Hands on! LSP Facilitators in an LSP workshop! [Photo by Lucio Margulis]
Every year, when April comes, LSP facilitators know that a great inspiring event is in the air. It’s the annual LEGO SERIOUS PLAY facilitators’ meeting, the most exciting event for those who practice and experience the power of LEGO bricks as a Facilitation tool. Every year an increasing number of facilitators gather in Billund, Denmark, the place where LEGO was born in 1934.
LSP is a tool which has been developed at the end of the ’90s at IMD in Switzerland based on the studies of Johan Roos and Bart Victor who introduced the “serious play” concept and process as a way to enable managers to describe, create and challenge the views of their business. The Serious Play approach was then further developed and brought into LEGO SERIOUS PLAY by Robert Rasmussen, who worked at LEGO at that time, and who is the main architect of the LSP methodology and one of the most inspiring and LSP enthusiast.
Ciro Pirondi came to Ferrara, in Italy, to present an exhibition dedicated to Niemeyer at Restauro 2013 and here it is, where we met.
I ask him to introduce himself. He looks at me and smiles gently – ‘I am an architect’ – he says humbly – ‘and I am emotional to be here, as this is where my father comes from… from Emilia…’
He is a kind man, very gentle. I explain him about the interviewing process, he smiles curious and when I ask him, he just plays with the bricks.
I ask him about Niemeyer. He looks at his model for a while, and makes some adjustments.
‘To talk about Niemeyer, I need a tower with curves… lots of curves, as Niemeyer loved curves…something like this!’ he says showing me the model.
‘Niemeyer used to say that he loved curves a lot, because curves reflect Einstain’s universe, they reflect the loved woman, and they remind Rio de Janeiro’s mountains… And he really loved curves. ‘ And by keeping the model in his hands and looking at it, he goes on.
LEGO-interviews are an innovative investigative method to delve into reality developed by Patrizia Bertini starting from the basic theoretical principles of constructionism and from a deep knowledge and experience with underlying LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP).
This interviewing method has been developed to challenge traditional journalism, as an attempt to explore the world through other people’s perception of reality and their views.
Journalistic interviews are generally based on well defined dynamics, on journalists’ capacity and on a constant tension between the interviewer and the interviewees. There is a large literature about this and there are experts who specifically train politicians and influent public people on how to handle and conduct interviews in order to dominate the conversation and to provide a good and safe image of themselves. And there are also a number of books and essays that teach journalists how to make effective interviwes. Everything is codified, recognisable and known.
LEGO-interviews’ challenge is that of radically changing the psychological and relational dynamics between the journalist and the interviewee so that the cognitive processes underlying the interaction are completely different: the interviewer and the interviewee are not anymore opponents but they collaborate, they literally construct the interview together with an original process that produces unexpected contents which most the time surprise the interviewees too.
After the pic, here it is a fun clip of what happened during the LegoInterview with Francesca Valan.
It’s a short clip, just to make you feel the atmosphere and let you have a taste of the experience.
A bit thanks to Pietro for the amazing editing!
[I apologise, the video is available only in Italian now – the whole LegoView will be available shortly, with English Subtitles].
LWs is an unique investigative method and reading the outcomes of such a process is limiting and doesn’t give a detailed insight into the whole cognitive process.
This video shows you how a LegoView happen: it refers to Aysar’s interview which has already been transcribed and published and it was filmed and edited by Gaetano Veninata and Daniela Sala.
A big thank you to you guys, you have done an amazing work!
I was walking around Jerusalem’s bus station looking at the stalls and the shops when this young man stops me to show me his production. He is kind, he asks me where I am from, we start talking. ‘So, you are a designer, a creative person right?’ I ask him. He nods proudly. ‘Would you like to be part of an experiment with this…’ I ask him while showing him the LEGO bricks. He is puzzled and at the end he accepts.
We go to a cafe and I do not waste time: ‘What is Israel?’ He stares at me and at the bricks. ‘With this pieces it sounds hard…! Should it be the present or what…’. I insist not giving him any clue. ‘Show me what Israel is’. He starts talking, and I invite him not to talk, but to build. He is uncomfortable. He is out of his comfort zone. Shortly he says he is done.
