Sometimes You Have to Sit on a Pineapple | Richard Gold
"What is the opposite of work?" asks Richard Gold, a certified LEGO Serious Play facilitator, to teams in his workshops. The answer most people give is "play." But Gold has a different response: "The opposite of work is meetings."
For most professionals, this rings painfully true. Meetings are seen as obstacles to productivity, time-wasters that prevent actual work from getting done. But what if meetings could become the place where the most valuable work happens—the work that can only be done together?
The Challenge: A Team on the Brink
Gold discovered the transformative power of this approach while working with a government department developing critical software. The team of 18 had spent 18 months successfully building their proof of concept, but relationships were toxic. They were "very grumpy with each other" and struggling with "difficult relationships," despite their technical success.
Before launching into the beta phase, leadership decided something had to change. They brought in Gold to run a LEGO Serious Play workshop as part of their second-phase kickoff—a last-ditch effort to salvage team dynamics.
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Jiani (00:40)
Welcome to MAGICademy podcast. Today with us is Richard Gold certified LEGO play facilitator for almost a decade. he invented playful principle to help bring in the magic, leveraging and maximizing talent in a team meeting.
sometimes we feel like, if we have a specific agenda before the team meeting, we're set. We're being a great leader. a great facilitator. However, have you ever thought about, what if?
How can I potentially leverage everybody's insights, everybody's talent, everybody's ideas a dynamic way and also playful way so everybody's having fun and we're not just sticking with the agenda. And what could change after a wonderful, magical, playful meeting?
Maybe new ideas will come, maybe new solutions will come, maybe new team connections and a new level of intimacy and trust will be developed. Welcome Richard to our meeting.
Richard (01:48)
Hi Jiani
I'm not sure everybody's meetings are always boring, but they can certainly be better. Thank you for that introduction. Can I start by asking you a question? I know it's turning things around on the podcast, but it's a question I asked at the beginning of a lot of the workshop.
Jiani (02:00)
See? Playful!
Richard (02:10)
The question is simply this, what is the opposite of work? And the answer is.
is... so people always answer in a playful shot they always say play and I always say meetings. The meetings are so often seen as the opposite of work.
Jiani (02:30)
⁓
I would
say... because maybe people see work differently I think opposite of work is actually...
Well, there's some playfulness in the work, so I can't even say like the opposite is playfulness.
Richard (02:44)
Yeah, and that's the point. And that's the point.
That's the point. When in a meeting I ask them in the workshop, I always ask at the beginning, what is the opposite of work? And people always, always when I'm sitting there, they always come back with play. That's the first thing that comes to the top of mind.
Jiani (03:04)
I resonate with that. I think play, because work, we are working towards an end goal and play. feels like whenever we associate with play, it's like no end goal. we're just like exploring and we have no responsibility tied to the outcome.
Maybe there's some according to the adults standard there may be some wastefulness of resources and time and and seems like it's there's no end goal and it's just like play and Lack of discipline accountability That's kind of what first came to people's mind
Richard (03:42)
Yeah. So while people are thinking that through, I
interrupt and I say the opposite of work is meetings.
people see meetings as a bit of a waste of time. There are so many of them, they get in the way of them doing their
shouldn't be the obstacle to work. Meeting should be where the most valuable work gets done. It's the work which we can only do together. And it's kind of where the magic happens.
Jiani (04:08)
you
If that was the movie and you bring us into that particular moment that really kind of light up the bulb, the light bulb, ding! What was that moment like? What was people doing and what was the... Yeah.
Richard (04:28)
ding
Okay, so
there are two moments in that workshop. So moment number one was literally the very first exercise we did where we were given about 50 pieces of LEGO and we were told to build a tower with some very simple rules that you had to start on a flat piece. There were only two colors that you could use, green and yellow, and it had to finish with some kind of flower or a flag.
So we all had, and we had two minutes, we all had exactly the same materials. We all had the same question. It was a very simple question, build a tower. And within two minutes, everybody built a tower and they were all completely different. And the instructor said, and I say this in my meetings, that's very disappointing because I gave you a really simple task. You all had the same.
pieces that you all had the same materials and yet you all came up with something different. If we were trying to build a tower and we'd gone away, we'd agreed to build a tower, we would go off and do our things, we'd be doing different things. And you know, some people went for the tall, some people went for symmetry, some people tried to use all the bricks, there were eyes in some of them, so some people started to tell a story about this happy or angry or you know pretty or... and so...
