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乐高 工作法 实战手册 - LEGO Work Method Practical Manual

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Well this is exciting news, ProMeet founder Sean Blair's first book SERIOUSWORK, will soon be available for readers in China.

This translation been the work of Vicky Qu and Xiaotsing Ma who have also bought Cheers Publishing onboard as our publisher in China. We are incredibly grateful to Vicky and Xiaotsing for all their hard work in bringing these ideas to readers in China.

We'll update you on where it can be bought in the days and weeks ahead!

How COVID-19 created our new book ONLINE

Here's the back story to ProMeet founder, Sean Blair's new book.

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March 2020 was set to be a busy month for me, my schedule included system model workshop, a trip to France and two trips to the USA.

On Wednesday March 11th, I caught the early morning Eurostar train from London to Paris. The COVID-19 crisis was escalating but the attitude to the virus in the UK in early March was still relaxed. I got back from Paris late afternoon. The next day the US Government announced a travel ban from the EU to the USA, except UK and Ireland...

Let's wind the clock back a few months. In December 2019, I had been invited to pitch to train a very senior group of men and women in a leadership academy in a branch of the US Military. Accordingly I had spent a good chunk of the previous three months in the most complex contracting I had ever been involved with (how does a document running to 55 pages and 37000 words sound?).

Having finally agreed a contract, on March 2nd, that day I booked to fly to Washington DC for a 4 day training week commencing March 16th. At the time of booking, the decision to travel to the USA felt safe.

Fast forwards, and pick up the story. So the day after I got back from Paris, the US Government had issued a travel ban from the EU, but excluding the UK and Ireland. The ban came into force at midnight on March 14th, six hours after I was supposed to land.

I began regretting my trip to France. Legally, I knew I was OK to fly, (virus free?), but was worried my client might cancel the training, because I'd been in Paris. We had a phone call, discussed the situation and decided it was OK. I'd travel the very next day.

Landing in Washington DC on the afternoon of Friday March 13th, I cleared customs, hired a car and drove several hours to the client base. The next day, just after Saturday lunchtime, the US Government extended the travel ban to include the UK, effective Sunday 15th March. Great.

After a call with my family I packed my bags, turned around to travel home, to try and fly six days later could be tricky. So I drove to the airport and caught a flight back to London 24 hours after landing (and as it turned out, my flight home was cancelled).

In the UK, the week that followed saw schools shut. Then on March 2Oth a UK wide lock-down began. My world (along with the millions of others who were ahead of 'the curve'), went crazy.

Sitting here in London, in October 2020 the world has changed. Face-to-face meetings are mostly out, right now the COVID-19 curves are going up again and the economy is not wearing a happy face.

In late March, it took me about a week to understand that things would not return to the 'normal' we had known only days before.

I could either sit at home and wait for normal to return, or I could accept the reality of the situation and embrace change. An insight given to me twenty years ago, helped me resolve what to do next.

'Masters of change, use change to create change'
As a much younger man, I had been fortunate to be taken 'under the wing' of an elder, Michael Frye a lovely and wonderful man. One day, over lunch, he asked me for my definition of 'mastery of change'. Michael was like that, he would ask questions that I'd never even thought about. He then said, 'Masters of change, use change to create change.'

I had never been sure what to do with this insight until March 2020, having been like many in the LEGO® Serious Play® community, sure that online LEGO Serious Play was not possible. I resolved to set my biases to one side and learn from my own experience what was, or was not possible.

With the encouragement of my friend and training associate Jens, and with help from our wonderful graduate community, MeetUp groups and enthusiasts from LinkedIn, we began a series of experiments to learn about the possibilities and limits for online LEGO Serious Play mediated and via online platforms, mostly Zoom and Mural.

The results of these trials surprised me. It turns out there are things that are better when bringing digital tools to LEGO Serious Play facilitation. In the six months since March we have created new techniques to make the LEGO Serious Play Method work extremely well online.

Is it possible? The answer is a resounding yes.
We remain aligned with the core principles of the method and continue to use the ideas that we have written about in our previous two books, SERIOUSWORK and MASTERING.

There are additional techniques and requirements that ONLINE demands. The preparation phase is more complex, for both participants and facilitators. and online requires new skills. Foundation LEGO Serious Play components, like the three stage skills build requires a fourth skills build to be included.

The role the facilitator takes, especially during online shared model building is both different and at its core similar to what happens in the real world.

Our innovation to split the shared model building into new stages, disaggregate, rebuild, 'Magic-hands©" and 'Build-along©' still results in a shared model that people are proud of and feel ownership over.

There have been (and may still be), voices in our community saying online LEGO Serious Play is not possible. They are wrong. It is. And the approaches to online LEGO Serious Play will help cut carbon emissions long after the dark days of COVID-19.

This Online book has taken six months to write and we've shared drafts with our customers and students whose imagination and unlimited outlook inspires us everytime we pick up bricks. This book is a true act of co-creation, I just asked the question 'what's possible?', and made time to write up our learning.

Sean Blair, London UK, October 2020

MASTERING THE LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® METHOD 44. Facilitation Techniques for Trained LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Facilitators

We are happy to announce the latest book written by ProMeet founder Sean Blair.

Mastering the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® method is 180 page full colour book and will help LEGO® Serious Play® facilitators plan and deliver professional workshops. It has 44 detailed facilitation techniques from master trainer Sean Blair. The book also outlines 20 graduates stories of what happened after their training, where they now use the method, and their tips lessons learnt.

