Ever seen a duck in LEGO brick form? No, we are not talking about the Donald Duck minifig here, but rather, the classic LEGO duck often used in LEGO SERIOUS PLAY workshops.
The duck experience is a learning point experience to show effective LEGO SERIOUS PLAY is to a large audience in the shortest amount of time. The build of the duck may come across as simple to some, but do not be fooled by its simplicity. This classic LEGO duck can actually reveal a lot about the person building it. Using myself as an example, I actually had the chance to build a duck recently in a short facilitation exercise. Here is what I come up with:
I was asked next to build a duck that represented myself. As I let my hands does its work, I come up with a slightly different build:
Same bricks used, yet different outcome? Amazing isn’t it? The setup of the the LEGO bricks is such that there can be close to endless possibilities / different combinations can be formed using the same amount of bricks. In fact, if you were to ask a crowd of 40 to build their ducks, it is possible to come with 40 different duck builds!
From a psychological viewpoint, my main take away from the activity is that although we humans is made up of the same building blocks (represented by the same brick parts in the set) but each of us have our own unique personalities and identities that sets us apart from the rest (as seen by the different duck build combinations that each of us can come up with). Lastly, different people may choose to assign different characteristics to the duck during the build (taller duck, wider legs). This demonstrates that each of us are unique and diverse individuals with different strengths and abilities. Given the right amount of nurturing and support, each of us can thrive and flourish by using our own innate strengths. ( just as how a duck could fly and soar to greater heights.)
What would your own LEGO duck look like? How would you describe your duck? I would like to hear from you by commenting below or by dropping me a message at weeyeh@thebrickpsychologist.com.