What does and doesn’t work
with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methods online
Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
At a time when it’s urgent for us to be patient, the Internet has become an indispensable tool.
It has proven its value in helping us to stay connected and informed. But you’re also probably being bombarded with online meetings and gatherings about everything, including important high-stakes meetings, supportive Church Services, and even Billy’s 5th birthday party!
Before COVID-19, people already felt disconnected, stretched, overworked, underappreciated, unseen, unheard, misunderstood, unsupported, and drained.
Now everyone is on full alert to a deadly virus. Add to that mix working from home and being stuck in online meetings, all while watching children and adults who might be acting like children themselves, not to mention having to cook every night. And then you have to repeat the processes of sanitizing surfaces, hands, and groceries. Add in a good dose of worrying about loved ones, the economy, your personal bank account, and the future.
What we need right now are more human solutions, not high-tech solutions.
Lucky us, we have LEGO SERIOUS PLAY!
Do you remember when PowerPoint first came out and everyone jumped on board and put every report into a PP presentation? Now we know, through research, that PowerPoint causes cognitive overload and simply makes teams dumber. PowerPoint is the worst way to present because it gives the illusion of understanding where no understanding exists.
Just because we can, doesn’t mean we should take LEGO SERIOUS PLAY online, (not without expert advice).
Fast-forward to COVID-19 and an abundance of online meetings.
These are psychologically draining, because it’s harder to process nonverbal cues like facial expressions and tone of voice. We can’t fall into a natural rhythm of conversation, and we feel the tension of people starring at us. It’s hard to encourage openness in an online platform, when psychological and emotional safety do not exist. It’s simply exhausting for most people to be online with no eye contact.
For this reason, we feel strongly that in order to offer LSP in an online platform, the facilitator needs to be skilled in more than the application of LSP and the use of technology. The facilitator needs to understand how to facilitate using a human-centered approach. We have taken our lead from the work of Seymour Papert, the father of constructionist learning. Since 2017, we have been working on creative online training programs to help facilitators move from analog to digital applications, building on the LSP underpinnings and research that makes LSP so very powerful.
To learn more, take a look at our many online courses and see how you can take the Power of Play out into the world without doing harm.
Read about how we are moving the Power of Play and LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methods online here.