How it started
It began with a polite question.
Sean Blair and Marko Rillo met at a gathering of facilitators of the LEGO® Serious Play® method in Billund, Denmark. The book was Marko’s idea, and he put it to Sean in his typically polite and delightful way:
“Sean, there are so few books on the LEGO® Serious Play® method. Maybe we should write one?”
They did. SERIOUSWORK, a practical how-to book on professionally facilitated meetings and workshops, launched in London in November 2016 and became a foundation text for the method. Marko became Sean’s mentor, and remains a friend and a supporter of what we do.
The business that grew from that book now trains facilitators across Europe, Asia and Australia, and live online for the Americas.
What you leave with
You leave ready to run your own workshop, because you already have.
Customers often tell us it was the best training course they have ever been on. This is what they take home.
- 1Your first workshop is already behind youEvery course ends with a live session you run for a group you have never met, with your trainer’s feedback. On Monday you are not starting, you are continuing.
- 2Skills you use far beyond the bricksYou learn to design, contract and sell outcome-focused workshops, and to run better meetings with or without LEGO® bricks.
- 3You are never on your own afterwardsLifetime access to our graduate community and its Lunch and Learns, our books and tools to keep, and mentoring when you take on your first assignments.
- 4A certificate your clients can checkIssued with a unique ID anyone can verify, by the trainers who wrote the method’s leading books.
In their words
What graduates say.
Trusted by teams at
Google, HSBC, Pfizer, the UK Cabinet Office, the US Space Force, Accenture, Deloitte, IBM, BMW, Shell, Cisco, Citibank, Coca-Cola, Spotify, Cathay Pacific, Medtronic and FedEx.
Ten years
How the work moved on.
- 2016SERIOUSWORK launches in London
It sets out the three build levels, now a common language among practitioners worldwide.
- 2019Singapore becomes our second home
We start training in Singapore, which is now our base for Asia.
- 2020The method goes online
Others said it could not be done. We developed the techniques with more than 254 people from March 2020, and wrote them down.
- 2026The Systems Synergy
The method, The Fifth Discipline and Bohmian Dialogue in one practice, with a foreword by Professor Bart Victor, co-inventor of LEGO® Serious Play®.
- Next: opening 2027The Systems Synergy Facilitator Pathway
Supervised practice on your own live work, by application, in London and Singapore.
Took it further
What we added to the method, and what it lets you do.
Each book added something you can use in your own workshops. Five books by our founders, used by facilitators worldwide.
SERIOUSWORK
Design any workshop in one clear language
The three build levels: individual, shared and system models.
About the book
Mastering
Turn individual views into a shared picture
44 techniques for building shared models, with twenty graduate stories.
About the book
ONLINE
Run it with remote and hybrid teams
Techniques that let groups build and co-create together on a call.
About the book
Building Better Learning
Use it in classrooms and lecture halls
Three ways to use it in schools and universities, pioneered by Liam Isaac.
About the book
The Systems Synergy
Work on whole systems, not just teams
The five-stage SeriousWork Systems Thinking Model©, with The Fifth Discipline and Bohmian Dialogue.
About the book“Ultimately, the most important shift described here is from method to capability.”
How we train
You learn by facilitating, not by watching.
The same principles run through every course, in every country and language.
- 1Small groupsUp to eight people in the room, so everyone leads the group several times.
- 2Feedback every time you leadPersonal, practical feedback from your trainer each time you facilitate.
- 3A real workshop before you leaveYou run a two-hour session for a group you have never met.
- 4Certified on what you didNot on attendance. Then lifetime access to our graduate community.
Founder
Sean Blair.
Sean is an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator and has designed and facilitated leadership workshops since 2000. He co-founded SeriousWork, whose founders have written five books on the LEGO® Serious Play® method, and is the author of The Systems Synergy (2026).
He has facilitated and trained for organisations including Google, HSBC, Pfizer, the UK Cabinet Office and the US Space Force. He lives in Singapore and leads every Singapore course himself.
Master trainers
The people who train you.
Liam Isaac has worked alongside Sean for three years and leads our online and education training. Jens has led our training in German for more than six years. Victoria Bradley leads coaching.
SeriousWork founder and an award-winning IAF Certified Professional Facilitator. Works with senior leaders on strategy, culture and organisational change, helping them see and shift the whole system. Author of four books, including The Systems Synergy (2026), and developer of the SeriousWork Systems Thinking Model©. His global network has trained nearly 3,000 facilitators.
Learning designer and strategic facilitator with 20 years of experience. Works with C-suites and leadership teams to navigate complexity through visible thinking and purposeful play. Author of Building Better Learning: Using the LEGO® Serious Play® Method in Education. Has trained hundreds of SeriousWork graduates in the UK, US and Middle East.
SeriousWork’s most experienced international Master Trainer. Has run hundreds of trainings and helped pioneer the techniques behind our online courses. Leads SeriousWork training in German, in Munich and across the German-speaking world.
Leads SeriousWork’s coaching programme. ICF PCC credentialed coach, trained to ICF Level 3 (Coach Mastery), and a certified LEGO® Serious Play® facilitator, with more than two decades of building and advising businesses. Her course carries 7 ICF CCE units. Author of the forthcoming Learn to Coach with the LEGO® Serious Play® Method.
The network
Trainers and associates around the world.
Plainly
Who you are dealing with.
Independent
We are not part of the LEGO Group. No single body certifies the method, and the LEGO Group does not certify or endorse facilitators. We follow its trademark guidelines.
Verifiable
Every certificate is issued through Certifier with its own ID, so a client can check your certification in seconds.
A real company
SERIOUSOUTCOMES™ and SERIOUSWORK™ operate in the UK through Serious Outcomes Ltd (company number 11115058) and in Singapore through Serious Outcomes Asia Pte Ltd (UEN 202553890W).
Deciding who to train with?
Talk to us first.
Tell us what you facilitate and where you want to take it. We will tell you which course fits, and when it next runs.