Why LEGO® Serious Play® works: The power of metaphor and equal voice
This is part 2 of a four-part series on why LEGO® Serious Play® works.
Read Part 1 here: The cognitive foundations.
In Part 1, we explored the cognitive science behind LEGO® Serious Play®: how constructionist learning, embodied cognition, and flow states create conditions for deep individual engagement. The methodology’s power extends beyond how individuals think. It fundamentally transforms how groups communicate and collaborate.
Two mechanisms are particularly critical: the use of metaphor to unlock new ways of expressing complex ideas, and a structured process that ensures every voice is truly heard. Together, these create the foundation for genuine co-creation.
Metaphor and meaning-making: Speaking a visual language
LEGO® Serious Play® leverages the power of metaphor to help participants express complex ideas. Through the creation of symbolic three-dimensional models, the methodology draws on storytelling and metaphor to create opportunities for meaning-making (Ajibade & Hayes, 2022).
This metaphorical approach serves multiple purposes. First, it provides a safe distance from potentially sensitive topics, allowing participants to discuss challenging issues without feeling personally exposed. When someone builds a model showing their team as a boat in stormy waters, they can talk about the waves, the direction of the wind, and whether everyone has an oar, all without directly criticising specific colleagues or pointing fingers. The metaphor creates psychological safety.
Second, metaphor activates different cognitive pathways, engaging both analytical and creative thinking. Research shows that metaphorical thinking helps us understand abstract concepts by grounding them in concrete, physical experiences. When you build a tower to represent organisational hierarchy, or use transparent bricks to show clarity of communication, you’re creating tangible representations of intangible concepts (McCusker & Swan, 2018).
Third, metaphor creates a universal language that transcends differences in experience, function, education, or culture. A leader and a frontline employee, despite their different organisational perspectives, can both understand and contribute to a conversation about “building bridges” or “removing barriers” when these concepts are literally constructed in LEGO®.
Research in higher education contexts has demonstrated that LEGO® Serious Play® enables students to construct understanding around topics where there is no single answer, encouraging listening to and valuing different perspectives (Ajibade & Hayes, 2022). The visual and tactile nature of the models makes abstract concepts easier to discuss and understand, reducing complexity and enabling valuable knowledge sharing.
In my workshops, I’ve seen participants express ideas through their models that they’ve struggled to articulate for months in regular meetings. The metaphorical distance creates permission to be honest, while the physical model gives them a concrete way to show, not just tell, what they mean.
Equal voice: Democratizing participation
One of the most transformative aspects of LEGO® Serious Play® is its ability to create genuinely inclusive participation. Traditional meeting formats often result in an 80/20 dynamic, where 20% of participants dominate 80% of the conversation. We’ve all been in meetings where the same voices speak while others remain silent, not because they lack insight, but because they lack opportunity or confidence to contribute.
LEGO® Serious Play® disrupts this pattern by requiring that everyone builds and shares. The methodology’s structure ensures that each participant has dedicated time to construct their response before any discussion begins. This built-in thinking time levels the playing field, allowing introverts, non-native speakers, and those who process information more slowly to participate fully (McCusker, 2020).
Research has confirmed that this approach successfully enables equality of voice within diverse groups, negating power imbalances in relation to the co-construction of knowledge (McCusker, 2020). The phrase “everybody’s monkey is important” captures this beautifully as every model, every story, every perspective matters equally in the process.
Furthermore, because the focus is on the models rather than the people who built them, discussions can become more intense and focused on the actual issues and problems, with personal conflicts minimised (Zenk et al., 2018). When we’re discussing “this model shows…” rather than “you said…” or “I think…”, the conversation shifts from positional debate to collaborative exploration.
The equal voice principle operates on multiple levels:
Time equity: Everyone gets the same amount of time to build and to share. The facilitator protects this sacred space. No one can dominate, and no one can hide.
Process equity: Everyone follows the same process. Whether you’re the CEO or an intern, you build your own model with your own hands. There’s no delegating this work.
Listening equity: The structured sharing process means everyone must listen to everyone else’s story. You can’t check your phone or prepare your rebuttal while others are speaking. You’re actively engaged in understanding their model.
This creates what I call “democratised wisdom”. The collective intelligence that emerges when every perspective is not just heard but genuinely valued and integrated into the group’s understanding.
From communication to culture
When metaphor enables deeper expression and equal voice ensures full participation, something remarkable happens: the group begins to co-create not just solutions, but the relational foundation needed for those solutions to work.
This is where LEGO® Serious Play® moves from being a facilitation technique to being a culture-building methodology. And it’s where the methodology intersects powerfully with concepts of authenticity, belonging, and psychological safety.
In Part 3, we’ll explore how these communication and participation mechanisms create the conditions for people to bring their authentic selves to co-creation, and why this matters for building genuine belonging in teams and organisations.
- Ajibade, S.-S. M., & Hayes, N. (2022). LEGO® Serious Play® as a non-traditional research method. In Humanities and Social Sciences Communications.
- McCusker, S. (2020). Everybody’s monkey is important: LEGO® Serious Play® as a methodology for enabling equality of voice within diverse groups. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 43(2), 146-162.
- McCusker, S., & Swan, J. C. (2018). The use of metaphors with LEGO® Serious Play® for harmony and innovation. International Journal of Management and Applied Research, 5(4), 174-192.
- Zenk, L., Stadtfeld, C., & Windhager, F. (2018). How to support intuitive decision-making through visualisation. In European Conference on Information Systems.
