If You Really Want to Test Your Company Culture, build it up brick by brick
5 Ways LEGO® Serious Play® helps you transform Workplace Culture
A few years ago, I was part of a culture team at a mid-size company. We did our best to 'observe, reflect and advise' and we had a few notable wins. But if I had my time again, I’d suggest we do it differently. For starters from an operational perspective I’d embed culture builders across departments and link them directly to strategy, not just social activity - and I’d ensure that there was not only sponsorship from the very top, but also genuine empowerment to make changes. We know culture isn’t posters or perks or socials, it’s how people make decisions, solve problems and behave under pressure.
And if I were starting that work again, I’d suggest using LEGO® Serious Play® from day one. Not a canvas filled with sticky notes, but a culture table, where people build what their culture actually looks and feels like. A living landscape or map that connects stories, symbols and a culture strategy in real time.
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Why LEGO® Serious Play® Works So Well for Exploring Culture
LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) is one of the most powerful diagnostic tools I know for exploring company culture and I wish I could have used it when I was in that culture team. And it’s not because of the bricks themselves, but rather the revealing conversations they make possible. The method turns abstract ideas into physical models, allowing people to think with their hands and tell stories they might never otherwise express.
It reveals what’s usually unsaid
In most organisations, the truth hides behind certain language or is even hidden in data that is open to interpretation that brings in potential bias. LSP gives people a safe, creative distance to express what’s really happening. Someone might build a fragile bridge between two towers and say, “This is how it feels between our departments.” That simple metaphor captures what no survey ever could.
It turns ideas into something tangible.
Values like trust, autonomy and belonging can feel vague. But when people build them, they have to decide what those words actually mean. For one team, trust might be a solid foundation; for another, a delicate balance between freedom and accountability. Those differences become visible - and suddenly, you have something real to work with, something which is not about individuals.
It makes invisible dynamics visible.
On the table, you can see where people build walls, bridges, or gaps. You can literally watch a system form. It’s often a perfect reflection of how the organisation functions in real life: who connects to whom, where communication flows, where it stops.
It levels the playing field.
What I particularly love about LSP is how inclusive and participatory it is. Every person gets same time to build a story and share their point of view. Hierarchy takes a back seat. The quietest person in the room might well offer the metaphor and story that unlocks the whole conversation. In that rare and precious time, everyone is equal in curiosity.
By this point in a session, culture isn’t theoretical anymore because it’s there in front of people in 3D, in colour and texture, sitting on the table. But that’s only half the story. What makes LSP truly transformative is how it’s designed and facilitated.
The Design Behind the Dialogue
A good LSP session can look spontaneous, but it’s actually built with care and precision. Each stage, the questions, builds and reflections, all have a purpose.
Start with purpose, not the bricks.
Before a single model is built, we clarify what the session is really about. Are we trying to understand how people experience high performance? Where communication breaks down? What our ideal culture looks like? That intent shapes everything that follows. The bricks are just the medium; the real design happens in the questions.
Ask well framed questions.
A great build question invites a story. It doesn't ask for opinion, so Instead of “What’s wrong with our culture?”, we might ask, “Build a model that shows what it feels like when this team is at its best.” That kind of prompt opens the door to honesty, metaphor and leads to real insight. The right question is 90% of the work.
Shape the journey.
An effective session has a rhythm: individual builds first (so everyone’s voice is heard), then shared models that combine perspectives, then system or landscape models that map how everything interacts. This progression moves people from reflection to collaboration to collective meaning. It’s a miniature hero’s journey, told in bricks.
Shared model or landscape model?
These two formats do different jobs. A shared model combines everyone’s builds into one unified vision, perfect for creating alignment and shared purpose. A landscape model lays multiple builds out in space to show relationships, tensions and flows - how teams connect or where they clash. For culture work, you can use both: to imagine what great culture looks like, and to map where we are today.
From models to meaning.
The builds themselves are artefacts, but their true value lies in what people say about them and how others respond. The facilitator’s role is to capture the metaphors, patterns and phrases that emerge - those are the raw materials of cultural understanding.
You can watch alignment take shape in real time: “Ah, when you said bridge, that’s the same as what I meant by path. We’re talking about connection.”
From insight to action.
Once the group can see and describe its culture, it’s natural to ask, “So what do we do with this?” That’s where the session can evolve—using other tools like design thinking, prioritisation frameworks and Miro boards to turn insight into next steps. We might identify key areas to build on, design experiments, define new team rituals or agree on guiding principles.
LSP surfaces the truth; the follow-on design work turns what is revealed into momentum and progress.
Why It Works So Deeply for Culture
When you look around the table at the end of an LSP session, the room feels different. People have heard each other’s stories and it’s different to sitting through slide decks, because it’s been seen and heard through metaphors that carry some emotional weight. They’ve built something together.
And that’s the real test of culture: not whether you have nice values (that sit on a web page but don’t drive behaviour), but whether people can collaborate openly, make meaning together and see themselves as part of something shared.
Every element of an LSP session creates the conditions for that to happen: the carefully chosen question, the sequence of builds, the shared storytelling. That's why the method is so effective at surfacing the invisible and turning it into insight and action.
Culture isn’t what’s written down but what lives between people. LEGO® Serious Play® gives you a way to see it, talk about it, and most importantly, start to shape it together.
A Final Thought
When leaders say they want to “improve their culture,” but don't quite know where to start, I would suggest they start by looking at it, literally. Let people show you what it feels like to work here. Let them build it, connect it and explain it.
I can promise you that you’ll learn more in a few hours of play than in six months of surveys. And you’ll walk away not just with a clearer picture of your culture, but with a team that has begun to reimagine it together.