5 Leadership Lessons learnt by Coaching Junior Lego League

Legos, Legos everywhere …. That’s what my coaching looks like.  I have been coaching Junior Lego League team for the last 3 years. I started this team when my elder daughter was in kindergarten and now she is in 3rd grade and the team is still running strong. I am starting another team this year with the kindergartners – this time with my younger daughter.   

Leading a team of kids through a season of a Lego league where they learn about a topic, plan and build a model, program parts, learn to work as team, share, argue, put their learnings on a poster board and then finally present and share their findings, has been full of so many leadership lessons for me as a coach. I work full-time in a leadership role and I can see how training a few junior school students provides leadership lessons for all adults

Here are the 5 most important lessons I have learnt from coaching kids for the Lego league:

Model in Kindergarten 

1.       Team ownership and pride: Kids in elementary school play together all the time but they don’t call it teamwork (or rather team play really).  Kids compete with each other to gain praise which is exactly what adults do too but not in such an open way.  I had to constantly work with the kids to help them understand that they are not really competing with each other when working in a team. They should be proud of what they all create and they don’t need to point out what each of them made in the model. It is a “TEAM” effort.  They may not agree with how things were done or all parts of the model but still it is their model which they present to others.  Leaders in real world need to help teams work together and celebrate the successes as a whole – the whole team should own the whole output not just parts of it.

2.       Listen to the ideas: Kids have to be taught how to “listen”. But so does any team – are the members actually listening to each other or predisposed to dismissing an idea in their heads with a “but” or a “no”? While coaching the Lego team, we established rules regarding listening to ideas by letting the kids express their ideas in their engineering journals first, and then present it while other team members listened.  By enforcing this simple rule, we came up with a combinatorial set of ideas for our team logo, model variants to build and test and, final presentation strategies. This helped team members who were not that confident about their ideas be included in the discussion. As a leader in the workplace, I learnt the importance of just listening (and trying not to have misconceptions prior to listening) and taking the time for in-depth discussions and brainstorming which allow everyone to express their ideas in different ways.

Model in 1st Grade

3.       Let them disagree …. But teach them on how to agree: One kid wanted to put a star wars figure in the middle of a wildflower garden model created by the team to show the relationship between bees and hummingbirds – that was a big disagreement in the team.  The kids argued and disagreed about it for quite some time with emotions running high.  As a coach, I let it happen for some time as I wanted to see how they would solve this problem. But with emotions running high and kids being kids, everyone was ready to have a melt down – I had to step in. This is where I worked with them to come to an agreement. Could we have another Lego figurine in the model or a little shed where the Star Wars figure could be put   with a storyline around it.  The kids came to an agreement which seemed to satisfy everyone and the model still worked (phew!!).  We have disagreements in work teams all the time. Some disagreement is healthy – it helps us make our results better. But at some point, the leader should guide the team to an agreement –  to make the output of the team better. We cannot keep the conflict under wraps because it would still keep coming up but rather steer the team to solve the conflict.

4.       Observe and understand the strengths of each kid: Every kid is special and brings a quality to the team. Some kids were good in planning the model and the whole picture, some kids were good in programming, some kids were good in art and making the poster. It takes times to understand what each kid is good at, let them develop the talent and give them a chance to work on things they are not so confident about. The goal of the Lego leagues is to help in holistic nurturing of talent. It was important for me as a coach to let the kids work in their comfort areas and challenge them when they seemed ready for it.  As a leader in an organization, each member of the team brings different expertise – it is important to recognize that talent and nurture it but also give them a challenge in other areas within their comfort zone. Successful leaders nurture the diverse talents in their teams.

Model in 2nd Grade  at World Robotics Festival 

5.       Explain to a “kid with curiosity”: As a coach to kids I had to answer a lot (believe me – a lot !!) of questions over the years and it forced me to explain complicated concepts in simple ways – use tools such as drawing, videos and books. My audience were kids and I wanted these kids to ask me a lot of questions.  I took the time to understand my material and then explain it in 3-4 main ideas. The discussion used to change midway if one of the kids asked an interesting question but I had to make the connection back to the 3-4 main points. As a leader, we have to communicate to our teams and to other business groups.  Using simple storylines, graphics and just fewer words helps to simplify communications. We need to keep our storyline within 3-4 main concepts, encourage the questions but make sure that the audience remembers the simplified message. Think of your audience as a “kid with curiosity” – and start with a very simple storyline to communicate.

Sports is full of stories of great coaches. Great coaches are also great leaders. Coaching kids is a two-way street – on one hand, you as a coach can impart your knowledge to the kids and see them learn and blossom but on the other hand, you can learn a lot from the kids and become a better leader and coach.