This Christmas was a LEGO fiesta. My two daughters got lots and lots of LEGO boxes, and have spent a big portion of the past days putting things together. There’s a castle draw bridge, and a nice family house, and a police stations, and the list goes on and on. I’ve been a passive participant, occasionally helping out in finding a particular piece or interpreting how the layers in step 17 in the carefully crafted instructions add up to the observation deck of the police station.

I’ve also been thinking what a damn fine toy LEGO is, and how it prepares our children for the life ahead.

• First of all, building LEGO models teaches patience. Take a box of 500 or 1000 pieces, many that look very alike (but still not the same), and follow 4 books of instructions, each 30-40 steps, in order to build a single house! For a 6 year old, that takes a lot of patience, but with it comes appreciation for the rewards of being patient.
• Second, LEGO shows you how to follow instructions, but only for what it matters: in order to get results. You can spread the bricks randomly around your room, or you can sort them by size, color and shape. You can follow the steps strictly in order, or you can do steps in parallel by sneaking ahead. The instructions are there to help you get results: the model you’re building. If you achieve the results, the rest doesn’t matter. I wish more companies taught their employees the value of this. Rules are meant to be broken, as long as you achieve results!
• Finally, LEGO teaches innovation. My six year old has built countless models by the instructions provided in the box. But she’s also built models by sight based on the pictures of models on the box that don’t have instruction manuals. And she’s also improvised and built her own stuff. With such a powerful and flexible toolset like LEGO, it’s impossible not to innovate. And that’s the most important lesson of them all, teaching children to try new things and build stuff.

Pretty impressive for a toy that was invented in 1949.

- Gummi