What does licensing look like in three dimensions?

Ask my MBA students. They'll show you.

In a recent session, I handed my graduate students a pile of LEGO® bricks and a single prompt:

"Build what market entry means to you."

No slides. No lecture. No right answer.

What happened next was one of my favorite teaching moments of the semester.

The student who built licensing reached immediately for a minifigure with a suitcase. "She's traveling light," he explained. "She's not moving in; she’s just visiting. She has what the other market needs, and she's lending it." The briefcase attached to the vehicle? "That's the contract. The risk stays in the car."

In thirty seconds, with a bunch of plastic bricks, he had articulated the core logic of licensing better than most textbook definitions I've read.

Why I Teach This Way

I've watched students wrestle with the same fundamental question: How do you enter a market that isn't yours?

The answer is never just theoretical. It's tactile. It's relational. It's built, sometimes literally, brick by brick.

LEGO® Serious Play® methodology isn't about playing. It's about thinking through your hands when your brain gets stuck in abstraction. For MBA students navigating the complexity of global market strategy, that shift from abstract to concrete can be transformative.