The interesting moment there was that realization that when we're in a meeting and we think we've all agreed on something and everybody goes away and then they seem to do with the best will in the world completely opposite of what you thought you'd agreed. Actually what's happening is we all interpret the world and what we hear based on our own experiences and our own thoughts and our own ideas. So if you have a very simple thing like a tower and you can't get it right, well let's talk about change. Let's talk about inclusion. Let's talk about
strategy, what do those mean? You need to really understand what people mean by and get beyond the words and we so often we don't get beyond the words. So what you're doing with the LEGO serious play is you're getting the ideas out of your head and onto the table where we can actually look at them and understand what you really mean by it, in a way that goes beyond the words and goes much more into
the deeper meaning, the story, however you want to see it, but you can actually look at it and then you can play with it. You go, well, actually, let's not make it quite that tall, maybe make it a little bit shorter. And you start to agree and work on that together. And so that listening, you're listening with your ears, you're listening with your eyes, you're using different parts of your brain. When we use our hands, different things happen because we connect with different areas of our brain, which I could talk about in a minute if you like.
Jiani (07:15)
Mm.
Richard (07:16)
But there was that moment of, wow, if you want people to really sit in a meeting and everybody's doing it, that's the other thing. You're going around, so everybody builds the model. Everybody then explains what their model is. Then you have a discussion. So everybody's ideas are already out on the table. When you actually start to discuss things, you're looking at these depersonalized model. It's not who it comes from.
model that's on the table. It's so much safer for our brains when ideas are not in here and I'm wondering how it's going to be felt and received, but they're out there and we're talking about them. So for lots and lots of reasons, there are many more reasons why that is.
Jiani (07:56)
We can
dive deeper into some of these topics like safety and like common code of language and all that later and what was the moment 2?
Richard (08:10)
So, moment two.
So, one of the core LEGO Serious Play workshops is called Real -time Strategy for the Team. And one of the things you do in it is you build a model that characterizes who you are in the context of the team. So, it's a model and it's a way through, so you've already kind of, you've practiced building with a LEGO.
you've got the skills for doing it. And you build it and it's what do you bring? What are your traits? What do you like to work with? What are your broad skills? What are things that you could do that aren't used so much in the team already? What should people come to you for? What might people not know about you? And you build this kind of fairly often complicated model that tells that story.
Jiani (09:04)
The model needs to be played by LEGO too? Or just LEGO? ⁓ so you're using LEGO to describe who you are?
Richard (09:08)
It's like it's a LEGO model. It's a LEGO model.
Yeah, yeah. So I'll tell you how mine worked. So one of the interesting things with LEGO serious play, because you think how on earth am I going to do that? I've no idea where to start. And what's brilliant about using your hands is that it allows ideas to surface. So our brains, a very large proportion of our brains is attached to our hands. So when you use your hands, you're creating new neural connections in your brain.
Jiani (09:16)
Interesting.
Yeah.
Richard (09:40)
And that does a number of things. One, it quietens down the bit of your brain that stops you knowing things that you know that you might accidentally say, and that would lead you to be ridiculed or criticized and kicked out of the tribe, even by the saber -toothed tiger on the plains, because our brains haven't evolved to understand the difference between a mortal threat and a social threat. Our brains see them in the same way.
So there's this thing that stops you. So it's like when you get asked a question in a meeting and you can't think of the answer, you know you know the answer, but you can't think of it or you have a good answer. You then walk out of the room and suddenly, ha ha, I remember. And what that is...
Jiani (10:19)
Yeah, or the
self -judgment comp. I think your answer is not as good as the others, so just keep quiet. I tell this to myself.
Richard (10:26)
Yes, so that's
definitely one thing where actually your brain is conscious of it. There's also a huge amount more that you don't even know that you know in the moment. And you think, I know this, I know this is on the tip of my, I can't think what it is. You walk out of the room and aha, I can now suddenly remember what it is. The French call it "l'esprit de l'escalier" the spirit of the staircase.
gone out of the room and you suddenly remember it.
And that is, there's a piece of your brain called the anterior cingulate cortex that stops you, it filters things out so that you don't know them in the moment, so that you don't accidentally say them. Using your hands creates these new neural connections and it quietens down that bit of the brain. And also when you pick things up with a question in mind, because it creates these new connections, ideas come. So when you get stuck with an idea,
Jiani (11:15)
to protect ourselves.
Richard (11:28)
if you're just stuck and you just have the question in mind stick some bits of LEGO together our brains love patterns and with all of the different color bricks and different shapes and sizes the brain will do this for you so I found this quite exercise quite difficult like my my own identity so I did what they said they said don't have a meeting with yourself just get the hands on the bricks and and and see what comes up
Jiani (11:36)
you
Richard (11:53)
I found these two little things that look like snails eyes. There was eyes on top of a stalk and I thought, that's interesting, snails eyes. Maybe I'm a snail. The reason I like the idea of snails is because it carries around stuff in its shell. I thought, that's interesting. There's my knowledge, there's 30 years of experience doing all kinds of stuff. So I'm carrying that around with me. But I thought, I don't like ...
