Case Stories
Albemarle County Schools
Novo Nordisk
Blue Ridge Bank
Vodaphone

Client Case Stories
Entertainment Industry:
"I am willing to give this merger a chance, but I want to let you know that I brought my 'weapons' just in case". This was the opening statement from one of the managers in the food service department, when we started our 2 day merger workshop with an entertainment company. The company had decided to merge its operations department (A) with its food services department (B). The manager for (A) would be heading the new combined department. The climate between the two management teams was hostile and untrusting, among other because B felt their contribution wasn't valued very high and A tended to behave more as if this was a "take-over" rather than a merger. With our Real Time Strategy approach we managed to successfully clear the air and build a shared understanding of their combined business landscape. Through testing a number of scenarios for the future the new team fully committed to both short and long term vision and goals. All "weapons" were off the table, trust was reestablished and direction was decided.

Space:
In response to the Colombia shuttle disaster, NASA put together a team of their best engineers to create the NASA Engineering Safety Center—a cross-organizational group with the responsibility of ensuring safety in NASA programs. The team kick-off was a five-day event, after which the head of the new group would be reporting out to Congress on the mission of this group. The request from NASA was firm: “We need a team-building session, no more than 6 hours in length that enables these forty hand-picked scientists from all parts of NASA to align around the mission of this new team. Oh, and by the way, there will be more than one skeptic in the room, given that most of these people are career NASA employees that have experienced numerous team-building sessions in the past. They believe they have seen it all and done it all, so why should this be any different? Can you help?” We said yes to the request from NASA and decided to use LEGO SERIOUS PLAY. The process worked very well, even with engineers used to working in their heads and on whiteboards. To the surprise of many, the team found that building with their hands improved their thinking—the depth of insight, the clarity of ideas, and the speed with which it all took place. And in the end, the group rallied around their new mission, saw the larger picture develop from multiple perspectives, and increased their commitment to the work because they had a hand in defining it.

Engineering:
"Thank you for helping me communicate". A remark from an employee in a nationwide engineering consultancy company highly specialized in very specific aspects of large-scale construction projects. They therefore had several regional offices through-out the country. However their expertise in reality covered a greater scope of expertise than they were generally known for. The leadership team wanted to effectively tackle three issues in a limited time 1) Get the regional people to know each other better 2) Brain-storm ideas for improving synergy between the regional offices 3) Get everyone to practice "selling" the company uniqueness and ancillary services. Our customized LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshop accomplished the objectives to everyone's full satisfaction. Reflecting on lessons learned after the two day conference the number one observation for the president was: " I learned how many creative people we have during the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY session".


Technology Manufacturing:
"We continued talking about the business scenarios after the workshop. My team wants to discuss a different scenario at each staff meeting and they want to get together once a quarter, face-to-face. The staff meeting will be much more about how we can help each other. This is how the team leader for a logistics management team described one of the outcomes of our Team Strategy sessions for her organization. The challenge for the management team was the need to operate as a highly integrated team based on a thorough understanding of each members functions, responsibilities and constraints. This can be a challenge for any team. The added complexity here was the virtual nature of team. They were located in different parts of the country and this was the first time this exact team gathered face-to-face. For the team leader it essential that they both accomplished their goals for the gathering and became a real team 'overnight'. "Dinner that night was so different from the previous night. They had become a team."

Case Stories
Albemarle County Schools
Novo Nordisk
Blue Ridge Bank
Vodaphone