Adam Levick is the CIF Watch managing director since July 2010. He was born in Philadelphia (US) and moved to Israel in 2009. His blog is the story of his personal journey, and it’s through his blog and his work that I decided to contact him.
I meet Adam in a cafe in Jerusalem – he is finishing his work, while I sit down and take out the bricks. Although I have told him about my interviewing technique, he is a little surprised at the beginning but he accepts the challenge and I ask my apparently simple and only question: ‘What is Israel?‘
Adam’s model of Israel
‘…With These?’ he says looking at the bricks giggling and starting building. After a while he looks at the bricks ‘Mmmh… this is pretty good, I can explain it!’ he says almost surprised about his model.
This month the blog has been silent and quiet, but the there are many kind of silence – some can be more noisy than others. And this was a very noisy kind of silence.
LegoViews is a fast growing idea – this apparent silence has been filled with projects, people, interviews, tests and improvements for the next step. It won’t take me too long to reveal what is brewing. We are taking the bricks to the next level. What is certainly emerging in my experience is that LegoViews is an amazing method to reveal ideas because somehow those little bricks… Talk! Not only they talk, they also make people talking. For this reason, LegoViews is evolving in Talking Bricks. Stay tuned, more to come.
New original interviews with journalists, musicians, professionals, doctors and key figures are on their way, but in the meanwhile you can read the full interview with Mikado Warschawski, which has been published as an exclusive on the London Progressive Journal. The part published here is just the end of our talk, and Warschawski’s views about Palestine, his radical positions and the way he has been playing with LEGO are certainly of interest, both for the method and for the content.
Micheal Warschawski is a well-known pro-palestine, anti-occupation activist, co-founder of the Alternative Information Center. I’ve met him in Jerusalem and we had a long chat about Palestine. His model of Palestine was peculiar, he used also non bricks to underline the external factors mining the stability and the peace making process. But when I ask him about Israel, his reaction is strong.‘What is Israel?!’
Israel as seen by Warschawski
Says angrily messing up all the bricks on the table. ‘Here it is…! It’s something incoherent and structured except by its military mind, it’s a nation which is a very weak entity, which is not very big, where the glue is very weak, without borders… why Israel doesn’t have borders? Israel always refused to define borders, it’s something which is chaos, it’s chaos as a way of existence. Always either in the offensive way, conquering more lands, conquering population, they try to get rid of them… it’s a chaos. Not a chaos without a plan.’ ‘There’s a plan?’ I ask. ‘Of course! Judea and all this area, they are making it as biggest as possible provided that it is purely, or as pure as possible, Jewish. This is the plan, the official objective of Israel.’ [Read more]
Michael is a true cosmopolitan Israeli citizen. I’ve met him the day I arrived in Tel Aviv, he asked me what was I doing and when I showed him the LEGO bricks he asked me to be interviewed. I returned to Tel Aviv to meet him. I’ve found him on a very bad day, yet he engaged with the bricks. The first question was about Israel and we had a long and intense conversation about it. Then it was the turn of Palestine. ‘What is Palestine?’ I ask him. He doesn’t say a word, he has understood the process, he doesn’t ask, he builds.
Palestine and the hole in the centre
As soon as he finished with LEGO I ask him to tell me about it. He stares at the bricks for a while, thinking. ‘You see… It doesn’t have a bottom. It’s not based on anything – he says by showing me the hole and the lack of any base – because they haven’t succeeded in creating a State; they have a State now but it’s not solid. Also all these Arab countries, in all these more than 60 years… All the Arab countries crying Oh Palestine!‘ – he grows acrimonious – ‘but ask them to do something for them! They didn’t do anything for them. Nothing! Palestinians know that, Arabs like Syrians, Lebanese, use Palestine as propaganda at the UN and in Europe. But they don’t help them. Arafat… Europe sent 900 million euros to Palestine to help them, they could have done a lot with that but Arafat put that money in his pocket and now his wife is pampering around Tunis or wherever…’
![Hands on! LSP Faciitators in an LSP workshop! [Photo by Lucio Margulis]](https://legoviews.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/564754_10151530155917398_565878055_n.jpg "Hands on! LSP Faciitators in an LSP workshop! [Photo by Lucio Margulis]")
