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