See or download a 58 page preview of the books contents on the books own webpage.

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It is available in print from
Amazon.

Listening - and how to improve it

Over at our other blog on Serious.Global we have published a new post on listening.

First we introduce an idea that there are five levels of listening we use day-to-day and especially in meetings.

Next we explain how LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® uses three modes of communication that results in higher levels of listening.

Finally, for facilitators familiar with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®, we share how to help people listen and understand even more fully.


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SeriousWork - Book Preface

Here is the preface from the book published by ProMeet, "Serious Work: How To Facilitate Meetings & Workshops Using The Lego® Serious Play® Method"

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New Book: Serious Work

Very exciting news.

ProMeet has published its first book.

Read more at
www.Serious.Global or read two reviews below.

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ProMeet. A 2016 Facilitation Impact Award Winner

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IAF Regional Director Trevor Durnford and IAF Member Bruce Rowling present Sean Blair with the Facilitation Impact Award.

LEGO®, Dialogue and new meeting tools help leading college get a top UK value added score

ProMeet together with client, Brighton, Hove and Sussex Sixth Form College (BHASVIC) have received a Facilitation Impact Award from the International Association of Facilitators (IAF).
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Benefits of Lego® Serious Play®

In the first 90 seconds of this video, Sean explains the four benefits of using Lego® Serious Play® in meetings and workshops.

Benefits of Lego® Serious Play®
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Playcamp

I ran an introduction to Lego Serious Play at 'Playcamp' yesterday.

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Participants asked for the slides, so you can view or download the deck here:



Finally you can
see 10 case studies of Lego Serious Play in action here.

And join can
join the Lego Serious Play Meet Up group for deeper workshop experiences.

Happy playing!

Adventures With Agile Workshop - May 2016

Yesterday, JP Bayley and I delivered a Lego Serious Play workshop for the London Adventures with Agile MeetUp group. A fantastic group who seemed to like what we did.

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You can access the slide deck we used here, enjoy!
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Kind Words

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I recently had the pleasure of facilitating a 1.5 day strategy workshop for trustees and senior executives of Ravensbourne College. Chairman Jon Drori (who incidentally gives great TED talks) was kind enough to write to me after the workshop, here is his brief letter:

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Dear Sean,

Thank you for facilitating Ravensbourne's strategy awaydays so ably.

Facilitation is one of those activities that too many people think they can do well. Some of those people should watch you at work - professional, firm, authoritative, gracious and focused on the outcome we wanted, which was to have a senior team of executives and governors sharing ambition and direction.

I confess that when you and I first met I wasn't immediately sure that
Lego Serious Play would be the right tool for our team. You quickly gained my trust and I'm absolutely delighted that, having listened carefully to what we wanted to achieve, you made such persuasive arguments for the approach.

I would be very happy to recommend your services to others.

All the best, Jon

Jonathan Drori CBE
Chairman, Ravensbourne Board of Governors

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User Centred Vision

Using Persona's in Visioning

Vision exercises help teams create 'desirable and appealing pictures of a future state'. Lego Serious Play can be a useful tool to help teams think about and quickly envision future scenarios.

Sometimes in visioning teams find it hard to tune in to a time scale that is neither too futuristic or too current. With a blank canvas people may think about the future from many different starting points.

Taking a user centred approach can help teams people about the future from the perspective of different stakeholder groups. At a recent workshop for PCMA participants were asked to form five groups and each group was given a different persona to work with.

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How to make a serious LEGO movie

Yesterday I facilitated an 'ExportJam' workshop commissioned by UK Trade & Investment (UKTI - a Government department) that aimed to generate ideas for how the UK can double exports by 2020.

At the workshop mid point we recorded stories that looked like this:
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Lego Serious Play. A remarkably adult way of working

Adrian Crookes, (pictured) is a course leader at the London College of Communication. At the end of a workshop I facilitated this week, he reflected,

“I thought LEGO Serious play was a remarkably adult way of getting together to discuss issues and problems”. Conversely meetings using post-it notes and flip charts seem to infantilise by comparison.” Read More...

Vision, Values and Behaviours Workshop using Lego Serious Play

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ProMeet recently completed an assignment for the Intercontinental Hotels Company.

Read our new case study of this assignment.

IMEX Association Day: Next Generation Associations

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IMEX Frankfurt is the ‘worldwide exhibition for incentive travel, meeting and events’, and each year c.300 association executives from 40 countries gather the day before IMEX to learn from each other during ‘Association Day”.
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What happens at a Lego Serious Play MeetUp?

The Lego Serious Play London MeetUp run regular mini meets.

These are about two and a half hours in duration, and introduce people to a range of the
application techniques that Lego Serious Play uses.

Here are a few photos from a recent MeetUp, which took the subject of government as the theme.


Warm Up Challenge 1: Building a tower

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Lego® Serious Play®

Certified Facilitator of LEGO SERIOUS PLAY-350px

I’m happy to report I have successfully completed the Lego® Serious Play® (LSP) facilitator training.
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The most powerful, well renowned facilitation technique in the world?

In 1948, a peasant farmer started a business making tractors.

Within five years this man – Ferruccio – was one of the richest men in Italy. He amassed a fine collection of cars – Alfa Romeos, Maseratis, Lancias – but his heart belonged to his Ferraris, of which he owned six.
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