Legos are almost 100 years old. The name “LEGO” is derived from the Danish words “leg godt,” meaning “play well.” Their current form didn’t emerge until 1958, but it’s been part of our popular culture ever since. They are so intuitive that they don’t need any instructions. The challenges usually come when we run out of a particular shape for what we are trying to build. Two main lessons come with Legos;
- If you have the right pieces, you can build almost anything
- If you take apart what you build, you still have the pieces to build something new.
When it’s time to take apart our creation, most kids don’t see it as a failure. It’s an opportunity to do something new. And if it breaks, we rarely try to rebuild the same thing, unless it’s part of an art project. For some reason, certain CEOs don’t look at their companies the same way. Rather than realizing there are new ways for the “Legos” to be organized, they are trying to recreate their original version, partially because they think they can. This generally falls into the “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” category. When you realize that you don’t have a choice, you can move forward faster.
The U.S. Election
I don’t like to talk about politics, but this upcoming election will be an example of Legos being smashed and rebuilt into something new in record time. The Republican party may be rethinking gun control, and the Democratic party is rethinking everything. There’s no precedence for a candidate dropping out this late in the game. The Legos are completely scattered and putting them back the way they were is not an option. Within a very short time, I guarantee you that they will put the pieces back together in some new way. Will what they create be as good as what they had before, or maybe better? I don’t know. But again, much like with Legos, they will assess their pieces, and figure out how to build what they need to move forward.
Remembering the Rules
The rules of Legos apply to organizations too. We might see Legos as trivial by comparison, but whether we are talking about plastic blocks or people, departments, or offices, they all can be taken apart and put back together in a different way. There’s probably a third rule of Legos that becomes more important when you look at organizations.
- If you take something apart and build something new, you don’t have to use all the same pieces.
This may be where some CEOs are getting stuck. If you know where the pieces went, it’s tempting to put them back in the same place. And if you’ve invested to have something work a certain way, it can be very tempting to preserve that investment. This is the dreaded sunk cost fallacy. Just because you invested in an office, doesn’t mean you still need an office. Or if you still need an office, the one you have is the one you need.
Refresher Training
Maybe CEOs need to spend some time playing with Legos. Build a castle and then tear it down. Build an airplane and take it apart. We forget there are other reusable blocks in our world besides Legos. Covid-19 smashed lots of structures. Some organizations quickly found new ways for the pieces to be reassembled and moved on. Others treated the new structure as temporary but immediately tried to put the pieces where they were originally. We never did that when were playing with Legos. Perhaps CEOs shouldn’t be doing it now.
