Probably LEGO is one of the most well-known brands across the globe. Maybe only few remember, how it went through a life-threatening crisis in the early 2000s. Close to bankruptcy, they made it back again, recovered and truly succeeded during past 15 years.

An amazing story But if you look carefully, their next major crisis might already be here!

I love LEGO. I played with it as a kid, gave it to my kids and have been using it in my consulting business. Matching LEGO's new market presence, I'm a LEGO Serious Play Facilitator and ... I buy and build sets as an adult for my own private pleasure.

The strategy for their successful turnaround: Adults. A major new business segment affording higher priced sets. For fun, also for more complicated and even for business applications.

As profitable this had become, it carries a danger for new troubles. Because the product's fulfillment doesn't seem to justify the high prices anymore.

LEGO is facing three major Problems today

❌ Delivered bricks for major sets are not meeting high quality standards. Colors of bricks and tiles, used in expensive sets, are deviating. Transparent building blocks (e.g. windows) often come scratched. The results look terrible.

❌ In order to make building of more complicated sets easier, they introduced colors. Instead of a uniform color scheme, e.g. great cara now have a colorful underbody made of reds, blues or yellows. Doesn't look good at all.

❌ Instead of investing into printed bricks for decorated parts, they tend to supply stickers, which need to get placed on tiny parts of expensive sets.

All of this wouldn't matter, if LEGO wouldn't target at a critical segment of people: Adults. At very high prices, which have been increasing incredibly over the past few years. With a competition, offering compatible bricks and delivering better quality at even lower prices, LEGO is running into troubles.

It seems they are even not listening to customers. The gap between price and quality is getting wider. Too many ideas are processed in parallel, internal designers even stripping down customer's proposals for new sets down to unattractive end results.

🚀 The solution??? Time for leadership! Time for LEGO's CEO to listen carefully to their main customer segments. Try, what Haier Group did:

• Close the distance to customers down to Zero

• Form small and responsible units

• Foster entrepreneurship everywhere

I'd love to see LEGO survive. But it has to come at an expected high level of quality. Up or out.