The Role Of Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen In The Development Of LEGO

In the middle of this unusual crisis, Kjeld Kirk Kristiansen returned home after five years in Switzerland. He would have preferred to work in another company and make his own way before joining the family business. He was afraid he wouldn't make it through, and he was afraid that people would think that he would get a position of responsibility at LEGO just because he was Godtfred's son, rather than because of his expertise.

Kjeld Kirk was born and raised in the world of LEGO. As a child he played with bricks and showed his father all his buildings. Like his father did in his day, designing wooden toys for Kjeld Kirk had already taken part in what would later become Billund's development division. After his studies Kjeld Kirk attended an internship at the German LEGO, where he had gained experience in sales strategies, before studying marketing in Denmark and doing a master's degree in Business Administration in Switzerland. In other words, he had a company education that his father had always missed. In 1973, Kjeld was hired by LEGO Switzerland as a trial manager, but at the same time he visited the Billund factory once a month and spent a lot of time in the United States helping to rebuild the U. S. business.

During his studies he also addressed the problem of market segmentation so he was of the opinion that LEGO should create products differentiated according to age and customer interests in order to meet the individual needs of children.

Therefore Kjeld Kirk defined three areas:

Toys for pre-school children, to be marketed under the name of DUPLO.

Constructions for children up to the age of 16 under the brand name LEGO System.

New products for play and leisure, with the temporary name of XYZ. Based on this strategy, Kjeld Kirk encouraged the development division to create as many new products as LEGO had ever produced in one year. On 7 March 1978, Kjeld Kirk presented 53 new packages and 124 new elements to the company management, divided into the FABULAND, SCALA and LEGO Space series. The latter, in particular, became one of the greatest successes LEGO of all time. The strategy of targeting different ages was a success. From 1979 to 1983 the turnover was almost tripled, from 800 million to 2, 1 billion crowns. The workforce grew from 2500 to 3300 employees. With the entry of Kjeld Kirk, LEGO had really taken on a new generational change. But the transition was not smooth, disputes (including insults), were at the order of the day, often Edith, Godtfred’s wife had to intervene between the two men.

Kjeld Kirk felt that his ideas met with too strong an opposition from his father, who often interfered. Godtfred, on the other hand, after devoting his entire life to a company he loved, felt a loss of identity as he stepped aside to give way. After two years of these squabbles, Vagn Holck Andersen resigned as managing director: “I was between the anvil and the hammer. I had to fight with Godtfred to defend Kjeld, who in my opinion was doing the right thing, and the next day I had to fight with Kjeld, who wanted to hear my opinion on his father's new ideas. In the end, I didn't see any other solution to the problem: I had to leave. I felt that it was the only effective way to force father and son to continuously discuss and talk to each other, even in their leadership function. ”

This decision shows the dilemmas faced by a manager who enters a family-owned business from outside. However, Andersen continued to serve on the board of directors of LEGO, before returning in 1984 as director of the American company; moreover, from 1993 to 1996 he was president of LEGO. With the resignation of Vagn Holck Andersen, Kjeld Kirk took over the day-to-day management, and as his ideas became successful, Godtfred gradually withdrew, but without disappearing he kept reading reports and following the closely the progresses, after all he was still the president of LEGO.

Despite the differences of opinion between father and son, Godtfred described it as fortunate that Kjeld had decided to take control of the LEGO. First of all, Godtfred wanted to make sure that LEGO's values were respected, he repeatedly warned against the delusions of grandeur and of a too rapid expansion. He found that things were moving too fast. At a conference in Switzerland in 1981, he said: “I never wanted LEGO to become a big company. I just wanted it to be a good company. I always tell my employees: never aspire to be the biggest, but always aspire to be the best. ”