Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry

by David Robertson, Bill Breen

Overview

Sometimes radical yet always applicable, Brick by Brick abounds with real-world lessons for unleashing breakthrough innovation in your organization, using LEGO—which experienced one of the most remarkable business transformations in recent history—as a business model.

As LEGO failed to keep pace with the revolutionary changes in kids' lives and began sliding into irrelevance, the company's leaders implemented some of the business world's most widely espoused prescriptions for boosting innovation. Ironically, these changes pushed the iconic toymaker to the brink of bankruptcy, showing that what works in theory can fail spectacularly in the brutally competitive global economy.

It took a new LEGO management team—faced with the growing rage for electronic toys, few barriers to entry, and ultra-demanding consumers (ten-year old boys)—to reinvent the innovation rule book and transform LEGO into one of the world's most profitable, fastest-growing companies. 

Along the way, Brick by Brick reveals how LEGO:

- Became truly customer-driven by co-creating with kids as well as its passionate adult fans
- Looked beyond products and learned to leverage a full-spectrum approach to innovation
- Opened its innovation process by using both the "wisdom of crowds" and the expertise of elite cliques
- Discovered uncontested, "blue ocean" markets, even as it thrived in brutally competitive red oceans
- Gave its world-class design teams enough space to create and direction to deliver built a culture where profitable innovation flourishes

Whether you're a senior executive looking to make your company grow, an entrepreneur building a startup from scratch, or a fan who wants to instill some of that LEGO magic in your career, you'll learn how to build your own innovation advantage, brick by brick.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780307951618
Publisher:	Crown Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/24/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	345,638
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

DAVID C. ROBERTSON is a Professor of Practice at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches Innovation and Product Development. Prior to joining the faculty of the Wharton School, Robertson was the LEGO Professor of Innovation and Technology Management at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland from 2002 through 2010. As the LEGO Professor, Robertson was given unique access to the company’s management team, has written two case studies about the company, and is the co-author of a Harvard Business Review piece on LEGO. At IMD, Robertson was the co-director of the school’s largest executive education program, the Program for Executive Development, and directed programs for Credit Suisse, EMC, HSBC, Skanska, BT, and other leading European companies. For more on Robertson’s background, and to contact him for speaking and consulting engagements, visit www.robertsoninnovation.com.
 
BILL BREEN is a founding member of the team that launched Fast Company, which gained an avid following among businesspeople and won numerous awards, including the National Magazine Award for General Excellence. As senior editor, he edited Fast Company's special issues on design and leadership and wrote many articles on competition, innovation, and personal success. He is the coauthor of The Responsibility Revolution and The Future of Management, which the editors of Amazon.com selected as the best business book of the year. Breen speaks to business audiences on leadership, innovation and sustainability; he has appeared on CNN, Fox, CBS, National Public Radio, and other media outlets.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Introduction: When the Bricks Click 1

Part 1 The Seven Truths of Innovation and LEGO Group's Decline

Chapter 1 Stacking Up 13

The Birth of the Brick

Chapter 2 Boosting Innovation 39

The LEGO Group's Bold Bid to Keep Pace with a Fast-Forward World

Chapter 3 Losing Control 63

The Scattered Remains of Runaway Innovation

Part 2 Mastering the Seven Truths of Innovation and Transforming LEGO

Chapter 4 Building an Innovation Culture 95

The Return to Core Values

Chapter 5 Becoming Customer Driven 123

The Rebirth of LEGO City

Chapter 6 Exploring the Full Spectrum of Innovation 151

The Bionicle Chronicle

Chapter 7 Fostering Open Innovation 179

Mindstorms, Architecture, and the Wisdom of the Clique

Chapter 8 Attempting a Disruptive Innovation 215

Aiming for the Stars with LEGO Universe

Chapter 9 Sailing for Blue Ocean 239

"Obviously LEGO, but Never Seen Before" and the Birth of LEGO Games

Chapter 10 Leveraging Diverse and Creative People 263

The Ninjago Big Bang

Chapter 11 Transforming LEGO 281

The Rebirth of a Brand

Notes 295

Index 297

Editorial Reviews

One of “The Best Books of 2013” -Fortune

One of the “Best Business Books of 2013” –Strategy + Business

"Well told...Mr. Robertson, with the benefit of access to staff at Lego and partner companies, provides unusually detailed reporting of the processes that led to Lego's current hits." -Wall Street Journal

