Papers by Wendi Dykes McGehee
Journal of Faith in the Academic Profession, 2024
Lego Serious Play is a facilitated approach to solving problems that is popular in the world of b... more Lego Serious Play is a facilitated approach to solving problems that is popular in the world of business and nonprofits because it is both fun for the participants and has been validated as a means of encouraging communication and group problem-solving. In an attempt to provide a meaningful faith integration activity in an undergraduate career exploration class at a Christian University, a Lego Serious Play intervention was introduced to develop vocational identity. Vocational identity is a set of experience-based personal beliefs regarding one's interests, goals, and abilities related to one's career. From a Christian perspective, vocational identity would be influenced by the integration of Christian values and priorities, as well as one's spiritual gifts. The intervention was designed as a pre-test/post-test control group experiment. The quantitative results of the study showed no differences between the outcomes of the control group and the intervention group, t(16) = .26, d = .12, p = .40, 1tailed. In a debriefing focus group, it became clear that students had a limited understanding of vocational identity and that the faith integration elements of the intervention were not clear to them. Factors that appear to have contributed to this failure in faith integration include inappropriate assumptions of students' understanding of career and vocation, a lack of trust in the Lego Serious Play facilitators providing the intervention, false assumptions concerning the students' spiritual status and maturity, a small sample size, and an over-reliance on the attractiveness of Lego Serious Play.
Journal of Behavioral and Applied Management
Creativity and innovative decision-making are among the most desired traits for leaders today. Ho... more Creativity and innovative decision-making are among the most desired traits for leaders today. How does one develop these traits to meet the challenges facing the workplace? One answer is through building a mindset of creative confidence. This study explores the use of Lego® Serious Play® (LSP) to inspire the mindset of creative confidence in individuals. Findings affirm the need for the “other” in the creative process, expose increased levels of perspective-taking among participants, and suggests that divergent thinking can be taught. All positioning LSP as a tool for exercising the mental muscle known as creative confidence.
Journal of Business and Applied Management, 2022
Creativity and innovative decision-making are among the most desired traits for leaders today. Ho... more Creativity and innovative decision-making are among the most desired traits for leaders today. How does one develop these traits to meet the challenges facing the workplace? One answer is through building a mindset of creative confidence. This study explores the use of Lego® Serious Play® (LSP) to inspire the mindset of creative confidence in individuals. Findings affirm the need for the "other" in the creative process, expose increased levels of perspective-taking among participants, and suggests that divergent thinking can be taught. All positioning LSP as a tool for exercising the mental muscle known as creative confidence.
The LSP Magazine, 2021
In connection with possible writing errors and interim changes, no rights can be derived from the... more In connection with possible writing errors and interim changes, no rights can be derived from the prices and information stated in this publication.
The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented need for innovations in churches around the world.... more The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented need for innovations in churches around the world. Organizational innovativeness, a precursor of successful innovations in organizational contexts, is rarely studied in churches. This study of American church attenders (N = 244) found that perceived innovativeness of churches (conceived of as the elements of a church’s culture which promote innovation, specifically, creativity, organizational openness, future orientation, risk-taking, and proactiveness) was a very strong predictor of church commitment (conceived of as intentions to stay in the church, r = .60, p < .001). Of the moderators examined in this study (membership tenure, age of participant, church size, and gender), only gender moderated this relationship; the relationship between perceived innovativeness and church commitment was stronger for females than for males. This suggests that innovations that facilitated relationship development and relationship maintenance had th...
SSRN Electronic Journal
The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented need for innovations in churches around the world.... more The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented need for innovations in churches around the world. Organizational innovativeness, a precursor of successful innovations in organizational contexts, is rarely studied in churches. This study of American church attenders (N = 244) found that perceived innovativeness of churches (conceived of as the elements of a church’s culture which promote innovation, specifically, creativity, organizational openness, future orientation, risk-taking, and proactiveness) was a very strong predictor of church commitment (conceived of as intentions to stay in the church, r = .60, p &lt; .001). Of the moderators examined in this study (membership tenure, age of participant, church size, and gender), only gender moderated this relationship; the relationship between perceived innovativeness and church commitment was stronger for females than for males. This suggests that innovations that facilitated relationship development and relationship maintenance had the greatest impact on church commitment during the pandemic.
