Serious Play Gazette 2005 - 2006

Zig-Zagging with Controls
Collaborative Innovation Networks or COINS
Red or Blue Innovation
The Innovation ECO - System
Better, Faster, Smarter Decision Making
Budget Season - Play with a Purpose
It takes the right brain to survive in business
Give your brain a hand

Zig-Zagging with Controls Quick links website calendar Real-Time Strategies New facilitator training program LEGO SERIOUS PLAY is a tool for teams that need to zig-zag to stay focused on their goal. Take a moment to reflect on one of the change, project or strategy development processes you have been involved in. Which of the three illustrations below best describes your experience? Pink: Everything went 100% as planned and predicted. No surprises, no changes, on time, on budget, on target. Blue: Very little went as predicted. Filled with misunderstandings, often 1 step forward and 2 steps backward, going in circles, lack of direction, delayed and off target. Yellow: We adapted to changes and continuously moved forward. We knew when to zig-zag to stay in control and maintain focus, direction and momentum. Real-Time Strategies Take risks with good intentions - is an example of a Simple Guiding Principle from a business team's Real-Time Strategy. The team's strategy aiming for radical changes to their current practice meant taking risks. This Simple Guiding Principle (1 of 6) should remind the team that it is ok to take risks, as long as you continuously heed and assess those risks.   If you experienced yellow-style there is a good chance that your team had what we call a REAL-TIME STRATEGY for strategic decision-making on the fly. A Real-Time Strategy is a dynamic and continuously changing set of Simple Guiding Principles that improves the speed and quality of the team's day-to-day critical decision-making and helps the team stay on track when deciding choice of action. The Simple Guiding Principles enable the team to heed, when to zig and when to zag. One of our areas of expertise is developing Real-Time Strategies using a LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshop. Developing a Real-Time Strategy is a 5-step process, which we will describe in the December issue of our newsletter. For a quote on a Real-Time Strategy workshop for your team, please send us an email with your contact information.   New facilitator training program Program Outline Scheduled Training   In close cooperation with the LEGO Company we are now able to offer a new 1-day training program for people interested in designing and facilitating their own LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshops. This facilitator training program is ideal for team leaders, HR staff, educators, in-house learning & development specialists and company trainers for use with their internal clients.       info@rasmussen-and-associates.com Robert Rasmussen & Associates LLC is a LEGO SERIOUS PLAY Consultancy. We build answers in real- time for challenges related to Strategy, Innovation, Identity, Team Building, Culture and Systems. We are part of global network of consultancies offering services with LEGO SERIOUS PLAY www.rasmussen- and-associates.com

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Collaborative Innovation Networks = COINs Event Calendar A central theme emerging from our work with SERIOUS PLAY is the importance of helping the individuals in a team see the entire system they are part of in order to build real commitment to shared goals. Seeing and understanding a bigger picture is also the common thread for our summer read and listen to recommendations. "If you and I swap a dollar, you and I still each have a dollar. If you and I swap an idea, you and I have two ideas".SWARM CREATIVITY Peter A. Gloor: SWARM CREATIVITY Competitive Advantage through Collaborative Innovation Networks OXFORD University Press, 2006 Carol Ross: LEADING with a WHOLE NEW MIND Podcasts about new right brain tools to bring into a left-brained world. Dan Stiff: SELL the BRAND FIRST How to Sell Your Brand and Create Lasting Customer Loyalty McGraw-Hill, 2006   Event Calendar St.Louis November 2, 2006 " What your Hands Know!" International Coach Federation Conference Professional License or In-house License for LSP Fall 2006 schedule for Training and Certification in designing and facilitating with LEGO SERIOUS PLAY       info@rasmussen-and-associates.com Robert Rasmussen & Associates is an Innovation and Strategy Development Consultancy. We design and facilitate LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshops for organizations, teams and individuals.www.rasmussen- and-associates.com

