bill breen

LEGO is so omnipresent in today’s culture—through its stores, its theme parks, its movies, and of course its construction kits—that it’s hard to imagine a world not strewn with billions of colorful plastic LEGO bricks. Yet less than two decades ago, in 2003, the company came close to extinction, thanks to a frenetic bout of new-product introductions that left out LEGO’s core customers: the kids and adults who just love to build stuff with bricks. In today’s episode of Soonish, hear how the family-owned company behind the LEGO “system of play” recovered from this near-death experience and reconnected with fans to become the world’s most valuable toy brand.

This episode comes to you courtesy of InnoLead, where I’m guest-producing and guest-hosting a four-episode podcast miniseries called “The Persistent Innovators.” This is Episode 3: “What Makes LEGO a Persistent Innovator?” The driving question of the miniseries is how big, established companies can defy historical trends and come up with the hit products needed to keep them on top of their industries, decade after decade. But it turns out LEGO’s crisis, which played out between 1994 and 2003 or so, wasn’t really a lack of innovation—it was an excess of it. 

To find out what happened, I spoke with Bill Breen, a business journalist who co-wrote the best book about LEGO’s turnaround, and former LEGO executives Robert Rasmussen and David Gram. They explain how the company lost sight of its core mission—encouraging learning and exploration through the “hard fun” of building with LEGO bricks—and how it clawed its way back to success through a careful combination of creativity and discipline. 

"What Makes LEGO a Persistent Innovator?" was first published by Innovation Answered on Febuary 14, 2022. You can hear the entire miniseries at innovationleader.com or in your podcast player of choice.

LEGO image by Ivan Diaz on Unsplash

LEGO is one of the world’s most famous and admired brands. The company’s colorful plastic bricks are the literal building blocks of an empire that spans a $5 billion annual toy business, hundreds of retail stores, 10 theme parks, and a series of hit movies. But what LEGO actually sells isn’t just the bricks, it’s a whole system of play: an endlessly expandable way for children (and adults) to combine hand, eye, and imagination.

It was when product developers drifted away from that system in the 1990s and early 2000s—introducing a blizzard of toy lines that didn’t use the bricks at all—that LEGO stumbled into serious trouble. The company had a close brush with bankruptcy in 2003, then grappled its way back to profitability by refocusing on its core customers and their passion for building things.

For this third episode of our Persistent Innovators miniseries, guest host and producer Wade Roush sought out LEGO experts like journalist Bill Breen—co-author of the authoritative LEGO history Brick by Brick—as well as former LEGO executives Robert Rasmussen (developer of the LEGO Serious Play method) and David Gram (founder of the consulting firm Diplomatic Rebels). They explain what went wrong at LEGO, how the company rediscovered the spirit of play that make its toys so beloved, and what it does today to make sure that innovation doesn’t stray too far outside the brick.

The Persistent Innovators is sponsored by Patsnap (www.patsnap.com), the Connected Innovation Intelligence company, and by Patsnap’s online courseware site Innovation Academy (academy.patsnap.com).