Insights

Joyful Team Building: The Inward Smile
Brandon Wetzstein Brandon Wetzstein

Joyful Team Building: The Inward Smile

When people receive, unwrap and start handling their own LEGO story building kit, there is this smile that appears on people's faces. Sometimes its big, sometimes small. But it's personal, for them. Like they've been brought back in time. They are sitting on the edge of play and there is this excitement and joy - not to a level of exuberance, but a more patient and expectant smile.

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How LEGO Serious Play is like Reese’s Pieces for Team Development
Brandon Wetzstein Brandon Wetzstein

How LEGO Serious Play is like Reese’s Pieces for Team Development

Some of the major challenges in group dynamics are the speed, pace, and focus of the individuals and group. This is why facilitated sessions are so valuable as they get people focused and paced similarly.  For us at IN8 Create, we love using LEGO Serious Play as our primary method. Like Reese's Pieces, It breaks down the session into bite sized rewarding segments.  I purposely use the term rewarding because for each challenge question, participants get to create a LEGO model and a story that's tied to it. 

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The Top 5 Commonalities That Arise From Our Team Building Events
Brandon Wetzstein Brandon Wetzstein

The Top 5 Commonalities That Arise From Our Team Building Events

Here are the five most popular commonalities that arise in our team buidling sessions:1. Pets - People LOVE their pets, and honestly like sharing info about them.2. Kids - Same as above3. Hobbies - Sports? Cooking? Interior Decoration? Yes! 4. Musical Instruments - I separated from hobbies as this group has a certain respect for one another 5. Vacations and Travel - Who doesn't love a good vacation?

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The Tradeoffs of Virtual Vs In-Person Work
Brandon Wetzstein Brandon Wetzstein

The Tradeoffs of Virtual Vs In-Person Work

In essence, the choice between virtual and in-person work isn't about deciding which is superior. It's about recognizing and balancing the tradeoffs: the convenience and flexibility of virtual work against the potentially richer, more nuanced communication that comes with face-to-face interactions.

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Have You Heard of the Cortical Homunculus?
Brandon Wetzstein Brandon Wetzstein

Have You Heard of the Cortical Homunculus?

Think of when we have an active dialogue in groups. Due to the context we are generally using the prefrontal cortex, or the logic center of our brain.

Yet when we get our hands involved, such as when we build our thoughts and ideas out of LEGO bricks, we are using more parts of our brain.

Our hands, as pictured in the cortical homunculus image above, are activating more neuron networks in our brain, which in turn can give us access to more information or knowledge that might have not been accessible when just working verbally.

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