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Red or Blue Innovation Bypass logic and hit the emotions Run a metaphor message check Read-more links! We know it already: A metaphor is not an argument. Metaphors are illustrations, which we hear and perceive as arguments. That's why metaphors are a highly effective way to communicate and that's why we use (and misuse) them to get our message across. With metaphors we can explain the unknown with the known. If your business is in trouble and you don't know what to do, you are "on thin ice" which is another metaphor for not having"solid ground to stand on". Bypass logic and hit the emotions In LEGO SERIOUS PLAY we use metaphors to generate new ways of seeing and understanding things and to uncover the subconscious and unarticulated attitudes. Metaphors are a powerful way to explain the complex in a simple and memorable way, because they bypass logic and connect directly to our emotions. The bestseller (10 millions) "Who moved my cheese" doesn't have a single word about companies willingness to change, although that is the sole message of the book. The entire book is a story about what happens to a mouse that expects new cheese to arrive at its doorstep by itself. We all get the business lesson: Don't wait for the markets to find you. Go look for them and be prepared to change your habits. Of course employees are not mice and markets are not cheese, but we still buy the story without further documentation. We love metaphors, because we get to decide ourselves which insights to take away instead of being told the "right answer" by the experts.   Run a metaphor message check Where are you driving your innovation? Are you heading for the blue ocean or the red ocean, where the water is bloody from sharks fighting for a few surviving customers? There is significant research that shows how metaphors have helped businesses transform. Most used are metaphors from the four universal elements: Fire, Air, Earth and Water: The market saw its "100-year flood" and our business retreated into "fire fighting mode" until the "sky cleared" again. Metaphors can also be seductive, too simplistic and even counter productive. Do you know how yours work? You can test the strength of your preferred metaphors with this question to your team members: "Which metaphors do we use on our team and what are the they really communicating?" You can run this test the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY way by giving each team member a pile of bricks and have them build their answer individually before telling the story about their perceptions.   Read-more links! The soul of commerce Blue ocean strategy Who moved my cheese Why nice guys finish last       info@rasmussen-and-associates.com Robert Rasmussen & Associates is an Innovation and Strategy Development Consultancy. We design and facilitate LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshops for organizations, teams and individuals.www.rasmussen- and-associates.com

The Innovation ECO - System The Mind-Set The unlocking LEGO SERIOUS PLAY Workshops Imagine THAT! Amazon.com lists 11,356 books with the word innovation in the title and 521 titles featuring the word "innovator". 60% to 80% of new products are not on the shelf three years after they have been launched. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, only 6% of the workforce is engaged in creative occupations. In 1940 the U.S. Census Bureau eliminated the title "inventor" as a job category. The Mind-Set When companies designate only certain people as "innovators" and others as "helpers" or "implementers", everyone loses out. Recognize the great untapped genius that lies within everyone. Mind-Set of the Innovator We often think of innovators as right-brained geniuses, which would make the rest of us left-brained goofs. Experts agree this is a misleading notion. Innovators do however have something in common. Judith E. Glaser, author of Creating We: Changing I-Thinking to We- Thinking & Build a Healthy, Thriving Organization, has compiled this list of 10 common innovator traits. Breaks rules Humble yet confident Persistent Willing to experiment, experiment, experiment Connects random ideas Open to the universe Aptitude for metaphors Has a beginners mind Comfortable with ambiguity Optimistic   The unlocking Innovation is ongoing. It's a mistake to think of product development or campaign development as finite processes. Keep this "in mind" the next time you go blank Google may be the ultimate keeper of Internet secrets, but those goofy digits at the end of your arm are really a biological search engine. On average our hands are connected to 70% to 80% of our brain cells. Because our brains can only handle so much information at once, we know a lot more at any given moment than we think we know. But how does one unlock that information? Playing and building models with your hands are the most efficient ways to pull all your thoughts together, including ones you didn't know you had. Need to do some unlocking in your team? Use these exercizes to activate your "biological search engine"   LEGO SERIOUS PLAY Workshops Read about our Innovation Mining Programs Introductory Innovation workshop for large teams A LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshop from start to finish Would like more information about LEGO SERIOUS PLAY A LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshop from start to finish Client experiences with our workshops       info@rasmussen-and-associates.com Robert Rasmussen & Associates LLC plans, designs, facilitates and incorpates workshops with LEGO SERIOUS PLAY www.rasmussen- and-associates.com

