Buenos Aires. This produces “Eureka” moments: a
perfectionist who realises the absurdity of frustration over an
imperfect Lego construction;; the owner of a firm with dismal
customer relations who models headquarters as a fort under
siege;; or an overbearing boss who depicts his staff as
soldiers headed into battle. Even in the office, it seems,
Lego has a part to play.
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