Why teams get clearer the moment ideas leave their heads

THE ART & SCIENCE OF LEADING SELF
The Power of Meaning-Making Together

My friend, last week we explored how hands-on thinking can reveal the assumptions shaping your inner world. This week, I want to shift from internal clarity to collective clarity. You know, the kind you need when your team is navigating complexity where conversation alone tends to fall short.

Today, I want to focus on how metaphorical modeling and shared language accelerate team alignment by strengthening the subject–object shift at the group level.

Why Metaphor Changes Everything 🔑

Last week’s takeaway was simple but powerful. When your hands move, your mind opens. You see your thinking instead of wrestling with it inside your head.

Today, I want to take that one step further by highlighting a key part of what makes the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP) Method so powerful:

Metaphorical modeling helps you transform your thinking.

In LSP, participants build models that represent ideas, challenges, values, fears, and future states. The model itself is not the metaphor. The metaphor emerges when the builder explains what the elements in the model mean.

Once the meaning is articulated, the model becomes a tangible container for the metaphor. And that container creates just enough cognitive distance for leaders to loosen their grip on familiar narratives.

That distance matters.

Metaphors soften emotional fusion.

They shift you from “I am this story” to “This story is one interpretation among many.”

They help you hold your meaning-making lightly enough to work with it. 👈🏽

This is the developmental move that underpins the subject–object shift. It is the shift from being inside your meaning-making to being able to observe it.

A moment from my certification illustrates this. In one exercise, we built models of the nightmare CEO. One participant added a small symbolic element in her model. When she explained it, the metaphor surfaced a truth she had not previously been able to articulate. The model revealed what her mind had tucked away.

That is the power of metaphorical distance.

Shared Language as the Bridge Between Leaders 🤝

When individuals build LSP models and explain the meaning behind them, shared language emerges. Shared language is the bridge that helps teams build collective clarity.

Here is why this matters:

• Teams rarely begin with the same definition of the problem.

• People carry invisible assumptions. Building a model helps surface them.

• Conversations drift when everyone is making meaning independently.

Given this, LSP models become guideposts. They provide shared reference points from which the team can navigate. It empowers them to clarify that:

• “We are pointing to the same thing.”

• “We understand what this symbol represents.”

• “We are solving the same problem, not different interpretations of it.”

This is the foundation of team alignment. Creating the conditions for aligned meaning-making is what enables coordinated action.

The Subject-Object Shift at the Group Level 🔗

Now, let’s tie it all together.

You and I both know that in the team context, the subject–object shift doesn’t stay individual.

It becomes shared. And that shift changes everything.

Here is what happens in a group LSP session:

1. Individual meaning becomes visible through models

2. Models become shared objects the team can examine together

3. Shared objects reduce defensiveness because the “thing” is in the middle of the table rather than inside a person

4. Reduced defensiveness increases psychological safety and clarity

This is the moment when the developmental shift moves from personal to collective.

At the individual level, the shift sounds like:

“I am not inside this belief. I can look at it.”

At the team level, it becomes:

“We are not trapped inside our separate interpretations. We can look at them together.”

This is how LSP accelerates alignment. Ideas that usually live inside people become visible, discussable, and workable while becoming less personal.

This is also where the Mindset House that we have been building comes back into focus. LSP strengthens each element you have learned so far.

✅ Foundation (Mindfulness) → Noticing the Model
The model slows the moment down just enough to observe what is present without judgment.

✅ Skeletal Framing (Subject–Object Shift) → Seeing Your Thinking
The model supports the ability to move from being subject to emotional states or patterns of thinking to being able to observe them as distinct from you. This shift occurs first at the individual level and then at the collective level.

✅ Flooring (Detachment) → Your Idea Is Not “You”  
When your idea sits in the middle of the table, it becomes revisable, workable. You remain whole as the team engages in a process that supports greater objectivity.

Want to put this into action?

Take 4 minutes and build a quick model of a current challenge you’re navigating. Use anything you have nearby — a few LEGOs, coins, sticky notes, office odds and ends.

The goal isn’t perfection. It’s simply to make the challenge visible so you can see it with a little more clarity than the story running in your mind.

Want to explore what might shift in your team if your ideas lived in the middle of the table, instead of inside each person?

Reach out. I’d love to share how LSP can help your team surface assumptions, create shared language, and accelerate alignment.

MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD 📢

EXCELLENCE UNBOUNDED
How I Can Help You

Trusted by Executive Teams When Alignment Matters Most

When leadership teams misalign, it’s not just an internal issue. It shows up in decisions, culture, and outcomes.

I design and deliver high-impact, immersive leadership experiences that:

🔍 Expose misalignment at the root

🧠 Build shared language and mindset

⚡ Strengthen execution velocity

If you lead or advise an executive team that’s approaching an inflection point or preparing for significant growth, book a conversation.

🎤 Speaking + Facilitation

From main stage keynotes to boardroom sessions, I deliver talks on the inner capacities that drive performance.

Past clients include KraftHeinz, Amazon Women @ Payments, and the ICF in Panamá (delivered in Spanish).

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