I don't like the idea of being a snail because I'm not dull and slow and slimy and I thought the idea of being too cautious. So I made it out of colourful bricks, so I'm a colourful snail and I put it on wheels and a little kind of turntable -y thing so it can move around quickly and be looking out for new things and I put antennae on it because I am always...
Jiani (12:23)
I'm sorry.
⁓
Richard (12:43)
in my digital consulting stuff, I was always looking out for new things and interested in new things. And that felt quite right.
Jiani (12:50)
I love that you totally
transformed the snail like... speedy
Richard (12:54)
Yeah, but also
it had that, because I am a little bit cautious as well. So I am always looking out for things, but I am also, I kind of felt actually that was kind of right, I was kind of cautious. So that was really interesting. That was a moment of, right, that's really interesting. But then, and this is my favorite exercise, has become my favorite exercise. We were all given the name of somebody else on the table.
and we had to give them a piece of feedback through a LEGO model. So we had to build a model that gave them a piece of feedback on how we experienced them, whether it was related to the model that they could put something more of or whatever it was, which is very difficult to do because your brain is sending all kinds of signals of don't do anything that will get you in trouble. But again, have fingers on the bricks and it was fine.
Jiani (13:44)
Yes!
Richard (13:50)
But when I got given mine, and the interesting thing is actually with that, that when you tell the story of your model, you don't say who it's for initially. You say this person is, and you give the feedback. And what happens as you go around the table is everybody's thinking, that's me. wait, no, I do that. no, that's me. And by the time you get your model, it's kind of whatever the feedback is, it's fine because most people have thought it was them anyway. And mine was this big gray mountain.
Jiani (14:14)
We
Richard (14:19)
really kind of solid spiky mountain thing, but it had a little bit of colour in it. So the idea was the big mountain was loads of, I brought loads of experience, really solid, a little bit of colour in there because the way he put it was I had a bit of a cheeky look in my eyes. There was an eye because I seem to be looking out for things. And then there was this little
Jiani (14:36)
Make it.
Richard (14:47)
a treasure box with little kind of glassy bricks in it that bring really interesting little nuggets. And I thought that's really nice. That's all lots of, but I hated it. I absolutely hated it. And I couldn't express why. And then what we had to do, so the idea was that the first model was your internal identity, how you see yourself. And your second one is your external identity, how others see you. And so we had to connect them because both of them are true.
And so I connected the two together and as I connected to them, I mean, I swore quite loudly and everybody was like, what is wrong with you?
Jiani (15:25)
Wait, wait, so
the mountain was built by you by other people? ⁓
Richard (15:28)
by somebody else. His
feedback to me was that I was like this big grey mountain with some colour and some interesting bits of treasure. So we had to stick them together and as we stick them together I had this moment of I know exactly what's wrong with my career and I need to change it. And that's part of what then led me into, I didn't actually know I was going, at that point I was going to go off and work in this company.
Jiani (15:37)
⁓
Richard (15:55)
and playful world, but I knew I had to change it because there was me, this colorful snail, moving around and I suddenly had all this knowledge and that was... I had to drag it, it wasn't on wheels. I had to drag it around with me and it was frustrating me and I wasn't doing what I really wanted to do because I was dragging, I felt like I had to use all of this
Jiani (16:02)
Yeah.
Richard (16:24)
So I either had to ditch it or put it on wheels so I could move around more easily with me.
Jiani (16:29)
Quick question. Later on, once you started on this journey of LEGO serious play and facilitation, have you done that activity again? Has you given opportunity for people to put together a LEGO to reflect how they perceive you? Are they similar?
Richard (16:47)
It's
one of the core exercises that I do with people. So the LEGO Series Play workshops are sometimes about strategy. So it's thinking about the aspiration that the team is trying to achieve or the company is trying to achieve and thinking about what the skills they've got and the landscape which they're in and we literally build out the landscape which they're in.
Jiani (16:51)
Mm -hmm.
Richard (17:14)
playing in and link all the elements of the landscape together.
So it's like a system and then play out the future and play out scenarios and think about what are the kind of principles by which we make decisions that end up with some kind of simple guiding principles for how you as a team want to work. So it's kind of an emergent strategy approach. But then there's also the team thing where we really do talk about like the individuals in the team and that's
what I've just described as one of the core exercises. Another one is to build out a model of the team life, which is a kind of shared model of what's it like to be in the team? What's its purpose? What's its personality? How do people experience it? What's it for? And it's kind of a vague question. And quite a lot of the time in LEGO serious play, the key is to be, we call it sufficiently unclear.
