In this abbreviated story, J.T. Bergqvist*, a senior executive at Nokia Corporation, illustrates one of the major organizational challenges which LEGO SERIOUS PLAY is designed to successfully deal with.

Consider a project team consisting of Jaska, Mark, Paula and John. They gather in a meeting room. When they interact their individual effects multiply. We can illustrate the teams result from working together by multiplication: 1 x 1 x 1 x 1 = 1.

In real life, however, things do not work that way. Imagine a situation in which the first person to enter the meeting is a 50-year-old Finnish engineer, Jaska. Jaska is technically at the top of his game, but he’s somewhat of an introvert and not comfortable with spoken English.

As he comes in, he is thinking about 32-year-old Mark, an Australian engineer. Like many Aussies, Jaska has known, Mark is incredibly self-assured and articulate - a tremendous man-of- the- world who believes he knows everything.

Jaska finds him arrogant. He never listens, particularly to someone like Jaska, who is pretty awkward with spoken English. These thoughts make Jaska’s entrance rather subdued. He comes into the room having lost some of his excitement and energy, with the result that some 30 percent of his “edge” vanishes. He enters the room as a 0.7 rather than the 1 he could have been.

Mark is approaching the room through another corridor, already demoralized by his expectations of this meeting. Finnish guys are such a depressive lot. They may be pretty good technically, but you would expect them to be able to say something without having three beers first. I’m tired of sitting in saunas all the time just to have a discussion, Mark thinks. Let me try to be a little bit provocative today. Even so, by the time he walks into the room, Mark has shrunk to a 0.5.

Next to enter is Paula. She is a financial controller, who feels she always must act like a “tough broad” and finds that irritating. Of course she can play that part, but she does it at the cost of some of her sensibilities. In truth she is the loving mother of two fabulous children, but she can never talk about them with these guys, who seem to be so tough and task- oriented all the time. She enters the room as a 0.6.

The last to show up is John, a 54-year-old senior vice president of marketing. He’s a bit weary already at the prospect of meeting with these young and hungry lions. They believe they command the world. He himself is not quite as eager as he once was to board the next plane to Hong Kong. He sighs, thinking: You would expect there to be some respect for experience in our company, and enters the room as a 0.8.

Each of the team members enters less than 1, and their interaction can be summed up as follows: 0.7 x 0.5 x 0.6 x 0.8 = 0.2 - a far cry from the
1 x 1 x 1 x 1 =1 they could have achieved.

Instead imagine this:
How lucky it is that Mark could make it to the meeting, Jaska thinks. Mark is so quick on his feet, and so articulate. And because Mark knows Jaska isn’t all that comfortable with the English language and with situations in which he has to impress a lot of other people, he tends to cover for Jaska, who is now able to
enter the room as a 1.3.

For his part, Mark is thinking he’s lucky to have Jaska’s technical expertise on his team. He’s shy and even a bit innocent, Jaska is, but he has tremendous integrity. And it feels great to be able to help him out in the language department, Mark thinks. When I was working in Australia, it never occurred to me that I was particularly articulate, but it sure helps here. Mark’s thoughts give him a boost of some 20 percent, and he enters the room as a 1.2.

Imagine if Paula and John also enter the room uplifted by the projection they have of one another – adding another, let’s say 30 and 40 percent. The team’s interaction multiplies the effects: 1.3 x 1.2 x 1.3 x 1.4 = 2.83.

* SYSTEMS INTELLIGENCE, Discovering a hidden competence in human action and organizational life. 2004 Raimo P. Hamalainen and Esa Saarinen.

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