Ready to rethink how your project teams collaborate and how to boost their creativity? Dr. Michal Ben-Davis, an expert in innovation and a certified facilitator of the LEGO Serious Play methodology, reveals how “thinking with your hands” can unlock strategic insights and build incredible team synergy. Forget the boardroom, it’s time to build better projects, brick by brick!
Michal, you have such a rich professional background. You spent many years in the entertainment industry, then transitioned into working – and still work – as a specialist in innovation and creativity management. And as the cherry on top, you’re also a certified facilitator of the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology. We all know LEGO bricks and have, of course, played with them, but you use LEGO in a somewhat different way. Could you explain what LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® actually is?
Well, let me start from the beginning. About 12 years ago, I moved to the UK to do my PhD after 25 years in the entertainment industry. You know, when you change your life and you definitely do when you move to a different country and you start a PhD after you had already 25 years of career in the industry, it’s a big move. And for me, coming from a very small country, one of the things that was really important once I moved to the UK, was to learn more about how things are done on a global scale. During this time, I immersed myself in creative methodologies, which aligned with the theoretical aspects of my PhD. Then, at some point, I stumbled upon LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and I was immediately captivated. In 2016, I took facilitator training in the UK, and honestly, it kind of transformed my life. Here was a method with rigorous theoretical foundations, yet deeply practical – a tool you could actively use with teams. And crucially, it was fun. This is a win-win situation in a way, when you have such a method that it’s fun, it’s really practical, and it’s actually working. LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® basically is a facilitator method for creative thinking, for communicating, and for problem solving. It’s a methodology that uses LEGO® bricks as a medium for strategic dialogue. Different from traditional brainstorming or slide decks, participants “think with their hands”, building 3D models to articulate complex ideas. At first glance, the phrase “thinking with your hands” might sound abstract, but in practice, it’s powerful.
Fot. Own materials Dr. Michal Ben-DavidThis physicality of LEGO® bricks seems to create a unique advantage – I experienced it first-hand in your workshop. To be honest, it stayed with me in a transformative way, just as you described. I never imagined I’d open up so personally, and neither did my colleagues. We worked together for nearly two years, yet they shared perspectives and beliefs they’d never voiced before. What is it about LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® that unlocks this level of vulnerability and insight?
Let’s break this down. During the workshop, participants built physical models and suddenly, through these structures, emotions and perspectives surfaced that even colleagues who’d worked together for years hadn’t shared. That’s the power of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®. The methodology, developed in the early 2000s, is grounded in several core principles. First, equal participation. Everyone builds, everyone shares. This democratizes dialogue, which is especially critical in hierarchical settings. This process ensures everyone contributes equally. Second, using of metaphors. Participants use bricks to symbolize abstract concepts – trust, collaboration, market uncertainty. These tangible metaphors allow deeper exploration of ideas. Third, the hand-mind connection. Research shows that physical interaction with materials like LEGO® bricks activates different neural pathways, accelerating creative thinking. You don’t just think through your brain, you think through touching, through sensing something. So, when you “think with your hands”, you bypass verbal filters and access more intuitive insights. Fourth, storytelling. Humans naturally make sense of the world through narrative. In LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, explaining your model’s meaning via storytelling creates shared understanding. Once the models are built, individuals explain their meaning through storytelling, allowing others to ask questions and build shared understanding.
Psychological safety is often emphasized as critical for fostering creativity. Let’s imagine a project team in an uncertain environment – let’s say, one where setbacks are inherent to the innovation process. What practical strategies could a project manager, or generally, leaders employ to nurture this kind of psychologically safe environment, particularly when navigating ambiguity or failure?
Absolutely. Organizations often struggle because people fear speaking up and this critically undermines innovation. If employees hesitate to share ideas for numerous reasons, the organization as a whole cannot progress. You can’t truly foster innovation by only amplifying a few voices; diversity of thought is what drives success. It is very important that you can show your vulnerability. You admit as a leader that you don’t know everything and ask the questions giving the people the feeling that it is ok to ask. And in that sense, you actually create environments that enable people the freedom to think and basically the safe place to be who they are and to extract their full potential. We have to reframe failure as part of the process. We need to fail because this is part of what innovation is about, failure is not a deviation, it’s part of the process. So, if you reframe mistakes as experiments and setbacks as fuel for progress, you’re doing something positive. This mindset shift builds psychological safety. Another thing – silence is a red flag. When people do not speak, do not think that they do not have an opinion. They may be afraid to speak. Use structured methods to ensure all voices are heard, especially quieter or junior team members. Another tip which I can give you is creation of “permission rituals” – routines that normalize risk-taking. It’s kind of a routine situation inside the organization that legitimize risk-taking and basically send a message to people that novelty is valued over perfection. Finally, embrace constructive conflict. Diverse teams will disagree – don’t suppress it. Project managers must not avoid disagreements, but try it safely and constructively. Frame disagreements as opportunities.