So it's like freedom within structure. So I give you a question, you sort of know what we're trying to do. Everybody builds their own answer to that. Everybody's answer is correct. But the combination of all those answers brought together is where the truth lies.
Jiani (18:06)
Hmm
I love that. I think there's two core themes emerging. One is the ability to help people to feel safe. Because a lot of times, especially if it's a larger meeting, a lot of people feel like they're unheard and they're invisible. And having this LEGO as a visualization, physical visualization tool to help them visualize and create space for them.
I think that's one theme. Another thing that I've seen is that common code of language. Because a lot of times when we are talking, the example that you shared with what they think is the tower like it's a different tower that looks differently. And then we all of a sudden now have a need to kind of synchronize what we define and a particular concept.
Richard (19:08)
Mm.
Jiani (19:19)
Can we maybe delve deeper?
Richard (19:20)
I can tell you
a story that brings both of those together, if you like. Which is my favorite story. It's so much my favorite story, but I even have these... Can you see those? There we go. Okay. So, I'll tell you the story. So this is one of my earliest workshops, and I do tell the story quite a lot. So this workshop was working with the government department.
Jiani (19:25)
Yes, yes, yes.
Yes, ⁓ yes yes
Richard (19:45)
and they were working on a really big piece of software that they'd spent 18 months on the alpha, on the proof of concept. There was a team of about 18 of them and they delivered very well, but they were very grumpy with each other. It was a very difficult relationship that they had. So before getting into the beta phase, they decided what they wanted to do was to run a team development workshop to try and kind of sort this out.
So I ran a LEGO Cirrus Play workshop as part of the kickoff of the second phase. And one of the questions I asked was actually that team life question, which is to build a model that represents what it's like to be part of this team. One element. So they all had to choose one element. And I gave them 10 minutes, which is a really long time for that question. That's probably too long. And one guy literally immediately picked up this spiky plant thing.
picked up half a minifigure, stuck half a minifigure on top of the spiky plant, and then he put it down on the table, and he just left it there. He sat back and he folded his arms.
And everybody else was building these complicated models, looking, wondering what he was doing. So when we went round the table, everybody was explaining what they thought. We got to him, and I said, what's that? And he said, that's me sitting on a pineapple.
And I was like, okay, because you can see it's kind of like him sitting on a pineapple. And I said, okay, why? And he said, so he was one of the senior developers and he said, I get given these tasks to do and they're really difficult. We're trying to do stuff that hasn't been done before and I'm trying to figure out how to do it. But they don't seem to fit in the project. I can't understand why we're doing them and nobody can tell me why we're doing them. So I'm spending two weeks, like the whole sprint, working on this thing.
and I don't know why I'm doing it, and it's really hard, it hurts. It feels like I'm sitting on a pineapple." So there was a little bit of an awkward silence, and the project lead said to him, do I give you those pineapples? And he's there, and he's looking at his model. They're not looking eye to eye, they're looking at the model, and he goes, yeah, you do. And the guy goes, right. He says, does anybody else feel that way?
Jiani (22:06)
I'm sorry.
Richard (22:09)
and like three or four hands go up again, they're looking at the model, not looking at the guy. And he says, yeah, he said, you know what, I understand
get given, we're working on a really big project, I get given a whole bunch of things that we have to do. And often I don't understand why we're doing it. And I push back on quite a lot of them, although I don't tell you that. But I do push back on a lot, but I can't push back on everything.
So sometimes we just have to do them. So I suppose sometimes you have to sit on a pineapple. And sometimes you have to sit on a pineapple became one of the guiding principles of this team. And there's a kind of common shared language. It meant that this project manager could walk into the sprint planning meeting every other Friday, invisible piece of fruit in hand and say, right, I've got a pineapple who wants it.
and everybody's hands go up, right? Because now it's a badge of honour. So what's happened there is the psychological safety of building a funny model to actually make a really serious point. And this is one of the things I say, you know, I used to have a serious career, now I'm doing play. Actually the most serious, most honest, most grown up conversations that actually get to the heart of things is when you do this, because it's that the...
the mask comes down and there's a safety within this. And then the second thing is that language, that they now have a language that allows them to get past that. And that workshop led to a whole bunch of changes in the way they organise the team. But I just love the, sometimes you have to sit on the pineapple as a kind of, you know, one of the principles of how we work. There is a language that only makes sense in the context of that team.
and they feel it emotionally and very often we have these very weird guiding principles which become the language of the team. Ask Jenny is one, quite often. Is the client on holiday is another one. Nobody knows what those mean except for those people in the team. Don't Forget the Tortoise is one of my favorites, which is all about communication. Doesn't make sense anywhere else.
but in terms of the language and the life of that team, it becomes a fantastic way for them to be able to short and communicate with each other.
