Case Study

The LEGO Group leadership playground: Energizing everybody every day (A)

19 pages
February 2021
Reference: IMD-7-2205

In 2018, the LEGO Group defined a new way of leading to enable the company to move more quickly, to make the right decisions, to deliver its mission and the commercial momentum that sustained it, and to shape the LEGO® culture in a positive way. This new way of leading would need to be modeled at the top of the organization. That was certain. But CEO, Niels Christiansen, and Chief People Officer, Loren Shuster, believed that the task of defining the new way of leading should not be done by the Executive Leadership Team or by HR. It should be developed bottom up. The LEGO Group was no longer the patriarchy it had once been under its founder, but Shuster saw that patriarchal assumptions about leadership lingered in its culture. If the LEGO Group was going to move towards a balanced system where leadership responsibility was more distributed and less hierarchical, it would be ironic to impose this top down. A better way to start would be to invite people from different levels and different functions of the organization to answer the question: What kind of leadership do we need in the LEGO Group and how can we embed the new way of leading into the fabric of the organization so that it can be self-generative? Case A describes the process that the LEGO Group used to create what they called The Leadership Playground and bring it to life in the company.

Learning Objective
  • How to create a leadership model to change the culture of the LEGO Group in a bottom-up way.
Keywords
Leadership, Culture, Change, Culture Change, Human Resources, Talent Management
Settings
World/global
Lego Group (The), Consumer Goods, Toys and Games
2018–2020
Type
Field Research
Copyright
© 2021
Available Languages
English
Related material
Teaching note
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This case study is part of a series
  • The LEGO Group leadership playground: Energizing everybody every day (A)
  • The LEGO Group leadership playground: Energizing everybody every day (B)
Best-selling Case Study
This case study is part of a series
  • The LEGO Group leadership playground: Energizing everybody every day (A)
  • The LEGO Group leadership playground: Energizing everybody every day (B)
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The LEGO Group leadership playground: Energizing everybody every day (A)
By John R. Weeks and Lisa Simone Duke
Case reference: IMD-7-2205 ©2021
Summary
In 2018, the LEGO Group defined a new way of leading to enable the company to move more quickly, to make the right decisions, to deliver its missio...
Best-selling Case Study
Reference IMD-7-2205
Copyright ©2021
Copyright owner IMD Copyright
Organization Lego Group (The)
Industry Consumer Goods, Toys and Games
Available Languages English
Contact

Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications

The LEGO Group leadership playground: Energizing everybody every day (B)
By John R. Weeks and Lisa Simone Duke
Case reference: IMD-7-2206 ©2021
Summary
In 2018, the LEGO Group defined a new way of leading to enable the company to move more quickly, to make the right decisions, to deliver its missio...
Reference IMD-7-2206
Copyright ©2021
Copyright owner IMD Copyright
Organization Lego Group (The)
Industry Consumer Goods, Toys and Games
Available Languages English
Contact

Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications