Achieving Your EDI Goals with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®
On June 19th, we were thrilled to participate in another TechNExt Fringe event at the beautiful Catalyst in Newcastle, collaborating with the amazing Matt Knibbs from Promethean Play to delve into Achieving Your EDI Goals with LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®.
Our team loves leveraging the LEGO build experience to animate our approach to Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI). It’s an incredible tool that offers a unique perspective for each individual through their personalised builds, inspiring fresh ways to consider EDI within your organisation. In this session, we aimed to foster discussions around goal setting and actionable steps, utilising the group’s valuable insights to broaden the range of possible solutions for breaking down barriers and implementing them in the workplace.
We began the session with some connection activities and gradually transitioned into LEGO builds, starting with a model that represents the impact you want to make in your organisation with EDI. There was plenty of energy and creativity with the builds from the outset!
Next, we examined our 50:50 Future ‘Seven Steps’ model, a comprehensive framework designed to identify key challenges and highlight high-impact areas. By exploring the seven areas outlined in the framework, participants could see how interconnected these challenges are. We discussed barriers affecting various individuals and groups within each area and how these obstacles have a ripple effect across the organisation. By pinpointing specific areas of challenge, companies can take manageable steps to overcome these hurdles and enhance diversity, inclusion, and belonging within their teams.
After identifying their primary areas of challenge, participants discussed the importance of addressing these issues and the risks of neglecting them. Feedback included concerns about:
- Progression: disengaged team members and increased turnover
- Retention: business solvency and understanding data
- Leadership: transparency, communication, and employee motivation
- Recruitment: wasted time and cost, productivity decline, lack of innovation, inconsistency of values, and impact on reputation and performance
For our final activity, we focused on Recruitment. Participants built models to represent strategies to ‘fix’ or ‘mitigate risk’ in recruitment. The creative metaphors included ladders of aspiration and addressing the elephant in the room, among others. Some of the solutions discussed were around:
- Bridging gaps
- Maintaining consistency across departments
- Sharing knowledge throughout the organisation
In the remaining minutes, we considered the low to high impact of these solutions on individuals, teams, and the organisation as a whole, beginning to distil some of the solutions into practical, achievable actions.
The session was flowing with peer-to-peer knowledge exchange, providing a solid foundation for creating meaningful, sustainable, and authentic EDI initiatives.
Thank you to everyone who joined us; your participation was fantastic and made the session enjoyable for all! If you’d like support with your ED&I strategy, get in touch to see how we can help. Contact us here.
If you need support with your EDI initiatives and strategy, applications are now OPEN until August 10th for our 2024 Diversity & Inclusion Leadership Programme. This programme will equip you with the knowledge and tools needed to build an effective framework for your organisation.