Jiani (24:32)
I'm just having goosebumps. I feel like it's like, sometimes people feel like creating a culture change takes decades and years of hard work and systematic change, governance and leadership change and trainings. But just what I've been, what I heard from your story is culture change can be as simple as one meeting, can be as simple as one...
LEGO play away from I wouldn't say like a large culture shift but like a micro culture shift within a team, team culture.
Richard (25:10)
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And in fact, I did some research with Henley Business School because I had written a case study for an organizational psychology book, which didn't in the end get published for one of the professors there.
And I talked about a different case that had made a major difference within the client.
And he said, well that reads very well, but I don't believe you. So I said, well, it's true. And he said, so he challenged, he said, okay, are you prepared to put your money where your mouth is? And we'll do a randomized control study looking at whether LEGO serious play is more effective than traditional team away day, facilitated away days. And I said, yeah.
And so we did this. We ran a set of workshops, some using LEGO Serious Play, which I facilitated, and some using other team, like standard team development facilitated in the way days that were more traditional. And we looked at the impact on team cohesion and on psychological safety. And the interesting thing about it was we did
they all had to fill out a questionnaire before the workshop, a questionnaire after the workshop, and then another one three months later. And on both measures, the LEGO Series Play results showed a huge increase on both of them, on both of the measures, and then it dropped away a little bit over three months, but it was still way, way, way above.
and on the traditional ones both measures went up a little bit, not very much, and then both measures fell one to where it was before and one below. And so this is kind of the first quasi -scientific, because it's a small group of people, but the kind of indicator of actually you do get a longer term change out of the LEGO Serious play method. And we all know like, you know,
away days and retreats where people go and they go, yeah, that was great. But then you come back and it's business as usual. Because you'll do team building that is not actually about the work. It's not actually about the relationship. It's it's I call it playful practice rather than playful work. So, you know, outward bound type stuff or murder mysteries or all those kind of things. Learning how learning how how to play together. But this is actually about how do we work together?
Jiani (27:37)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, something like more like personal
Mm.
Richard (27:59)
what's important
to us, what are the principles by which we make decisions together, has a much more long lasting impact. Because it's true play, but in the context of work.
Jiani (28:10)
Yeah, I'm so curious to learn about the story about the tortoise. Don't forget the tortoise and what's the other one? Rabbit? I can't remember. Ask Jenny. Two stories. Yeah. it's okay. We will leave this as like Easter eggs or something. Or when people come to connect with you, they can. This is the question that you can ask Richard.
Richard (28:17)
Hahaha
Well, so the
Okay. So, okay.
Jiani (28:39)
Yeah, once you hear that, let me know too. Let's keep this a secret. I like it. I like that. What's the difference between adult -like play and child -like play as you kind of you're like in the trenches of like helping and observing the adults doing playful things and what what's the kind of the difference that you've observed?
Richard (28:41)
Okay.
that's a really good question.
So I ran a LEGO Cirrus play workshop with a group of nursery managers a few years ago and one of the guys came up to me halfway through really quite excited and he goes Richard I understand what you're doing I understand what this is all about and he told me about you know Maria Montessori who was one of the she's one of the leading educators in the last century and had a specific way of doing
Jiani (29:28)
Hmm, yes.
Richard (29:34)
of educating small, particularly smaller children.
Jiani (29:40)
Yeah,
and I hope adults can learn that way too. It's just we don't have that much resources.
Richard (29:43)
Well, yes, so this is the thing.
He told me this quote from him, which is that, play is the child's work. So what's happening when children are playing is they're discovering the world and they're figuring out how to work in it. They're creating social relationships, they're playing around with things, getting them wrong to figure out how to get them right, which is quite a good way for adults to work.
Jiani (30:02)
Thank you.
Yeah, yes. How much is that
at stake?
Richard (30:08)
And
what he said to me was, I understand what you're doing here. He said, so if play is the child at work, then work when it's done right should be adults at play. It should feel like adults at play. That's really what we want to do. It should feel safe, positive, exploratory.
not with masks in the way, not filtering out, whether consciously or unconsciously, just kind of wholly there.
So when companies say you should bring your whole self to work, because that sounds like a quite playful thing, but actually people are going, well I'm not going to do that, that's a bit scary. I'm not going to tell you everything about me, quite rightly. What we're trying to do when we create this kind of playful space for people to do
Jiani (30:58)
Yes, I don't feel safe.
