Mission Vision and Values with Lego Serious Play
Building our Organisational Culture
By PEDRO SOLÓRZANO
The vision or mission statements of companies or departments are often lengthy. They have been formulated by several people who wanted to include something. They are not always memorable and most employees cannot recite them and many do not even understand what they mean, let alone support them.
This article is not so much about the need for a short and succinct vision or mission statement – I hope that is already obvious – but about how one particular tool, LEGO® Serious Play®, can be used to create a short, succinct and memorable vision or mission statement. At the same time, support it with Core Values and commit to actions that will be prioritised and mandated to be carried out by the different change committees.
Lego® Serious Play® is a fun facilitated process that uses LEGO bricks to help discover new insights, while giving all group members a voice and confidence to participate and converge in a shared commitment.
This process of mission, vision and values with Lego Serious Play took place at CTV (Componentes de Tráfico Vertical) in Malaga at the beginning of October with a group of leaders representing all departments of the company. The Lego® Serious Play® methodology was used to help this group of 21 leaders and decision-makers spread across 3 tables to achieve a remarkable result.
In planning the session I facilitated, I focused on two of the main outcomes, which was to establish the vision and values statement to adapt to these new times.
After warm-up activities to familiarise them with the process, I asked each person to construct an individual model representing their “new CTV”. Next, each table constructed a shared model from the sum of the individual models and was asked to remove the leftover bricks while maintaining the same meaning of the new combined model. Once finished, each of the tables explained their “new CTV to all participants.
The whole group managed to build “the best CTV” and to explain the model.
To end the day, two activities remained, the first was to make a shared landscape of “our best CTV” which included the shared vision of all the people in the room. They re-engaged as a single team removing the leftover bricks while maintaining the essence of the overall meaning, they were to remove as many leftover bricks as they could. The whole group managed to build “the best CTV” and to explain the model.
Then, after a round of discussion, we did it! A new six-word mission statement “Sustainable progress through tailor-made service” and all agreed. In a matter of two and a half hours, we had achieved something that could have taken them days and now they had a succinct message on which to thrive in this new phase of CTV.
“Sustainable progress through tailor-made service”.
During the second half-day, as planned, in the first part and following the Lego® Serious Play® methodology, each person was asked to build a model that represents a fundamental value for “our new CTV”. Once constructed, all participants were asked to vote with three tokens for the models whose values were fundamental to sustaining the Vision. At the end of the voting they chose these core values:
“Trust, Coordination, Commitment, Adaptability, Teamwork, Unity and Drive”.
These models were placed around the vision in order to make it sustainable.
In the second part and following the methodology to establish the Mission, Vision and Values with Lego® Serious Play®, each person was asked to build a model representing an action to get closer to “our CTV”. Once they had been constructed, each table was asked to vote on the 3 actions that would drive them to achieve the Vision.
Nine actions emerged that the strategic committee decided to implement by setting priorities and available resources.
At the end of these two half-day sessions, the group constantly referred to the incredible experience of the process that LEGO Serious Play allowed them to experience and felt proud of what they had created and above all motivated by the compromises they had made to bring it to fruition.
Establishing the Mission Vision and Values with Lego Serious Play with a Certified Facilitator in LEGO® Serious Play® materials and methodologies ensures that your company has a very powerful and effective tool to engage all team members, planned and facilitated in an optimal, personalised and accountable way.
