My colleague Ken Perlman is a devoted father of two girls.
He feels that many of the lessons learned in fatherhood apply, on a certain level,
to teaching our clients change leadership. Here he shares the parallels between
building a complex LEGO set with his daughters and coaching a client through
transformational change.
As
my daughters and I tackled a three-day LEGO project, I realized that what makes
these projects so fun and satisfying are the same things that help my clients
love leading change in their organizations.
Now,
we all know “love” and “change” don’t get used in the same sentence very often,
but some of the same principles that made for a wonderful, LEGO-filled weekend
with my girls are also at work with my clients. These principles are present
with my larger clients (thousands of employees around the globe) as well as my
smaller ones (a few hundred employees in one location).
So
here they are – lessons in leadership courtesy of LEGO.
Lesson #1: Start with what success looks like. LEGO provides a complete – and exciting – picture of the
final product right there on the box. It always looks AWESOME. There is
little mention of the number of bags, number of pieces, number of steps, and so
on (which would only deflate your excitement). You fall in love with the end
result before you even buy. After buying the set, you feel that the finished
project is just a few steps away because you already know what success looks
like – and it looks AWESOME. Many times, executives outline the daunting and
time-consuming strategies required to get from today to tomorrow – deflating
excitement – rather than building momentum around the picture of the finished
product. Most fail to paint or show a clear (AWESOME) picture of what success
looks like. It’s this picture that makes people fall in love with the idea;
that makes them eager to spend their time putting all the pieces together to
make it a happen.
Lesson #2: Consider interchangeable parts. It’s rare, but occasionally, there are missing LEGO blocks.
Instead of stop-mode, these challenges put my daughters into innovation-mode –
they pull out their bucket of spare parts to find what we need and we keep
building away. How many times have our colleagues said, “That won’t work
because …” or “We’ve already tried that”? Although these excuses
occasionally save us some time not repeating old mistakes, it’s unusual that we
go back to see what pieces (lessons, learning, accomplishments, etc.) can be
reapplied. Often times people, tools, resources, and lessons are there for the
picking, it’s just rare that we go back to those buckets to get them.
Lesson #3: Instructions are only so helpful. The instructions are great, usually. But there are cases
where you simply cannot tell which round peg goes into which square hole (with
LEGOS, literally). Whereas I turn the instructions round-and-round, flipping
ahead to get another view, my daughters simply put things together as best they
can. They say, “Let’s try it and see if it works.” This fearless
experimentation is a critical element to accelerating innovation. What’s the
worst thing that could happen? With LEGOS, the consequences are nil. In many
business or organizations there are real risks. But, more often than not, the
main risk is not the unforeseen consequences, but in the risk of being seen as
wrong. By eliminating that fear, we increase our ability to iterate in
fast cycles. It is key for leadership to encourage and reward those who
experiment, learn, and build.
Lesson #4: It’s more fun when more people are working
together. Working on a LEGO project on your
own is great. But sharing the experience with my daughters (or more
specifically them sharing it with me) is so much more fun. My clients find it
easier to get 100 people to volunteer one hour each than to get any one person
to find 100 free hours. The different people, perspectives, and experiences
make for open collaboration. Each volunteer brings different strengths,
allowing the innovation to go faster, further, and freer.
Lesson #5: The quality of the final product relies upon the
input of imagination. When I was
growing up there were few custom LEGO parts, perhaps a wheel or a windshield.
Today, there are a huge number of set-specific parts (e.g., tools, flip-up
cockpits, weapon launchers, etc.). Yet my daughters still make modifications
or, in their words, “improvements.” One daughter built a LEGO motorcycle which
was destroyed when she sent it down hardwood stairs. Instead of being
bummed out, she saw an opportunity. “Now I can make it better,” she
said. “It was too heavy to go as fast as I want it to.” She stripped it
down, leaned it out, and launched it again. At the end of the day, it all comes
down to the builder’s imagination.
Look,
as a leader, you set the tone for how your employees experience large-scale
change. You could be the one that enables fearless (but informed) innovation
and experimentation – or you can be the one holding up the instruction book
saying, “That’s not how we do it.” The choice is yours.
By
the way, friends at LEGO, Star Wars X-Wing … Best. LEGO. Ever.
Ken Perlman is an engagement leader at Kotter
International, a firm that helps leaders accelerate strategy
implementation in their organizations. Follow
Kotter International on Twitter @KotterIntl, on Facebook,
or on LinkedIn. Sign up for the
Kotter International Newsletter.This article is available online at:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnkotter/2013/09/24/leadership-lessons-from-lego/
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