Richard (31:07)
actual work, is to allow for those masks to come down in a way that feels natural, that you don't even notice it, that allows for a comment quite often here is, I knew that, I just didn't know I knew it, because the mask has come down, those bits of your brain that are filtering allow stuff, allow insight to come up, and yeah it's a really
powerful way to do work. And so I asked the question always at the beginning, what's the opposite of work? And people say, play and it's not. Play is the way we do work. Actually do something, create something together. Because if we're not, we're not changed by it. We're not doing something different. We're just doing what we could have done separately.
Jiani (31:58)
Yeah, and the answer actually is, it tells a lot because as you mentioned, true work is adult at play. And the moment that people say the opposite of work is play, that means the work is going far, far away from where it should be.
Richard (32:15)
Yes,
and not all work will feel playful, or should be playful, but when we are working together, I think that's the key thing, when we are working together, that ability to really listen to each other, to use the experiences and the ideas of each other, and to make the most of that link when they come together, is where the real value is. And also where...
satisfaction and joy in your work is. Because there's nothing worse than going into meetings and not being able to contribute because somebody else is dominating it, because you feel like it's just difficult for you to do that, because you haven't got the right language. Whereas if you get every... as we do in the LEGO serious play, everybody builds, everybody tells their story.
Jiani (32:52)
feeling invisible.
Yeah.
Richard (33:07)
you have
it turned. No one is ever wrong.
and we start to understand things beyond words so that when you say a word that has a trigger for somebody else and then they're not listening anymore, actually you're not just doing words, you've got the whole story there and people actually understand better what you're really talking about.
Jiani (33:14)
Hmm.
I love that.
so far we've shared some stories of how just by one, a few sessions of LEGO serious play, leveraging our hands,
lift the mask beyond traditional team building, like mystery rooms and all that to actually center us.
back into the work, but also bringing that playfulness, that wholesome self and awareness and make our meeting more productive. And also we talked about the importance of creating this common code of language, such as sitting on a pineapple. And we also talk about how creating a sense of safety, non -judgment, actually helps us to promote us and encourage us to bring in that
whole sense of self and adult like play into our workplace
and wonderful and thank you Richard for such a enjoyable storytelling moment and as we move forward so what what did you enjoy creating and playing so much when you were around like 11 or 16 that time disappeared for you
Richard (34:51)
So funnily enough, not LEGO. I was never particularly interested in LEGO. I was trying to remember actually. So things I used to like doing, I used to like writing stories. I used to, I watched a lot of comedy on television. And I think that's given me a kind of...
Jiani (34:53)
Hahaha
Richard (35:15)
ironic sensibility when I'm in the work area. When people say to you, you've got that cheeky look, I think it's because I find it hard to take things seriously. I spent a lot of time in the park with a football, soccer ball, trying to hit the crossbar of the goal with a friend. And it was a
I think I did used to like just trying to do stuff and it didn't matter if I was successful or not, but it was just the try and go back, try and go back, try and go back.
Jiani (35:48)
trying to enjoy the moment and trying to enjoy the process.
Richard (35:53)
Yeah, yeah, and have a go and it doesn't matter. I play a lot of tennis now and so long as I hit one really good shot it doesn't matter if I win or not. So I'm constantly just trying to play the good shot rather than worrying about whether I win or not.
Jiani (36:07)
Yeah, I like that. Isn't that life supposed to be like that? It's like, we have an end goal. Okay, but we keep giving our best shots.
Richard (36:14)
One of the biggest drivers of psychological safety is when work is seen as a learning exercise rather than an execution exercise. So you get judged, if something fails, you don't get judged on that. You get judged on whether you learn from it and what you do as a result of that learning. So people will then take risks, they'll try the stupid tennis shot.
Jiani (36:38)
Hmm.
Richard (36:42)
and you might get the amazing tennis shot as a result of that. Obviously for most people you do still want to win at the same time but you still go for the shot.
Jiani (36:46)
Yeah. And maybe innovation will come.
Yes.
Enjoy the process that could potentially maximize your chances of winning Then you can set off for your next goal But sometimes the process is more enjoyable because the moment of achieving the goal is just short
Richard (37:04)
Yeah, totally.
Yeah, and you get that dopamine hit from it, but that just dissipates really quickly. Yeah, exactly.
Jiani (37:11)
Yeah, and then... What's next? Wonderful.
What do you think overall is your magic?
Richard (37:19)
I don't know. In workshops, I think it's creating space and then being invisible, or largely invisible. That research that I talked about, the professor who I worked with came up to me at the end of the first workshop and said, can I give you some feedback about your facilitation? I was like, okay.
