Just Imagine with Ruben Romijnders Hagensen 💭
Just imagine your job was to engage some of the most curious and demanding minds. Then imagine how it must feel to get the approval of their smile. Pride. This is what Ruben Romijnders Hagensen feels. Pride at having created a play experience that engages our customers and gives them a feeling of joy and achievement.
“The feeling you get when you walk through the front door of the building is joy. The tagline of LEGO® used to be: “A new toy every day.” But I believe the feeling at work is: “Create an awesome toy every day.” And this is all supported by the collaboration with your colleagues.
“When I joined as an intern, I felt part of the team straight away. Unlike other internships, where you can end up as ‘just the intern’, I was briefed and really joined a team. When I was hired as a full-time employee there was an immediate feeling of mutual respect. I was given the responsibility to create awesomeness with the rest of the team. As a Play Design Manager in Creative Play Lab, that is something I still do today.
It is important for me to be in touch and hands-on when creating experiences. This is how I can be part of keeping fans engaged. They understand that there is a reason. It is not simply about building and displaying. It is important for me to be in touch with the spirit of play.
“In my job, learning is present but not in a visible way. Most of the play experiences we create have a learning curve, or as we often say a level of mastery. The goal is to hide the fact that you can become better at using the toys. But everyone needs to be able to use the toy successfully in the first couple of tries. Think of the LEGO® City Stuntz motorcycles for example. Anyone can rev it up, but not everyone can do six loopings in a row.
“Since starting as a Junior Designer, I have had a lot of opportunity to grow. But one of the reasons I am a Design Manager now is that I have found ways to develop myself in a personal way as well. I needed to enhance my people skills and process skills to make projects successful. So, both on a professional level and a personal level I have the feeling I have progressed myself.
“A lot of the products that I have been a part of developing are functional and I hope will inspire the builders of tomorrow in looking at the engineering side of design. That functional can be beautiful as well. Besides that, I truly hope that children feel that it is okay to be active and in love with LEGO bricks until they are 99+ years old and that it is okay to stay childish and playful.
“For me being brave is the most important behaviour to look at. We are all curious and focused to a certain degree but being brave takes a bigger step in my opinion. Not everyone is brave, but everyone can be, and we should help those who are yet to become brave to show their full potential. I remember challenging my manager about a product that later went to market anyway but it was important that I did. This shows that these decisions should be made by more than one person. It is a good example of collaboration, having a voice and being heard.
“We run into problems every day. Creativity and teamwork are great places to start. This is how we find the best solutions. We start by looking at the problems and do not go for the easiest way out or the quickest answers. Quick fixes do not really solve problems for good. Working together with this mindset is the perfect way to spark creativity. We bounce ideas off each other and get to the best possible solution and the coolest toys and play experiences. Which is why we are all here, right?
Just imagine shaping the future of creativity.
Now make it real.
Join the LEGO® team today