Fot. Own materials Dr. Michal Ben-DavisImagine projects or departments operating under tight constraints like schedules, budgets, scope, and more. How can leaders navigate the tension between delivering tangible results and creating space for innovative ideas to flourish, even within rigid boundaries?
Yes, we have a schedule, we have a budget, we have a lot of limitations on everyday work. So, how can we actually implement creativity with so many constraints? In general, I would say constraints are actually helping creativity to flourish but you have to do several things in regard to the project organization. First, formalize creative thinking into your project frameworks. Adopt methodologies like design thinking or agile, and structure “sprints” – short, timed sessions dedicated solely to innovation. This systematizes creativity, making it a predictable, manageable part of the workflow rather than an abstract add-on. Another approach is to designate roles like creative lead or innovation champion on the project team. These individuals focus on facilitating creative processes, ensuring ideation isn’t side-lined by day-to-day pressures. We shouldn’t forget that systematic creativity is less about big breakthroughs, not about any kind of radical innovation every day. It’s more about consistent, small, incremental things that happen on a daily basis. Introduce rituals like weekly “assumption-challenge” meetings, where teams critically examine project assumptions, or “Prototype Thursdays”, dedicating two hours to developing half-baked ideas into tangible models. In that sense, you create a space, a constraint space within the organization, as a part of your system, where it is allowed for these things to happen. When management actively protects these practices – shielding time for sprints, celebrating imperfect prototypes – it signals that creativity isn’t optional. Constraints become guardrails, not barriers, channelling innovation in ways that align with organizational goals.
So, holding just one workshop annually isn’t the best idea.
The opposite is correct. You need to implement it as part of your management strategy and the way you actually structured the work inside the organization and the system. For example: weekly discussions about innovation, monthly meetings focused solely on creative ideas, bi-monthly or monthly sessions with external facilitators using new methods to reframe challenges, and quarterly deep dives to strategize for upcoming phases. This ensures creativity is embedded into daily operations rather than treated as an isolated event. Even a hackathon is nothing if you do it just once a year. It doesn’t bring any real tangible results. The goal is sustainability: programs that recur, evolve, and align with user or organizational needs.
Fot. Own materials Dr. Michal Ben-DavisI’ve seen in your portfolio that you’ve worked with diverse organizations: from start-ups to public institutions. How have they applied the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology in unique ways? Do you find differences in how these types of organizations approach it, or would you say there’s common ground?
I think it’s both. A lot of people are hesitant at the beginning because, children use LEGO®. “Why should we? It’s for kids,” they say. People struggle to step outside their structured ideas about life, and this sometimes inhibits them from jumping into it immediately. But this hesitation is something I’ve seen across the board. I’ve worked with 20-year-old university students studying entrepreneurship and management, start-ups, public organizations, and creators. I assumed younger people would be more open to it, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes they’re even more conservative because they feel that they just finished playing with LEGO® and suddenly somebody is bringing LEGO®. Still, it works well with students when they take it seriously. With start-ups, the focus is often on innovation targets or clarifying future business vision. When you work with a start-up sometimes the vision is not clear for 100% because they are in the early days of building the company. LEGO® helps them visualize evolving business models. At large corporations, it’s about breaking down silos and addressing risk aversion or strategic disconnects. Once, I worked with a department at one of the world’s largest companies – they had internal issues and needed to redesign their structure. The leader didn’t impose a solution; instead, we used workshops to let the team co-create it. And public sectors, to be honest, it’s very much about building empathy. How do you create an inclusive design of an organization to bring all stakeholders together? So, it’s more a public target rather than more commercial ones.
Working with different organizations and individuals – have you ever had a “wow” moment where participants in your workshops truly achieved something mind-blowing or innovative? Perhaps they discovered a breakthrough idea, or maybe you received feedback later that the organization implemented something extraordinary using this methodology.
