Crazy Might Work
Issue #33 | March 2026
Welcome to Our Un-Boring Leadership Series
Mission Brief: Un-Boring Strategy
Credit : UNIVERSAL PICTURES/Alamy
Is your team disengaged and slightly passive-aggressive? It might be you.
Welcome to our Un-Boring Leadership Series, where we explore what leaders are doing to make life less insufferably tedious for themselves and their teams. Serious work doesn’t have to be serious and even teams operating in life and death situations (like paramedics and the military) benefit from a sense of fun. In fact, research shows that playful humour significantly improves workplace morale, psychological safety, and creativity, operating not just as entertainment, but as a cognitive and social mechanism to enhance creativity, enable divergent thinking, and strengthen team cohesion.
Given that it’s strategy season in many places, we thought we’d start there. In the first of our Un-Boring Leadership Series, we explore three evidence-backed ways to make strategy development less like a trip to the dentist.
LEGO® Serious Play® Full Certification
Computer experts estimate the human brain is capable of exaflop computing, which equates to 1018 floating point operations per second (roughly the same processing power as the world’s best supercomputers) (Madhavan, 2023), but there are some fundamental differences in how this intelligence gets expressed. One of these is that human intelligence is embodied. Insight generation or the Aha! moment is one example we have already mentioned, and another can be found in the extensive human hand-brain connections. The human brain has evolved to think in contact with the physical world, and one of the most powerful ways to do this in strategy is using a tool developed for that specific purpose: LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP). LSP is used by global brands to develop their strategies because it has one key attribute: it allows strategists to “Build to Think” using metaphor and storytelling (rather than literal LEGO builds) to imagine the future and co-create a strategy.
FULL CERTIFICATION
It’s time to ‘go pro’ with a facilitation skill that has taken the world by storm: LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP). Used for strategy and innovation by some of the biggest brands, this is not child’s play. In the 2-day full accreditation, you’ll learn the key techniques required to frame and tackle business problems, improve team collaboration and drive innovation in your organisation. If you are looking for an approach that is immersive and truly engaging, LEGO® Serious Play® is one to add to your resume.
LSP Certification Course gives you the full repertoire of LSP Methods, from the Foundation Course through to advanced facilitation and commercial guidance. Complete the course and become a Certified Facilitator of LSP.
COURSE OVERVIEW
These workshops are intensive, small-group coaching sessions where we give you everything you need to succeed in bringing LSP to your organisation or business and maximising its impact:
– Background theory on why this method works and when to use it
– Templates to design a range of awesome LSP sessions
– Extensive coaching on delivering LSP
– Innovative ways to capture the powerful conversations from a session
– Traditional uses for LSP (Individual, Team, Business)
– New uses for LSP (customising the workshop to include how you will use the method)
– Key tips and strategies to win over important stakeholders, turning them into advocates
– Understand the various LEGO kits that are available and build your own
– Connect into the worldwide LSP community
WHEN + WHERE
In-person two days on Tuesday, 21st April and Wednesday, 22nd April 2026
Sydney, CBD (Venue to be Confirmed)
PRICING
$2,875 per participant (Includes GST)
Create High-Performing Teams
40 years ago, on 28 January 1986, the Challenger space shuttle disintegrated just after lift-off, killing its crew and changing the history of spaceflight. A small team of engineers tried to prevent the tragedy but were overruled. After senate inquiries and further fatalities, it was eventually found that the root cause of the disaster was culture and leadership failure. As a result of these incidents, the NASA 4-D System was developed and transformed NASA’s culture. Voluntarily completed by over 1,500 NASA teams, the program spread globally and has become a gold standard for over 100,000 teams across 75 countries. Read the article by the ABC News here
NASA 4-DIMENSIONAL SYSTEM ACCREDITATION
Participants complete 16 hours of immersive leadership experiences, including simulations from the current space program, acquiring 8 skills that have made this the gold standard for over 100,000 alumni worldwide. After completing the core program, participants use the NASA Context Shifting Blueprint to shift a selected team from dysfunction or mediocrity to high performance. This demonstrates the power of the 4-D system and will forever change the way you think about leadership and influence.
BENEFITS
HIGH PERFORMANCE: Create psychologically safe and high-performing teams.
SHIFT SOCIAL CONTEXT: Rewrite the Unwritten Rules and transform the social context.