"Robertson uncovers and shares a rare inside exploration of innovation-led transformation at its worst – and best. Any manager can learn from these lessons." -Forbes

“An engaging, surprisingly suspenseful and intimate view of the inner workings, leadership dynamics and decision-making process.” -Success

“Compelling reading.” –Business Standard

"Good storytelling, with considerable insight into Lego's efforts at innovation, including both successes and failures." -Winnipeg Free Press

“A valuable read for any business leader or student, but will also delight those familiar with the beloved toy.” –Publishers Weekly starred review

"A fascinating book. The story of how Lego came perilously close to disaster but then transformed itself into one of the most successful and innovative companies in the world serves both as an inspiration and an object lesson." -Chris Anderson, bestselling author of The Long Tail and Makers

"Brick by Brick is a fascinating study of an iconic toy company that figured out how to stay relevant in a rapidly changing market by returning to its core values and the guiding principles that made it a success in the first place. A must-read for any executive struggling with change." – Bryce G. Hoffman, journalist and author of American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company

"In an era filled with so many disheartening stories of corporate failure its refreshing to witness the turn-a-round  success of one we have all grown up with during our childhood and that will  continue for generations to come." –Adam Reed Tucker, LEGO Architectural Artist

“David Robertson and Bill Breen have done a wonderful job explaining brick by brick why Lego is loved around the world and what it took to keep this product at the center of toy industry for so long. Like Disney, Lego’s success can be attributed to their drive for innovation, creativity and persistence. While the bricks are loved by children, Brick by Brick is for any business person wanting to understand what it takes to be great.” –Lee Cockerell, executive vice president (retired and inspired), Walt Disney World Resort, author, Creating Magic and The Customer Rules

From the Publisher

LEGO’s iconic building system is a favorite of children and parents worldwide. Wharton professor Robertson’s entertaining, informative, and fast-paced account of LEGO’s rise, fall, and subsequent victory in the marketplace will have readers rooting for the survival of the little brick. Writing with former Fast Company senior editor Breen (The Responsibility Revolution), Robertson recounts how in 1932, founder Ole Kirk Christiansen, a Danish master carpenter and toymaker, spent more than a decade perfecting the plastic brick; how his son Godtfred “bet on the brick” in the mid-1950s and developed play systems that propelled the company’s expansion through the next several decades; and how grandson Kjeld drove global growth from the 1970s to the early 2000s. The majority of the book examines the company’s precarious health over the last decade. A turnaround operator’s attempted innovation backfires and leaves the company’s balance sheet bleeding beyond repair. In the end, a new CFO and CEO take draconian measures to repair the company, focusing on “profitable innovation”—rather than innovation for innovation’s sake—and listening to the customer. This book will be a valuable read for any business leader or student, but will also delight those familiar with the beloved toy. 37 b&w photos, 8-page insert. Agent: Carol Franco, Kneerim, Williams & Bloom. (June)

Publishers Weekly

How LEGO, the closely held, family-owned Danish toymaker, rose to world leadership in its business class, flirted with bankruptcy collapse and recovered to stake its claim to global leadership once again. Wharton School professor Robertson (co-author: Enterprise Architecture as Strategy: Creating a Foundation for Business Execution, 2006) and Fast Company founding member Breen (co-author: The Responsibility Revolution: How the Next Generation of Businesses Will Win, 2010, etc.) map the history of the company in relation to the principles that currently underlie business thinking about how to organize innovation successfully for the long haul. Founded in 1932 by master carpenter Ole Kirk Christiansen in Billund--where its world headquarters and manufacturing facilities are still located--he company's name is a play on the Danish leg godt, which means "play well." Christiansen's son, Godtfred, bought their first plastic-injection molding machine in 1947 and developed an "Automatic Binding Brick" by 1951. It was not until 1958, however, after years of experimentation, that they hit on the small hollow brick and its distinctive "clutch power" when the bricks are snapped together, that the company was propelled to world success. The authors show how chasing short-term popular trends in the 1990s alienated the customer base and sapped revenues, but LEGO recovered stronger than before, as their now-grown-up customer base stepped forward and helped transform the company's world position with the volunteered designs and criticisms that went into successful products like the LEGO Mindstorms NXT robot. Turning back to their traditional base with things like Henrik Andersen's 2004 design for a LEGO fire truck and products like LEGO Architect, also helped. A lively account of a company whose products will be familiar to most readers.

Kirkus Reviews

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