How a Plastic Brick, Conquered the Global Toy Industry

If I asked you to look at a viciously competitive company, in a market where the tastes change rapidly, where you have to redesign your product every year or two and where you were dominating the market because of your ability to innovate; where there was  a cult like devotion to your product, yet it once faced bankruptcy until one of the most successful transitions in business history... most of you would immediately think of Apple.

Well that’s true.  But it’s also true of LEGO.  Yes that humble plastic brick has within it a story that is both a metaphor for and cautionary tale about innovation in the world of business and technology.

David Robertson, a former McKinsey consultant and now Professor at the Wharton School, provides a detailed case study of LEGO in Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry.

My conversation with David Robertson: