This slide deck illustrates how I use Serious Lego Play to teach students the concept of structural ambidexterity

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Structural Ambidexterity:
Serious Lego Play
Prof. Dr. Dries Faems

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Part 1: Skills Building
› Step 1: Select 10 components/bricks
› Step 2: Build a structure as high as possible
with these components
› Step 3: Build a model that illustrates your best
characteristics as a person
› Step 4: Share your characteristics with your
group members
› Step 5: Develop one group model that
combines the characteristics of the different
group members into one superteam. Give your
superteam a specific name
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Part 2: Defining Innovation
› Lego Exercise: What is your personal definition
of innovation?
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Definition of innovation
‘Innovation is the transformation of ideas into
products/services that can be launched onto the
market’
Science
&
Technology
Base
‘The’ Market

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Lego Exercise: Build a model
that shows a typical example
of innovation
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Different kinds of innovations
› Type of innovation
 Product innovation: Changes in the
things (products/services) which an
organization offers
 Process innovation: Changes in the
ways in which they are created and
delivered
› Novelty of innovation
 Incremental innovation:
Doing what we do better
 Radical innovation:
New to the world

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Lego Exercise: Place the
models on the grid following
the portfolio approach
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Part 3: Organizing for
Innovation
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Challenges in Organizing Explorative and
Exploitative Innovation at the Individual level
Exploitative innovation:
Analytic cognitive style
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Explorative innovation:
Intuitive cognitive style

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Exploitative innovation:
Structured process model
Explorative innovation:
Flexible process model
Challenges in Organizing Explorative and
Exploitative Innovation at the Process level

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Exploitative innovation:
Mechanistic structure
-Centralized structure
with multiple hierarchical
levels
-Formal coordination by
means of vertical
communication
-Focus on control
Explorative innovation:
Organic structure
- Decentralized structure
with limited number of
hierarchical levels
- Informal coordination
by means of lateral
communication
- Focus on autonomy
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Challenges in Organizing Explorative and
Exploitative Innovation at the Organizational level

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Challenges in organizing explorative
and exploitative innovation
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Exploitative
Innovation
Explorative
Innovation
Individual level Analytic cognitive
style
Intuitive cognitive
style
Project level Sequential process
models
Functional
project structure
Iterative process
models
Cross-functional
project structure
Organizational
level
Mechanistic
structure
Organic
structure

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Lego Exercise: Build a model
that illustrates a solution for
this innovation challenge
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Structural separation of exploitative and explorative
activities within the firm
Exploitation Exploration
Organizing for sustainable innovation:
Intra-firm solutions
Structure: Ambidextrous organization, internal venturing department, explorative
heavyweight team
Advantage: Each separate unit can be optimally staffed, managed and structured
Challenges: Expensive and limited ability to realize synergies across different units
(Jansen et al., 2009; Van Looy et al., 2005)

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