What are Liberating Structures? What value they bring and how to apply them in your organization or team? Where to find the resources from which you can learn more and explore further structures? How to combine structures into more complex “facilitation strings”?
Liberating Structures (LS) are 33 schemes for conducting meetings or conversations in a specific group and for a certain purpose. The authors: Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless propose a different approach to the group interaction than the traditional one. The structures they propose create a framework that is aimed to boost creativity, imagination and intelligence in participants. A large group of LS practitioners promotes this approach precisely because these structures are to trigger what is best in the participants instead of embarrassing them as it is often the case during traditional meetings.
When to use Liberating Structures
If you notice that you waste a lot of time on typical meetings such as presentations, discussions and statuses in your organization or in your team, Liberating Structures come as the last resort. You don’t need to be a certified moderator. You don’t even need to have extensive facilitation experience to start working with a group using the simplest selected structures. Later in this article, I will propose a few sample structures to start with. Liberating Structures have been designed intentionally in a simple manner so that anyone can conduct a meeting using them without much preparation in any organization or group. Sounds as unbelievable as advertising, however, it is just as easy as it sounds. You don’t have to take my word for it, just check how people are getting involved at your next meeting when you ask them to share insights according to the 1-2-4-All structure. You will find more about this structure in two paragraphs below. First, I want to present you the basic resources that you will use when preparing your first Liberating Structures meeting.
Where to look for information about LS
Your first steps should be directed to the Liberating Structures website: www.liberatingstructures.com or its Polish translation: www.liberatingstructures.org.pl. The website is simple, it could be more transparent, nevertheless, it contains all the necessary information. There you will find a list of structures, their description and examples of use. On the website, in addition to the above-mentioned set, you can see the structures that are currently being tested by the Liberating Structures community.
A very useful, perfectly designed and easy to use tool is Liberating Structures application available for both iOS and Android. In the application, you will find descriptions of structures and all the necessary information that you will have at hand during the facilitation. The application is available in several languages, including Polish.
The book by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless entitled The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures is dedicated for the advanced user of LS. It lets you understand the idea and the history of LS. I recommend this book because, in addition to describing the structures themselves, it contains intelligent considerations about interactions that we are constantly involved in, in the everyday complex world.
If you are a Slack user and you feel comfortable with asynchronous communication, I recommend subscribing to Liberating Structures channel. You will find there information about events that take place non-stop around the world, many od them are carried out pro publico bono. You will read what new structures are tested, what problems are practitioners struggling with and you will find answers to your questions. At the time of writing this article, the link to sign up for Slack LS is: bit.ly/lsrhizome. The link is changed periodically, so if it doesn’t work – check the Liberating Structures website for information about the current link in the “Ask Questions” section or ask someone from the LS community to add your address. In particular, you can write to me via LinkedIn, I will be happy to do so.
From which structures should you start
For sure each of the Liberating Structures users has the own preferred set, but everyone starts with 1-2-4-All. Below you will find this structure, which is worth starting your adventure with Liberating Structures, and two of my favorites, which I strongly encourage you to try.
1-2-4-All (12 mins)
Structure involving all meeting participants in five simple steps to share insights and aggregate them into the group’s most important solutions. You can use this structure during a meeting, a conversation in a larger group, workshop of project meeting. Using this structure works well in groups that are quiet and reluctant to enter into discussions. On the other hand, you will nicely mitigate the dominant people at the meetings by taking equal care of the opinions of all participants. A simple sequence of moderation steps is as follows: individual reflection on a given topic (1 min), discussion in pairs (2 mins), then in the groups of four (4 mins) and then as the whole group we share our insights and select the most important conclusions.
Troika Consulting (30 mins)
It is a “self-help” structure, which means that it allows to use the knowledge and experience of group members in an even manner, so as to obtain suggestions for solutions to problems brought to the meeting. An additional advantage of this structure is learning to listen actively. Both, the person who formulates the issue of the “client” and the “consultants”, i.e. people who propose a solution, listen to each other. The sequence of steps is as follows: the participants divide into groups of three and determine in groups who is the “client”. The “client” tells about the problem and the “consultants” ask in-depth questions. The “client” then turns around (or turns off the webcam in the virtual world) and listens silently to the “consultants” conversation. In the last step, the client returns to the triangle and informs the consultants which of the proposed solutions will be used in practice.
TRIZ (35 mins)
A playful, energetic structure that turns our worst, low instincts into constructive discussion. Use it when you want to identify obstacles, find a plan to solve difficult complex problems, or break your team out of stagnation. The downside to this structure is that you can only successfully complete it once for a given group, because surprise is essential here. Therefore, I do now give a sequence of steps in this case.
How to prepare LS facilitation string?
Once you have successfully applied the first simple structures several times, the next natural step is to make a chain of them. Using the structures cited above, you can prepare a simple chain when collecting community good practices in your organization. First, using “Troika Consulting” collect a proposal of solutions to the issue raised, and then using 1-2-4-All look for patterns that you will be able to note in an agreed manner and convey to interested people in your organization. Gradually, as you experiment and gain experience in running various structures, your moderation chains will become more varied and your meetings will be full of energy and commitment of the participants.
How to choose a suitable structure?
After the first successful experiments, you will find yourself in a situation where you want to reach for another structure and do not know which one to choose. You have another meeting ahead of you and another goal to achieve. Think about what will be useful to achieve your goal and then reach for the Matchmaker tool available on the LS website. Matchmaker will help you align structures with the steps necessary to achieve yours during the planned meeting and discussion. A simple and extremely useful tool for any facilitator.
Why do I recommend Liberating Structures?
I find the Liberating Structures an interesting way to deal with the complexities of the modern world. Small simple schemes can bring participants together and bring out their intelligence, imagination and creativity, an then combine these values with the intelligence, imagination and creativity of others, which gives unexpected results compared to traditional meetings and discussions. In my work, I often see organizations where business meetings are seen as pain or a nightmare that haunts innocent people every day. The use of Liberating Structures as a simple form of facilitation meant that many more meetings were conducted in an energetic and engaging way. These meetings achieved the assumed goals and, as a consequence, delivered the expected product or service. Realizing that using a few of the simplest LS helped me significantly improve the quality of the meetings I held, I decided to get to know as many of them as possible. I experimented with other structures, I got involved in promoting them and I use them successfully in my daily work. And this is what I wish for you, too.
Ewa Koprowska – matematyczka z wykształcenia, agilystka z wyboru. Od ponad 25 lat wspiera organizacje w łączeniu ładu organizacyjnego ze zwinnością, pracując m.in. dla PZU, ING, Shell i Bupa. Obecnie pełni rolę Continuous Improvement Managera w SmartRecruiters oraz tłumaczy na język polski książkę Govern Agility – o tym, jak zarządzać mądrze, przejrzyście i po ludzku. W pracy łączy dane, zdrowy rozsądek i poczucie humoru, wierząc, że właśnie ten tercet pozwala menedżerom osiągać trwały sukces.