Many times we get really good feedback. I think the good feedback comes because of the people – you likely felt it in your group too. People felt their voices were heard, and that’s not a small thing. In organizations, many feel ignored, but suddenly they could speak up, and for them, it was a breakthrough. I once worked with a group from an Eastern country (not Western), and we modelled their idea of leadership using LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®. It was transformative. For them, expressing ideas this way was unusual – they came from a restrictive mindset, but the method’s openness let them be themselves. Over five hours, I saw them change completely. By the day’s end, they were different people: some cried, others deeply understood themselves. The method’s strength is how it connects you to your emotions, pushing reflection about who you are, what you do, and what you want.
Fot. Own materials Dr. Michal Ben-DavisBut this is the strength of the method, but also the strength of the facilitator. I’m 100% sure that without your words at the beginning of our workshop – how you came in and said, “I spent over 20 years in the entertainment industry, failed, and still don’t know why. I’m still searching for answers.” – it wouldn’t have resonated the same way. It was so refreshing to hear that honesty. Nowadays, everyone just talks about success; you have to be successful. But you were raw with us, and that… that opened us up from the very start.
I didn’t think about it beforehand, to be honest. For me, it’s very natural to speak about it because I’ve been discussing it a lot these past few years. It’s part of my personal journey: being very successful in my career, then experiencing a huge failure, and then rising again from that failure to new success. It was a life-changing experience. It also lets me be open about failure, not afraid to talk about it. Because failure? You can learn from failure. Success? What can you learn from success? Oh, someone succeeded – so what? How does that help you? But failure teaches. For me one of my biggest successes was my failure. It forced me to look back at my career through a different lens to re-evaluate my life. Sometimes you need a disruption, a massive failure, to step back and ask: What do I really want? Doing the same thing for 30–40 years isn’t for me. Now, I’m still in the creative field – not entertainment anymore, but teaching. For 25 years, I was a creative director; now I create AI-driven short films (I got first prize for one of them in the festival!). It’s a hobby, but it’s still me being creative, just from a different perspective. Looking back, my failure was just another step in a long, creative journey. As a human, you have to grow, evolve, change. Otherwise, life gets boring.
What’s beautiful about creativity is that everyone inherently has it. This aligns with what you emphasized during our workshop, which really stayed with me: we can foster creativity in every person, at work, at home, among friends.
Creativity is something that many people relate to art but it’s a huge misunderstanding of what creativity truly is. Creativity is the ability to think about diverse ideas, generate new ones, and bring them into implementation. It’s innovation, basically. And I think everybody has that. Maybe some people have more than others – it doesn’t matter. You can actually develop it. If you don’t practice it often, if you don’t engage with it, it won’t develop. If you push it aside and say, “I’m not creative”, you won’t be very creative. But I’m sure that in certain situations, you are creative. Maybe you’re not creative at work, but at home, you cook excellent dishes. You’re creating in that domain. The problem is how we reduce creativity to art but it’s not just that. It’s about everything. It’s about being human – your ability to change the world and do different things.
Dr. Michal Ben-David is a lecturer at Reichman University’s School of Entrepreneurship and School of Communication in Israel, and a certified facilitator of the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method. She holds a PhD in Culture, Media, and Creative Industries from King’s College London, and an MBA from the Berlin School of Creative Leadership. With over 25 years of experience in the TV entertainment business, she now focuses on fostering creativity and innovation management within organizations. She is also an entrepreneur in AI and XR, exploring the future of storytelling through emerging technologies.
Iwona Heyen – efektywne i twórcze zarządzanie projektami to jej żywioł. Z certyfikatem PMP® i studiami EMBA w toku, od ponad 10 lat prowadzi międzynarodowe zespoły projektowe przez meandry branży motoryzacyjnej. Zamienia chaos w sukces, a deadline’y w osobiste wyzwania – a wszystko to z uśmiechem na ustach i książką w torbie na kolejne wyjazdy. W wolnych chwilach pielęgnuje ogród i rozwija pasję do języków obcych. Jej mottem jest: “Dzień bez kwiatów i bez książki jest dniem straconym”.
Iwona Heyen – effective and creative project management is her element. With a PMP® certification and an EMBA in progress, she has been leading international project teams through the intricacies of the automotive industry for over 10 years. She transforms chaos into success and deadlines into personal challenges – all with a smile on her face and a book in her bag for her next trips. In her free time, she tends to her garden and nurtures her passion for foreign languages. Her motto: “A day without flowers and a book is a day lost.