Over the weekend, I was given the opportunity to co-facilitate a LEGO® SERIOUSPLAY® workshop on discovering personal values for members of HOPE Alliance, together with CertifiedLEGO® SERIOUSPLAY® facilitator, Gerald Ong. Under Gerald’s guidance, I was thankful that I was given the chance to be able to ‘walk the ground’ and have a sense of what it actually takes to facilitate discussions on the topic of personal values with LEGO® Bricks.
A pile LEGO® Bricks in the middle of the table during the start session starts.
The building experience was both meaningful and insightful for the participants, as they fiddled with the bricks and engaged in construction of metaphors and told their own personal stories with the help of the construction blocks. Brick by brick, participants begin to craft their own individual stories and eventually, discovered what really matters to them in life.
As for myself, I have my own takeaways from the session as well. I will highlight 3 of them below.
1. To be an effective facilitator, one need to exercise both active listening and empathy
Leading a constructive discussion as a facilitator takes skill and finesse. An effective facilitator needs to stay present throughout the session and ask the right questions in order to uncover insights that lies beyond the surface. For that to happen, it is necessary to engage in active listening. It is also important that the facilitator remain emphatic towards the participant and to keep an open mind to what the participant have to say, as this will help the facilitator to build rapport.
2. Even though people share the same values, they could express them differently
During the session, it was evident that the participants share the same, if not similar values. Yet, it was interesting to note that when asked to build models to represent their values, each of them come up with different models to represent their values. For example, one participant built a tree like structure to represent the personal value of health, while another participant who shares the same value built a model representing a treadmill instead. To be an effective facilitator, it is important to remain open and receptive towards diverse (sometimes even conflicting) views without passing judgement.
3. Values can transmitted from one person to another, sometimes even without the other person realizing it themselves
There is some truth to the saying that values can be either “taught” or “caught”. During the session, a participant used the bricks to build a hill like structure to represent her personal value. When asked to reflect on the building process, the participant shared she got the idea from another participant, who happened to build a similar model in a previous building exercise. Similarly, we also tend to ‘catch’ our personal values from people or cultures that exerts considerable influence in our lives, such as parents, teachers and even our work supervisors.
To LEGO® SERIOUSPLAY® facilitators reading this post, how did your first facilitator session went and what did you take away from it? I welcome you to leave your comments below.
Interesting and well put! It is amazing and one can never underestimate the value of play, which this transcends exponentially. I am a huge fan of LEGO and have been my entire life. I am now 48 and wish to further integrate this power beyond play into my life. If nothing more, I aim to help others somehow see and utilize this power… their power. Thank You. WE CAN SAVE THE WORLD WITH LEGO! Jevon (from Greater Vancouver, BC, Canada)
Thank you Jevon! Yes, the power of play is indeed tremendous and has the ability to transform the way we see things.