Rising out of the ashes of a recession we may be, but many companies are burned out, still focussing on short-term goals in order to survive. At a time when employee satisfaction is at a record low and retention is a huge issue, businesses leaders are looking for different ways to re-engage their people.

Established in 1932 by a local wood-carver in a small town in Denmark, the LEGO company was built on the Danish values of hard work, humility and teamwork, and its heritage remains an essential part of the company’s culture, despite its international reach. The LEGO company’s physical spaces proudly track the growth of the company from the humble beginning of a carpenter’s workshop through expansion of a 24,750- square-foot workshop to the complex of buildings that stand today, complete with over 970,000 square feet of mass-production capability.

Behind secure doors and off limits to all except designers and children, (who are welcomed to the LEGO site for tours and co-creation events; LEGO employees are also encouraged to bring theirs to work), the open-plan studio of the LEGO company’s design and development studio bursts with activity. Team boundaries are defined by bold banners and enormous brick sculptures, while LEGO designers express their individuality through collected objects and imagery on display in their workspaces. It's clear that this is a company that takes play seriously. After all, it is this dedication to understanding the power of play that has enabled the company to continue find new ways of connecting with children and adults alike through their basic product: the brick.
 
At the LEGO company, play is not restricted to brick-building sessions or co-creation with children, it’s part of the DNA. ‘Hotspots’ – areas furnished with games such as table football – pop up among team spaces throughout the studios, encouraging people to relax and connect with colleagues. This type of playfulness relies upon a spirit of trust, something that is reinforced by the physical openness and relaxed atmosphere of the working environment. Here is a company that understands that creativity thrives when people are curious – ‘when you’re allowed to be playful, when you’re allowed to harness your imagination by asking: “what if something was completely different?” or asking stupid questions.

As Cecilia Weckstrom, experience and innovation director explains, this curiosity is fuelled by an appreciation and appetite for learning, and one of the many ways that learning happens here is when people meet, randomly exchanging ideas or finding inspiration in something they see on a neighbour’s desk or overhear in a hallway. These connections are the essential thing that builds friendships – and ‘friendships are the thing that allows you come to terms with the vulnerability that sometimes accompanies hair-brained ideas,’ remarks Weckstrom. The environment at the LEGO company reflects that way of thinking through making the spaces as open and light as possible, encouraging serendipitous encounters wherever possible and filling the space with toys.

Corridor areas are more like playgrounds where employees on electric scooters weave between basketball hoops and a swing, and an oversized chair reminds LEGO people what it feels like to be a child. ‘It’s important to play and have fun to keep the inner child alive – keep reminding ourselves what it’s like to be a child – it’s part of our job and our mentality,’ says Rosario Costa, design director. 

LEGO environments provide clues for creative behaviour, but hold back from prescribing any particular way of being, and this in turn provides a framework for creativity that is far more than just a blank canvas. The LEGO company’s playfulness is inherent both in its products and in its people, and by adding playful touches throughout its spaces, it encourages a relaxed sense of creativity. While some companies throw big, wacky and ‘out there’ objects into their environments in an effort to inspire, at the LEGO company, a humble, practical approach is taken to the spaces, and the Lessons they’ve learnt over their colourful history serve them well to build great things in the future. After all, as Paal Smith- Meyer, director New Business, says: ‘Everything big starts small.’

Rather than an economic luxury, innovation should be among the primary corporate assets and the bedrock of any successful business. More than just a buzzword, creativity is the secret to enabling innovation, and something that companies can no longer afford to ignore. Business leaders often cite ‘innovation’ and ‘creativity’ as important factors of their businesses and for many, these phrase s are espoused as values and in mission statements. Yet few truly know how to support innovation in their workplace. And even fewer pay attention to the second-most powerful contributor to fostering creativity: the physical environment. 

Of course the top of the list are people whom are inextricably linked to the workplace when it comes to cultivating a buzzing creative working climate. The physical space has huge impact on people’s wellbeing, and this in turn affects creativity. Moreover, a person who will have afforded the freedom and trust to exercise creative thoughts and actions at work has an increased sense of self-worth, engagement in the company and better inter-personal relationships with colleagues. 

So why is it that, even in those organisations that acknowledge the importance of innovation, we still see people squeezed into battery farm-style offices or lost in a sea of grey ‘open plan’ cubicles? I am a believer in the creative process and fascinated by the idea that the environment, both physical and cultural, can make or break creativity. 

I feel that it's possible to define what helps to cultivate creativity in a corporate environment, that the physical space can be used as a tool as part of the creative process, and is not a mystifying intangible that we can only hope to stumble upon. To test my assumptions I set myself the Challenge of visiting some of the world’s most successful brands and creative companies to better understand, first hand, the various facets of physical environments that foster creativity, encourage ideas or knowledge sharing and allow fearless exploration. And the Results were both surprising and delightful.

" Image: © 2009 the LEGO Group.  All rights reserved and used with permission."