BE INSPIRED: Replicate what NASA did to become the Best Place to Work 13 years in a row.
END THE DRAMA: Eliminate drama and address dysfunctional team beliefs and conflicts.
ACCELERATE TEAM DEVELOPMENT: Forget the ‘forming’, ‘storming’, ‘norming’ and ‘performing’.
IMMEDIATE APPLICATION: Apply these behaviours to your organisation today for immediate impact.
DIGITAL ACCREDITATION: Become certified in the NASA 4-Dimensional and be globally recognised.
VIRTUAL PUBLIC PROGRAM 2026
8 x 2-hour sessions on:
– 4 May 2026 and runs through to 28 May 2026 from 10:00am to 12:00pm AEST
– 21 July 2026 and runs through to 8 September 2026 from 5:00pm to 7:00pm AEST
– 13 October 2026 and runs through to 1 December 2026 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm AEDT
PRICING: AUD $1,999 per participant
Prefer to Run the 4-D Program In-House?
Contact us about internalising a program here: info@crazymightwork.com.
Crazy Might Work are Winners at AUS Space 25 Awards
Crazy Might Work has won Workforce Initiative of the Year in the Australian Space Awards for our 4-Dimensional Leadership program, initially developed by Charlie Pellerin (the former Director of Astrophysics) and made famous by NASA. Thank you to all of you who have joined us on the NASA 4-D journey – this accolade recognises your results and we could not have done it without your support. You can hear us thank you in this very short acceptance speech.
PODCAST
Adam Thorn interviews award-winner Paul Hawkins on the Secret Sauce of High Performance, according to NASA
This conversation between Adam and Paul explores why the 4-D program is so effective at creating high-performing teams. There is also a juicy serving of neuroscience and how leaders can optimise human and artificial intelligence in creative problem-solving at a strategic or organisational level. Paul discusses the skills required by leaders in 2030 and how these are sequenced in Crazy Might Work’s Leading4Breakthrough® program. Leaders combine critical thinking and creative problem-solving with artificial intelligence to achieve extraordinary outcomes. Listen on your preferred podcast platform below:
Build Your Psycho-Cyber Strategic Innovation Capability
in Adelaide on 2 + 3 June 2026
The Leading4Breakthrough® Program is a two-day, face-to-face workshop designed for leaders wanting to solve a significant organisational challenge, using the optimal combination of human and artificial intelligence. It combines the latest research in creative problem-solving and neuroscience with the top 10 skills identified by the World Economic Forum as important now, and through to 2030. Future-proof your thinking with a psycho-cyber skillset and mental models that can be deployed wherever and whenever fresh thinking is needed. In collaboration with Ageing Australia join us in Adelaide on 2nd and 3rd June at Playford Hotel. REGISTER HERE
For an in-house program, contact us at info@crazymightwork.com.
CRAZY MIGHT WORK OUT & ABOUT
FREE Strategy Webinar on 31 March at 8:00am AEDT
Cascade is hosting a free live panel with The Strategy Brief to get into exactly this.
Join the upcoming webinar: Who Owns Strategy? Defining the Mandate That Works at 8:00am (AEDT)
Our panel:
→ James Butler, Head of Strategy & Strategic Delivery at Ausgrid
→ Tom Wright, Founder & CPO at Cascade
→ Paul Hawkins, Moderator
60 minutes. Built for CSOs and senior strategy REGISTER HERE
Chief Strategy Officer Conference- 22 + 23 October in Sydney
Crazy Might Work chaired the Chief Strategy Officer conference in Sydney on 23 October 2025. The speakers and panellists provided great insights into how they are navigating strategy in a changing time, using artificial intelligence, data and insights to drive informed decisions.
University of Western Australia – 3 Oct 2025 in Perth
Paul presented his PhD on Psycho-Cyber Co-Creation to the School of Engineering on the UWA campus.
Project Management Institute (PMI) WA – 8 Oct 2025 in Perth
Paul presented on ‘How NASA Builds High-Performing Teams’ at the Project Management Institute in Perth.
International Astronautical Congress 2025 29 Sep – 3 Oct 2025
What a privilege it was to co-exhibit with Investment NSW at the 76th International Astronautical Congress in Sydney, preceded by an exciting couple of days leading Working Group Number Five at the Space Generation Advisory Council to the United Nations.