And he said, you're not very visible. You're not very present. People expect that you're there and you chalk and talk. You write some stuff up and you talk to them and they get a lot of content. And for me, the point was absolutely not that. The point was, this is them working. All I'm doing is creating a space for them to do the work.
Jiani (37:46)
Hehehe
Richard (38:10)
and that kind of... I'm really happy creating that space and stepping back and watching them do it and thinking, God, this is where I should be, because you're just seeing people's faces as things light up and they kind of realize what they think and what each other think. So I think there's that. And then I think the other thing is actually, because I have got quite a lot of experience over many years, I've seen a lot of different
ways of doing things and I'm pretty confident that what I'm doing now is it works, it works really well. So I can go in with confidence and in various different situations and contexts and be able to deliver it and because I am probably, I'd like to say you know grey head but no head, go in with quite an ironic sensibility of just
Taking it seriously, I've got that serious background, but also not taking it seriously because at the end of the day it's just work. And the best work comes when you don't take it that seriously. Going back to the tennis thing, when a tennis player tries their best, any sports person really tries their best, their muscles tighten up and they don't do their best. When they're relaxed and in the flow of the moment,
Jiani (39:27)
Hmm.
Richard (39:29)
that's when they do their best things. So I think bringing that slightly ironic, it's not that serious laughing when people make mistakes rather than getting worried about it.
Jiani (39:33)
Hmm.
Richard (39:42)
that yeah in terms of a magic it's being invisible and being ironic
Jiani (39:48)
And creating that magical space where everybody is able to get into their own flow together.
Richard (39:55)
Yeah,
yeah. And I think that comes from those two things. It's your space and I'm not taking it that seriously.
Jiani (40:02)
Beautiful. Thank you, Richard. It was such a great conversation and I just enjoyed your stories so much. I'm confident that our audience are enjoying your stories as well. And if you want to get connected for our audiences with Richard, his contact information is in the show note below. So we strongly encourage you to get connected, create new stories so we can invite him back and share more stories.
Richard (40:29)
Excellent. Thank you for having me. I've really enjoyed it. I'll be delighted to come back and share some more of those stories about forgotten tortoises and all that kind of stuff as well, if you like.
Jiani (40:30)
Hahaha
Yeah,
yeah, yeah. If you connect it with Richard, ask him about the forgotten tortoise and ask Jenny. So that's our code language for our audience. Wonderful. Thank you, Richard. And very much appreciate.
Richard (40:57)
Thank you.
The Breakthrough: A Model That Changed Everything
During the workshop, Gold asked participants to use LEGO pieces to build a model representing "what it's like to be part of this team." While others constructed elaborate creations, one senior developer immediately grabbed a spiky plant piece, stuck half a minifigure on top, set it down, and folded his arms.
When his turn came to explain, he said simply: "That's me sitting on a pineapple."
The room fell silent. Then Gold asked why.
"I get given these tasks to do, and they're really difficult. We're trying to do stuff that hasn't been done before and I'm trying to figure out how to do it. But they don't seem to fit in the project. I can't understand why we're doing them, and nobody can tell me why we're doing them," the developer explained. "So I'm spending two weeks, like the whole sprint, working on this thing, and I don't know why I'm doing it, and it's really hard, it hurts. It feels like I'm sitting on a pineapple."
The Transformation: From Complaint to Culture
What happened next was remarkable. The project lead, looking at the LEGO model rather than making eye contact, asked: "Do I give you those pineapples?"
"Yeah, you do," came the reply.
Three or four other hands went up when the project lead asked if anyone else felt the same way. The manager then explained his own dilemma: receiving directives from above that he didn't always understand but couldn't push back on everything.
"So I suppose sometimes you have to sit on a pineapple," he concluded.
That phrase became one of the team's guiding principles. The project manager could now walk into sprint planning meetings with an "invisible piece of fruit in hand" and say, "Right, I've got a pineapple, who wants it?"
Suddenly, everyone's hands would go up. What had been a source of frustration became a badge of honor—a shared language that only made sense within their team context.
The Science: Why Physical Models Work
The power of this approach lies in neuroscience. When we use our hands, we create new neural connections that quiet the anterior cingulate cortex—the part of our brain that filters out ideas to protect us from social embarrassment.
Gold explains:
“Our brains haven’t evolved to understand the difference between a mortal threat and a social threat,”
This is why brilliant answers come to us after leaving a meeting, when our protective filters relax.
Physical building bypasses these filters.
Gold notes:
“When you pick things up with a question in mind, because it creates these new connections, ideas come.”
The safety of expressing serious concerns through playful models allows people to access what they know when they need it.