Great Commission Research Journal, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented need for innovations in churches around the world.... more The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented need for innovations in churches around the world. Organizational innovativeness, a precursor of successful innovations in organizational contexts, is rarely studied in churches. This study of American church attenders (N = 244) found that perceived innovativeness of churches (conceived of as the elements of a church's culture which promote innovation, specifically, creativity, organizational openness, future orientation, risk-taking, and proactiveness) was a very strong predictor of church commitment (conceived of as intentions to stay in the church, r = .60, p < .001). Of the moderators examined in this study (membership tenure, age of participant, church size, and gender), only gender moderated this relationship; the relationship between perceived innovativeness and church commitment was stronger for females than for males. This suggests that innovations that facilitated relationship development and relationship maintenance had the greatest impact on church commitment during the pandemic.
Dissertation, 2018
With unknown futures and a consistent series of external factors influencing today’s organization... more With unknown futures and a consistent series of external factors influencing today’s organization, a new mindset is needed to meet the challenges facing the workplace (Burke, 2013; Kegan & Lahey, 2001). Recent polls have rated creativity and innovative decision making among the most desired traits for leaders, yet how can the self-proclaimed linear thinking, non- creative type of person develop this trait (Carr, 2010; IBM, 2010). One answer is constructing creative confidence. This study explored if being in a state of flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 2003) and in collaboration with others (Kelley & Kelley, 2013; Brown, 2008; deBono, 1999) while engaging in hand-mind construction through play (Kristiansen & Rasmussen, 2014; Papert & Harel, 1991), namely Lego Serious Play (LSP), can inspire creative confidence.
The research was collected through a Lego Serious Play workshop intervention followed by individual semi-structured interviews with the participants. A hybrid of both qualitative deductive and qualitative inductive methods of inquiry were used with a template analysis to analyze the data collected. The study explored the idea of using Lego Serious Play to inspire creative confidence while re-introducing play, of a serious nature, into the adult vocabulary and workplace. This research project saw significant results in several areas relating to positive team dynamics and individual mindset shifts toward the way organizational problems are solved. Empathy for the other, perspective-taking, divergent thinking, deeper learning, and the presence of psychological safety all emerged from the participant data in support of positioning LSP as a
tool for inspiring creative confidence which can be used for solving complex challenges in the workplace.
Key Words: Play, Serious Play, Creativity, Creative Confidence, Lego, Lego Serious Play, Constructionism, Flow, Workplace, Divergent Thinking, Organization, Hybrid Methodology, Qualitative Inductive, Qualitative Deductive, Organizational Psychology, Organization Development
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Papers by Wendi Dykes McGehee
The research was collected through a Lego Serious Play workshop intervention followed by individual semi-structured interviews with the participants. A hybrid of both qualitative deductive and qualitative inductive methods of inquiry were used with a template analysis to analyze the data collected. The study explored the idea of using Lego Serious Play to inspire creative confidence while re-introducing play, of a serious nature, into the adult vocabulary and workplace. This research project saw significant results in several areas relating to positive team dynamics and individual mindset shifts toward the way organizational problems are solved. Empathy for the other, perspective-taking, divergent thinking, deeper learning, and the presence of psychological safety all emerged from the participant data in support of positioning LSP as a
tool for inspiring creative confidence which can be used for solving complex challenges in the workplace.
Key Words: Play, Serious Play, Creativity, Creative Confidence, Lego, Lego Serious Play, Constructionism, Flow, Workplace, Divergent Thinking, Organization, Hybrid Methodology, Qualitative Inductive, Qualitative Deductive, Organizational Psychology, Organization Development
The research was collected through a Lego Serious Play workshop intervention followed by individual semi-structured interviews with the participants. A hybrid of both qualitative deductive and qualitative inductive methods of inquiry were used with a template analysis to analyze the data collected. The study explored the idea of using Lego Serious Play to inspire creative confidence while re-introducing play, of a serious nature, into the adult vocabulary and workplace. This research project saw significant results in several areas relating to positive team dynamics and individual mindset shifts toward the way organizational problems are solved. Empathy for the other, perspective-taking, divergent thinking, deeper learning, and the presence of psychological safety all emerged from the participant data in support of positioning LSP as a
tool for inspiring creative confidence which can be used for solving complex challenges in the workplace.
Key Words: Play, Serious Play, Creativity, Creative Confidence, Lego, Lego Serious Play, Constructionism, Flow, Workplace, Divergent Thinking, Organization, Hybrid Methodology, Qualitative Inductive, Qualitative Deductive, Organizational Psychology, Organization Development