When It Comes to Task Assignment,Sometimes You Gotta “LEGO”®: Teaching Delegation Principles With Mega Bloks®

Conceptual Grounding

This exercise is grounded in situational leadership theory (Hersey & Blanchard, 1969, 1982). Hersey and Blanchard argue that there is no single “best” leadership style; instead, they suggest that good leadership requires customizing one’s approach to activities such as assigning tasks based on the contingencies of the situation. Accordingly, the most effective style of task assignment for a given situation depends on the preparedness of subordinates (referenced in terms of ability and willingness), as well as on the nature of the task. That is, some tasks require a more directive, hands-on, (i.e., “telling”) approach, particularly when employees have little experience or lack ability. However, in other situations, where the task is more open-ended/less proscribed and employees already have high experience and ability, leaders would do well to provide employees with more discretion (i.e., “participating”). This exercise illustrates situational contingencies in a way that students, including those with limited work background, can experience. It used the “showing” rather than the “telling” spirit of experiential learning (Kolb & Kolb, 2005).

The Exercise Itself

Preparing to Run the Exercise

The goal of this exercise is for managers to assign their employees the task of building a desktop pen or pencil holder without any visual references or any direct physical assistance from the manager. Prior to conducting the exercise, the instructor constructs a prototype penholder out of Mega Bloks that can be used as a model to show to students in the manager role. Photos of the prototype that we use in our class are shown in Figure 1.

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Figure 1.

Photos of sample penholder prototype.

Running the Exercise

We run this exercise as part of a class session on delegation and empowerment, with the full activity and debrief taking between 40 and 65 minutes (see Table 1 for a suggested timeline). The size of our classes has varied from 25 to 40 students, but we anticipate the activity could be easily scaled up from that range given adequate materials. We begin with a brief lecture to explain that there are degrees of empowerment, that assigning tasks is not always appropriate, and that managers should be intentional in deciding how much discretion to give employees (Ford, Fottler, Russ, & Milliam, 1995). We discuss the purposes of task allocation and explain how a manager’s desire for too much control can derail these efforts. We also point out that some managers assign tasks to abdicate their responsibilities at the expense of employees (Kahn, 1990).

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Table 1.

Exercise Timeline (Expected Total Time of 40-65 Minutes). ^a

Phase	Approximate Time (Minutes)
Lecture/discussion on definition of, purposes of, and common problems with assigning tasks (see Whetten & Cameron, 2015 for a useful discussion on this topic)	10-15
Introduce activity	2-4
Assign manager and employee roles	1-3
Explain instructions separately to managers	2-4
Have managers join their respective employees	1-2
Pass out bags of blocks to each manager	1-2
Allow groups to build their penholders	5-10
Debrief the exercise	15-20
Have students tear down the penholders, replace the blocks in their respective bags, and return to their seats	3-5

a

The time listed for each phase is an approximation and may vary due to instructor preference/emphasis and class size.

We then transition to the question of how to properly assign tasks by introducing the Mega Bloks activity. Students are assigned to groups of two or three (with one assigned to act as manager and the other[s] assigned to act as employees). We then ask all the “managers” to come into the hallway with us and leave all the “employees” in the classroom. Once in the hall, we show the managers the prototype of the penholder and tell them that their task is to get their employees to build a penholder out of Mega Bloks that is “functionally equivalent” to the prototype. We explain to the managers that they are allowed to be physically present with their employees the entire time and may provide their employees with as many verbal instructions as they wish. However, they are not allowed to draw diagrams or visual representations of what they want, nor can they touch the materials; in other words, their employees must do all the building. We then pass out the predivided sacks of Mega Blok pieces and let the managers return to the classroom to get started.

In running this exercise, we intentionally keep the instructions somewhat vague so as not to tip our hand about whether the managers should be directive or hands off. We have observed that some students appear uncomfortable with this ambiguity because (perhaps misunderstanding the instructions or out of concern of being embarrassed in front of the rest of the group) they press us for details about how closely the penholder should resemble the prototype. We are careful to say only that their employees’ design has to be “functionally equivalent” to the prototype.

We keep a box of extra Mega Bloks pieces at the front of the classroom so that managers can secure additional pieces that they deem necessary during the building process. We also keep the prototype of the penholder hidden in a bag at the front of the room so that managers can come up at any time and take a peek to refresh their memories of what the prototype looks like.

Debrief

Appendix A provides sample questions to use in debriefing this exercise. In our experience, most of the groups experience some degree of success in constructing a functional penholder—it is rare for a group to fail to build something complete and usable. We look for variance in the appearance of the penholders across groups. For penholders that are visibly unique, we ask the managers of those employees to describe their approach in assigning the penholder-building task. Ideally, there will be variance among the managers. Some managers will have used a more directive style, seeking to replicate the prototype as closely as possible, whereas others will have been more hands off and flexible in allowing employees to come up with something that was “functionally equivalent” to a penholder. We have had success with this exercise even if little variance among managers’ styles of assigning tasks emerges in a given class.

However, we have introduced a variation of this activity that incorporates specific manager roles to drive more variance for the purposes of illustration. We also provide suggestions for potential variations on this exercise that incorporate groups of different sizes or for running this exercise with MBA students (see Appendix B on “Variations and Caveats” and Appendix C for three variations of the manager’s role).

We then ask the students to give their opinions about whether a more directive or a more hands-off approach to assigning a task is more effective. In many classes, students identify the central theme of contingency: that the appropriate task assignment style (i.e., how present, directive, and hands on a manager should be) should depend on the situation. However, if we need to steer the conversation toward a contingency discussion, we often ask for a show of hands of how many of the individuals in the employee role have had significant experience building with LEGO® blocks or similar building materials. We then look for groups where employees self-identified as having LEGO building experience and groups where employees did not, and we ask managers of those groups to contrast their approaches to assigning the task. Often, managers of employees who already had experience with LEGO blocks and related building materials report that they instinctively backed off once it became clear that their employees felt comfortable taking initiative. We also suggest that managers should consider other relevant contingencies in addition to experience, such as the gender composition of the group (e.g., differences in how a female manager may communicate with a male versus a female employee; different approaches to assigning tasks in same-gender versus mixed-gender groups).

We describe how the leadership style of the manager should inform a customized approach to assigning tasks that is contingent on the nature of the task and the readiness of the employee(s) to receive the assignment. We have not asked the employees to formally evaluate their manager in this particular activity. However, an observer role could be incorporated if instructors wish to have a student designated to critique the manager’s execution of the task assignment exercise (see Appendix D for sample questions that could be given to students in the observer role). Instructors may ask students to reflect on what could be done to improve the outcomes of the exercise for managers or how the principles of assigning tasks might apply to topics such as followership, communication, or leader-member exchange relationships at work. We give special attention to discussing the relevance of appropriate task assignment strategies for managing groups. Because students in this class work extensively in groups, students tend to pay attention when we make the connection between effectively assigning tasks and teamwork.

Summary

In this article, we have described an activity for teaching about best practices in assigning tasks in a way that is accessible and comprehensible to students with limited experience in organizations. This exercise is versatile, as it can be completed within a 60- or 75-minute class period or used as an illustration in combination with other activities in a longer class. It builds on a classic theory of situational leadership (Hersey & Blanchard, 1982) that ties nicely into the curriculum of many introductory textbooks in management and organizational behavior. This activity memorably communicates the principle, summarized elegantly (while inducing plenty of eye rolling) by one of our colleagues, with the following line: “When it comes to task assignment, sometimes you’ve just got to LEGO (let go).”