LEGO’s Management Model

in Ideas & Thinking

At a management innovation conference in Copenhagen in early September Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, CEO of LEGO, explained his management model.

“The goal is to increase the ability of Lego as a business to adapt to changing circumstances, while dealing with the complexity of allocation and coordination issues.”

To do so he concentrates on what he called the “7 adaption boundaries”:

  • Performance measurement – what to measure, what to reward?
  • Business model design & innovation
  • The organization as a living system
  • Stakeholder involvement
  • The elusive ability to execute
  • The next industrial revolution – digitalization
  • Working with relationships & perception

By defining these boundaries he guides LEGO and its members (i.e. employees) to new potentials. By pushing them he further increases the ability of LEGO as a living system to adapt and exploit these potentials.

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Tagged as: Management Innovation

  • Phil Galvin

    I like the idea of an organisation as a living system. I used to work for ICI, which had to die in order for its bits to be reborn within other organisations.

  • ken usman-smith

    Scary Monsters and Super Creeps were lyrics from David Bowie and are also labels we can allocate to both the Leaders and Managers that drive the business which is the model we all know.

    The scary monsters take control and develop a vision that leads the business forward or rescues the business from failure. The super creeps are of course the managers of the future, climbing the greasy pole, but both are essential.

    The leader takes us on a course and steers us through stormy waters. The manager is in the ascendancy when we reach calm waters. they will organises and process map everything when we reach stability.

    Churchill the visionary Leader gave way to Clement Attlee the manager. Who is the one we owe most to? We survived the war with pride, but also we were given the national health service, social security and nationalised industries from a bankrupt country.

    Both achievements are seemingly beyond those we are led by today, and possibly beyond those we inherit through the ballot box tommorrow.

    I agree that the business itself is a living thing, a world. It is the sum total of the dreams of those who inhabit that macrosystem. A world that unfolds or withers through the efforts of its stakeholders.

    And like ICI and others, the seasons gradual turnng effect a rebirth, the organisation changes to embrace the brave new worlds that the adaption has created.

    Thats why we cannot imagine the tools and models of 10 years time. What we train our students and managers for is not even in existence yet. So all we need them to be is adaptive, agile and visionary.

    Or ashes to ashes will be the organistions fate.

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