Better, Faster, Smarter Decision Making - Program Update Better Faster Smarter Decisions are the essence of management. They are what managers do (or avoid doing). But if those decisions are to have an impact, the organization must also, as a whole, decide to carry them out. With LEGO SERIOUS PLAY we now design and facilitate decision making sessions for teams pertaining to important problems or strategic matters that involve debate and potentially conflict of interest. Better "In most companies, strategic planning isn't about making decisions. It's about documenting choices that have already been made, often haphazardly. Leading firms are rethinking their approach to strategy dev. so they can make more, better and faster decisions." (*) LEGO SERIOUS PLAY used as the decision- making tool allows for all opinions, data, assumptions and options to be identified and fairly discussed. It invites a full range of views including unpleasant truths, spontaneously offered. And it points the way to action. What makes the tool work? Decision-making becomes a dialogue that encourages incisiveness and creativity and brings coherence to seemingly fragmented and unrelated ideas. Creating a setting that fosters openness, candor and informality let us surface conflicts and draw energy from the different viewpoints instead of creating frustrations. When decision-making becomes a search for truth rather than a contest, people feel emotionally committed to the outcome. The outcome seems "right" because people have helped shape it. This builds energy, commitment and readiness to act. (Ram Charan, Conquering a culture of indecision, HBR 2001)   Faster Subconsciously we tend to decide what to do before figuring out why we want to do it Try this: See the big picture in a flash For one of your team meetings bring a LEGO mini-pack for each team member. Ask them to build - individually and without talking about it - their answer to this question: How can we in your opinion improve our decision-making in general and why is that your solution? When you have everyone tell the stories about their LEGO models you will experience how fast the entire team sees the diversity in both solution ideas and rationales. Seeing the big picture   Smarter "Only 11% of executives are highly satisfied that strategic planning is worth the effort." Research in 2005 by Marakon Associates and the Economist Intelligence Unit among senior executivesfrom 156 global companies on the disconnect betweenplanning and decision-making. * Michael C. Mankins, managing partner of Marakon Associates, San Francisco.       info@rasmussen-and-associates.com Robert Rasmussen & Associates is an Innovation and Strategy Development Consultancy. We are designers and facilitators of processes, through which organizations, teams and individuals can solve complex challenges and improve the speed and strategic quality of their decision-making on all levels. www.rasmussen- and-associates.com

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BUDGET SEASON - PLAY WITH A PURPOSE Topics the link to play play out your nightmares why work needs play Quick Links For many of us November means budgeting. We have gathered and spent countless hours of work using our imagination in order to: 1. Imagine what sales and costs could be in the future! 2. Talk about things we will do (produce) in the future. 3. We do this, agreeing to follow a specific set of rules. (accounting and number language) We have created a budget. The budget has no real value in itself. Customers will not buy from us, just because we have a budget. We make budgets because we believe we will be better prepared for producing something real that customers will pay us money for. Budgeting is play with numbers and imagination to prepare us for the future. It is play with a purpose or serious play. the link to play Play can "drive home" abstract concepts that may otherwise be difficult to comprehend Play is a Meeting Form In its purest sense, play in organizations is simply a meeting form. The kind of meeting where people decide to gather because they want to talk, think, discuss, brainstorm, etc. about a specific problem or situation, and how it might be solved or improved. They want to use their imagination to describe what is right now, how it could be better, or how it could be completely different. Consider Strategic Planning. 1) We imagine where the company could be in the future, 2) we are not directly productive, but preparing for being productive, 3) we play by a special set of rules (strategy language). Seriously - this is play with a purpose.   play out your nightmares WHAT IF the competition kills our cashcow. Playing it out NOW is risk free Back to your budget. How robust is your budget IF the unexpected happens? How prepared are you in your mind? Try the Budget- Nightmare Challenge and play out your worst case scenario. Here is how: Use your thinking bricks and 6 - 8 minutes to build a LEGO model so you can tell this story to a colleague: "If THIS event happens it will seriously impact our budget. IF it happens - here is what we can do and what I believe we should do! To learn more about the special LEGO SERIOUS PLAY bricks and how to buy them, click here..   why work needs play Play can release thoughts that are locked in the head and the heart Play gives the Organization the "Edge" Research shows that when people mentally prepare for a task, they activate that part of the brain that performs executive functions and moves them into action. Without preparation, the brain does not activate in advance. Playing with the possibilities, consequences, risks, could-do and should-do, pre-activates us mentally so when we have to take actions we do so with greater speed and confidence. Play helps release thoughts that are locked in the head and the heart, and lets you experiment, explore and take risks with ideas without fearing consequences that might happen in real life.   Quick Links Check out previous issues of The Serious Play Gazette September 2005 It takes the right brain to survive in business July 2005 Give your brain a hand For the application of SERIOUS PLAY to Business Planning, Innovation, Team Building and Change Management www.rasmussen-and- associates.com       info@rasmussen-and-associates.com Robert Rasmussen & Associates are designers and facilitators of processes, through which organizations, teams and individuals can solve complex challenges and improve the speed and strategic quality of their decision-making on all levels. RR&A is a licensed LEGO SERIOUS PLAY Partner.

