Legos and Bones -- FPC sermon excerpt
Serious play.
That’s what a number of executives are doing these days, and it has nothing to do with their golf games. Instead, they are playing at work, in an attempt to pull their corporations out of slumps and scandals. They are being assisted in this exercise by Lego, the Danish maker of colored plastic building blocks.
What Lego consultants provide, for a fee of $7,000, is a two-day workshop in which plastic bricks are used to build “metaphorical abstractions” of various business challenges.
Yes, metaphorical abstractions. These are Lego creations that capture a problem or a situation, and illustrate it in a clear and creative way.
For example, if your boss is crushing the spirits of everyone in your company, maybe your Lego creation would be an enormous boss figure smashing a collection of tiny people. That’s a picture of what is happening in your workplace. It’s a simple picture, yes — but since the workshop costs $7,000, it has to be called a “metaphorical abstraction.”
According to The Economist magazine (July 7, 2007), these workshops are now available in 25 countries, and business is booming. The results are revealing, but they can definitely be embarrassing — especially for senior managers. One chief executive was portrayed as so fat that he blocked a hallway, suggesting that his actions were clogging up the company. A firm with rotten customer relations was modeled as a fort under siege. And an overbearing boss depicted his staff as soldiers who were heading into battle.
These Lego creations can provide a picture of an organization that people have trouble seeing in any other way. This kind of serious play unlocks understandings that might remain hidden in normal business meetings.
Legos show the bare bones of a difficult situation, one that can be understood and then improved.
The prophet Ezekiel was called by God to do some serious play when the people of Israel were trapped in exile in Babylon. They were far from home, feeling hopeless and lost, dried up and depressed. In the middle of this spirit-draining situation, the hand of the Lord comes upon Ezekiel and gives him a vision of a valley full of bones.
Dry bones. Bleached bones. Dead, disgusting, disorganized, disconnected and desiccated bones. Bones that are completely lifeless, but might still be able to illustrate something important.
Legos and bones.
“Mortal, can these bones live?” God asks the prophet (Ezekiel 37:3).
You can imagine that there is complete silence at this point, with Ezekiel wondering, “Is this a trick question, or what?” Dry, dead, disconnected, desiccated bones — can they live? It would be like looking at a tub of Legos, and asking if these building blocks can come to life.
But Ezekiel knows the unlimited and unpredictable power of the one Lord God, so he’s not going to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. He says, quite diplomatically, “O Lord God, you know” (v. 3).
“Prophesy to these bones,” commands the Lord; “say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord” (vv. 4-6).
That’s what a number of executives are doing these days, and it has nothing to do with their golf games. Instead, they are playing at work, in an attempt to pull their corporations out of slumps and scandals. They are being assisted in this exercise by Lego, the Danish maker of colored plastic building blocks.
What Lego consultants provide, for a fee of $7,000, is a two-day workshop in which plastic bricks are used to build “metaphorical abstractions” of various business challenges.
Yes, metaphorical abstractions. These are Lego creations that capture a problem or a situation, and illustrate it in a clear and creative way.
For example, if your boss is crushing the spirits of everyone in your company, maybe your Lego creation would be an enormous boss figure smashing a collection of tiny people. That’s a picture of what is happening in your workplace. It’s a simple picture, yes — but since the workshop costs $7,000, it has to be called a “metaphorical abstraction.”
According to The Economist magazine (July 7, 2007), these workshops are now available in 25 countries, and business is booming. The results are revealing, but they can definitely be embarrassing — especially for senior managers. One chief executive was portrayed as so fat that he blocked a hallway, suggesting that his actions were clogging up the company. A firm with rotten customer relations was modeled as a fort under siege. And an overbearing boss depicted his staff as soldiers who were heading into battle.
These Lego creations can provide a picture of an organization that people have trouble seeing in any other way. This kind of serious play unlocks understandings that might remain hidden in normal business meetings.
Legos show the bare bones of a difficult situation, one that can be understood and then improved.
The prophet Ezekiel was called by God to do some serious play when the people of Israel were trapped in exile in Babylon. They were far from home, feeling hopeless and lost, dried up and depressed. In the middle of this spirit-draining situation, the hand of the Lord comes upon Ezekiel and gives him a vision of a valley full of bones.
Dry bones. Bleached bones. Dead, disgusting, disorganized, disconnected and desiccated bones. Bones that are completely lifeless, but might still be able to illustrate something important.
Legos and bones.
“Mortal, can these bones live?” God asks the prophet (Ezekiel 37:3).
You can imagine that there is complete silence at this point, with Ezekiel wondering, “Is this a trick question, or what?” Dry, dead, disconnected, desiccated bones — can they live? It would be like looking at a tub of Legos, and asking if these building blocks can come to life.
But Ezekiel knows the unlimited and unpredictable power of the one Lord God, so he’s not going to blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. He says, quite diplomatically, “O Lord God, you know” (v. 3).
“Prophesy to these bones,” commands the Lord; “say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord” (vv. 4-6).
posted by Henry Brinton | 7:25 PM
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