When the From Vision to Action Leadership Training takes place in person rather than on the Zoom platform because of a global pandemic, we play a game with legos that students have called “The Great Lego Game.” In simple terms, it revolves around receiving instructions of what to build, e.g. a race car, and then getting all of the pieces together and building it.
I first played a version of The Great Lego Game in graduate school in the mid-80’s. We used Lincoln Logs rather than legos. Since I was an older student who had grown up with Lincoln Logs, it was great fun to build the structure. In the graduate school version, we played the entire game with people in different rooms. I remember that it involved lots of running between rooms. When we were all done and had debriefed, I thought to myself, I could modify that game and make it so much better with legos.
So, I redesigned it, tested it out with numerous groups and we played it for the first time in 1998 in the First From Vision to Action Leadership Training. The success of the new exercise exceed my expectations. People talked about it throughout the entire class and during the following years. It was a mirror and a window into leadership and team dynamics. I don’t know who came up with the phase “post traumatic lego disorder” but it has become a common phase over the course of 22 years.
In March 2020, just before COVID impacted all of our lives. the 2020 From Vision to Action Leadership Training played The Great Lego Game. It was a classic game with the usual leadership mistakes and team challenges. In 2020, I did not make the plans and the pieces complicated. Everyone had everything they needed in order to be successful and to build the model.
A typical game goes as follows. Everyone in the group reads the job descriptions for the game and most think they are the rules of the game which they are not. Everyone figures out who is going to do which jobs but does not check on people’s strengths or talents. At this point, most do not stop and look at the plans together. Instead, they rush ahead and start putting together the legos. What follows is chaotic action with minimal success.
Ideally, the leader recognizes that the way they are organized to build the lego model (think TO or organizational structure) and the systems to build it are not viable. Then, they should call a team meeting, restructure the team, redesign the system to execute the plan, start over and build the model. However, what typically happens is that people in leadership positions become target focus on building the model and operationally consumed. And thus they become the hub for everything.
But why does this happen?
First, they choose, consciously or unconsciously, to not zoom out and see the whole. Thus they do not see the problems within the structure and the system because all of their attention is focused on doing things operationally.
Next, they focus on results and order over promoting innovation or thinking strategically. No matter what, they want that round peg to fit into that square hole. This happens in part because promoting innovation would question the status quo and encourage new ways of thinking and working together.
Third, the messier and more chaotic things get in the game, the harder these leaders push to get the model built. And the more they try to make it orderly, the outcome is more disorderly. Therefore, they put controlling the work space over the option of changing the work space as their primary focus.
As I observed this all happen, I realized that many leaders can not zoom out and see what is happening because they feel like there is not enough time to zoom out. They do not give themselves or their team time, space or permission to do this individual or group work. There is no strategic review or pause to ask if it is working well. Furthermore, their complete attention is on getting the operations “right.” They do not give themselves permission to pause, step back and ask the questions: Is this working? Is this the right way to do this?”
The outcome of not doing this level of work results in a series of cascading mistakes and cascading defaults. As Margaret Wheatley reminds us, “When confronted with an unknown, we always default to a known.” Each default action creates more mistakes. One choice leads to a default which leads to another default. As Jim Collins in his book, How The Mighty Fall and Why Some Companies Never Give In (HarperCollins, 2009), writes, “I’ve come to see institutional decline like a staged disease: harder to detect but easier to cure in the early stages, easier to detect but harder to cure in the later stages. An institution can look strong on the outside but already be sick on the inside, dangerously on the cusp of a precipitous fall.” He notes that his research indicates that organizational decline is largely self-inflicted, and recovery is mostly within our own control
In short, people in leadership positions made a choice. They defaulted to order and stability over leading or communicating. Leadership defaulted to control over command or communicate. It was a choice to establish order and as a result stability. The people in leadership positions had hit their tolerance level for disorder and chaos.
The typical goal of command and control is to get something done and then things will return to status quo. Typically it is focused on lowering that which has caused a level of disequilibrium and chaos within the organization. The leader makes this choice because they “feel” like they have lost control. I think the challenge right now is that many leaders during this transition time period are feeling like they have lost control, order and ultimately stability. Thus, they are defaulting to action which may make things worse rather than better.
This week, pause and zoom out. Ask yourself the following questions: Is this working? Is this the right way to do this? Then, consciously choose a better path rather than a default course of action.
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