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IT TAKES THE RIGHT BRAIN TO SURVIVE IN BUSINESS Topics Right - Brain Directed Thinking Will you survive? It's 2 brains in concert Quick links From Daniel Pink's latest book: A WHOLE NEW MIND - moving from the information age to the conceptual age "We've moved from an economy built on people's backs (industrial age) to an economy built on people's left brains (information age) to what is emerging today: an economy and society built more and more on people's right brains (conceptual age). To survive in this age, we must become more proficient in R - Directed Thinking and master aptitudes that are high concept and high touch. We must perform work that overseas knowledge workers can't do cheaper, that computer's can't do faster and that satisfies the aesthetic, emotional, and spiritual demands of a prosperous time." Right - Brain Directed Thinking "I don't see any problems here" (Understanding humor and metaphors is R- Brain work) What this thinking brings to the table The left brain participates in the analysis of information. The right brain is specialized for synthesis and is particularly good at putting isolated elements together to percieve things as a whole. The left can grasp the details. But only the right can see the big picture. The right brain hemisphere has a special talent for interpreting things simultaneously and seeing many things at once; the left is good at seeing serial events. The right brain specializes in context. The left deals with text. It handles what is said; the right understands how it is said - interpreting the nonverbal and emotional cues.   Will you survive? Building, using metaphors, making stories are activities that increase R - brain directed problem solving Take the SERIOUS PLAY OBITUARY challenge, to find out Take 5 - 7 minutes and build a LEGO model so you can tell this story to a colleague or friend: "Here is what the world truly will be deprived from IF my job or organization passes away? It is about what overseas knowledge workers can't do cheaper, computers can't do faster, and that satisfies my costumer's aesthetic and emotional desires" Click here to read the 2-step HOW TO guide for building and story-making with LEGO SERIOUS PLAY Click here to get the special LEGO SERIOUS PLAY bricks   It's 2 brains in concert "However tempting it is to talk of right and left hemispheres in isolation, they are actually two half- brains, designed to work together as a smooth, single, integrated whole in one entire, complete brain.The left hemisphere knows how to handle logic and the right hemisphere knows about the world. Put the two together and one gets a powerful thinking machine. Use either on its own and the results can be bizarre or absurd". (Chris McManus, Right Hand Left Hand)   Quick links To read more about A WHOLE NEW MIND by Daniel Pink www.danpink.com Being able to see the BIG PICTURE is the one competence CEO star performers have in common. Read more.. Link to previous issues of the SERIOUS PLAY Gazette Visit www.rasmussen-and- associates.com for information on how to get LEGO SERIOUS PLAY for your organization or send us a request.       contact@rasmussen-and-associates.com Robert Rasmussen & Associates is an independant LEGO SERIOUS PLAY Partner. We design and facilitate LEGO SERIOUS PLAY sessions for companies and organizations globally. We also train and certify companies in facilitating LEGO SERIOUS PLAY within their own organization

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GIVE YOUR BRAIN A HAND In this issue About the Science Step 1 - building Step 2 - story making Quick links Welcome to Issue no.1 Research shows that hands-on, minds-on learning produces a deeper, more meaningful understanding of the world and its possibilities - much more so than listening and reading. LEGO SERIOUS PLAY is grounded in this research. It is a hands-on language for business - a tool that lets your mind form and organize new thoughts. Our aspiration with the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY Gazette 1) To give you examples of how to experience LEGO SERIOUS PLAY for your personal thinking and problem solving about business. 2) To bring you the latest about the applications, development, and science of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY. About the Science "Building Knowledge by Building Things" More about the theory Learning goes much deeper when you have a hand in it. When you make something using your hands, a complex mental process takes over that endows the experience with a powerful emotional charge. People are changed significantly and irreversibly when building, thought and feeling fuse during the active pursuit of personal meaningful goals. Knowledge gained during such a process "sinks deeper" into the subsoil of the brain and recall is better. Human beings are simply wired that way.   Step 1 - building - or build what you like the LEAST about your job   Trying out the LEGO SERIOUS PLAY technique Think of a 9 year old girl or boy that you know. It can be your own child, the neighbors, a friends or a niece/nephew or! Next get a hold of a pile of LEGO bricks. Ideally the special selection used for LEGO SERIOUS PLAY, if you have some! Read More.. Now use a maximum of 5 min. to build a model that can tell the story about: WHAT YOU LIKE THE MOST ABOUT YOUR JOB Don't plan - just build and keep the 9 year old in mind!   Step 2 - story making "What I like the most about........."   The Story is in your hands When you are done building, find a listener. Someone who will pretend they are your "9 year old friend". Building the model is only half of the process. When you tell the story your mind will make even more connections and you will experience that you unconsciously have included more knowledge and ideas than you were consciously aware of. You will experience how the bricks work as a catalyst for your mind.   Quick links Applications: Innovation Mining with LEGO SERIOUS PLAY White Paper: Helping Organizations Function Optimally in the Moment Background The history of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY For more information LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshops and events Contact       robert@rasmussen-and-associates.com Robert Rasmussen & Associates is an independant LEGO SERIOUS PLAY Partner. We design and facilitate LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshops for companies and organizations globablly. We also train and certify companies in facilitating LEGO SERIOUS PLAY within their own organization. www.rasmussen-and-associates.com

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