The Lasting Impact: Proof That Change Sticks
Research he conducted with Henley Business School compared LEGO Serious Play workshops to traditional team development sessions. The results were interesting: teams using LEGO showed huge increases in both team cohesion and psychological safety that persisted three months later. Traditional approaches showed minimal improvement that quickly disappeared.
Gold reflects:
“The most serious, most honest, most grown-up conversations that actually get to the heart of things is when you do this, because the mask comes down and there’s a safety within this.”
The Future of Work: Adults at Play
The pineapple story illustrates a fundamental shift in how we think about workplace collaboration. As one nursery manager told Gold, referencing educator Maria Montessori: "If play is the child's work, then work when it's done right should be adults at play."
Sometimes you have to sit on a pineapple. But when teams create shared languages and psychological safety through playful work, even the pineapples become manageable, and meetings transform from obstacles into opportunities for the magic that happens when teams become more than the sum of their parts.
Editor’s note:
Research spanning historical analysis and contemporary educational studies reveals that hands-on, physical engagement serves not only as a catalyst for individual innovation and learning but also as a powerful tool for collaborative social change and the transformation of complex social spaces.
M. W. Thring's examination of great inventors demonstrates that breakthrough innovations emerge from "thinking with the hands" - combining intellectual reasoning with physical experimentation. This foundational insight is validated and extended by modern applications of LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology across diverse contexts. In educational settings, according to Jintapitak & Yodmongkol (2025), Chiang Mai University students showed significant improvements in system thinking and teamwork when physically constructing models to represent abstract concepts.
More significantly for social transformation, according to Wijayaratna & da Rocha (2025), the methodology proved effective in reshaping contentious social spaces: transport planners in Australia used physical modeling to move beyond professional conflicts and develop consensus around shared road spaces that prioritize equity among different users, while in Radclyffe-Thomas & Alexander (2025)’s study, fashion educators employed hands-on case study development to address complex global systems of environmental and social injustice.
These studies collectively demonstrate that physical manipulation and construction in an intentional and compassionate way create unique opportunities for reimagining and restructuring social relationships, whether in shared urban spaces, educational environments, or global industry systems.
Jintapitak, M., & Yodmongkol, P. (2025). The Enhancing System Thinking and Teamwork Through LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®: a Case Study in Knowledge and Innovation Management. Asian Health, Science and Technology Reports, 33(1), 3476-3476.
Radclyffe-Thomas, N., & Alexander, B. (2025). Fashion Business Education for Social Change: Creating impact through Case Teaching and Lego® Serious Play®.
Thring, M. W. (1977). Thinking with the hands. In How to Invent (pp. 89-103). London: Palgrave Macmillan UK.
Wijayaratna, K., & da Rocha, C. (2025). Leveraging Lego Serious Play® in Examining Practitioner Perspectives of Shared Spaces. Transportation Research Record, 03611981251341357.
⭐ Richard’s MAGIC
Richard’s approach centers on what he calls "creating space and then being invisible." Rather than dominating workshops with presentations, he designs structured activities that allow teams to do the real work themselves. His role, refined through decades of consulting experience, is to step back and watch as participants discover insights they already possessed but couldn't access in traditional meeting formats.
Connect with Richard
Richard Gold brings an interesting combination of blue-chip business experience and playful innovation to his work as a consultant and facilitator. After spending 25 years in traditional business consulting—working at senior levels in strategy, digital transformation, and corporate development across sectors from media to healthcare to financial services—Gold founded Bulbb, a consultancy that uses LEGO Serious Play and other playful techniques to help organizations unlock their teams' hidden potential. His clients have included major corporations like Moody's, Visa, Sky, and Novartis, as well as public sector organizations.
The two papers published following the research project mentioned in the podcast:
Wheeler, S., Passmore, J. and Gold, R. (2020), "All to play for: LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® and its impact on team cohesion, collaboration and psychological safety in organisational settings using a coaching approach", Journal of Work-Applied Management, Vol. 12 No. 2, pp. 141-157. https://doi.org/10.1108/JWAM-03-2020-0011
Passmore, J., Tee, D. and Gold, R. (2025), "Team coaching using LSP and team facilitation: a randomized control trial study measuring team cohesion and psychological safety", Journal of Work-Applied Management, Vol. 17 No. 1, pp. 119-132. https://doi.org/10.1108/JWAM-12-2023-0137
Credits & Revisions:
Story Reviewer: Richard Gold
Story Writer/Editor: Dr. Jiani Wu
AI Partner: Perplexity, Claude
Initial Publication: July 18 2025
Disclaimer:
AI technologies are harnessed to create initial content derived from genuine conversations. Human re-creation & review are used to ensure accuracy, relevance & quality.
