Innovation at LEGO – What do you think?

In the October edition of Visions, we published a different kind of article.  In comic-book style, Dr. David Robertson of Penn’s Wharton Business School laid out a brief history of The LEGO Group.  After phenomenal growth that saw a doubling of sales every fifteen years, suddenly things changed.  LEGO turned to innovation as the theme to get back on a healthy growth trajectory.

LEGO pursued all of the leading innovation advice: practicing disruptive innovation, pursuing “Blue Ocean” markets, deep customer understanding, hiring diverse and creative people, building innovation into the culture, practicing open innovation, and broadening their innovation portfolio.

As the article says, “the result was disaster.  In 2003, the company lost almost $300 million and was close to bankruptcy.”

And that’s the cliffhanger.

On Wednesday, November 2, Dr. Robertson will explain to the PDMA Annual Global Conference audience what LEGO did to return to the thriving, market-dominant organization that it is today.  In the meantime, we want to know what you think…what went wrong?  Why did their innovation efforts fail to turn things around financially?  And if you were charged with handling the crisis, what would you do?

Please feel free to answer in comments below, or submit your thoughts to editor@pdma.org.  Select commentary will be shared in the January edition of Visions, along with a synopsis of what LEGO actually did.  We look forward to hearing from you!

Brad Barbera
PDMA Executive Director