FAQs (full text)

FAQs pdf          LS Introductory Webinar (2009)

What are Liberating Structures [LS]?

Thirty-three adaptable microstructures that make it quick and simple for groups of people of any size to radically change how they interact, coordinate tasks, and work together. LS can replace or complement the big five conventional approaches that people use all the time: presentations, managed discussions, status reports, brainstorms, and open discussions.  In contrast to the big five, LS are designed to include and unleash everyone in shaping their future.

What analogies help describe how LS work?Simples rules unleash contributions from everyone

Like Wikipedia, LS create simple rules to guide and liberate everyone’s contributions. Wikipedia’s must-dos and must-not dos specify how anyone can write articles, edit content, reach consensus about the facts, and share with attribution. This structure makes it possible for a diverse community to generate and sustain accurate content that compares favorably with professionally edited encyclopedias. 

In work analogous to Liberating Structures, novices are outperforming experts in biology. Read Novices Level Up To Experts with FoldIt. 

Like improv jazz, LS sparks freedom that arises from shared understanding of simple rules. Great jazz comes from playing creatively within the context of melodic and harmonic structure. Like water in a river, LS takes the shape of the banks that it touches: adapting a similar but different form at every scale and in each local setting.

Why Liberating Structures?

Organizations operate mostly top-down and this is reflected in the way “working together” is usually organized. Participation in meetings is restricted and often standardized. Agendas and discussions are controlled by a few. Meeting formats and designs tend to be nearly always the same and dominated by PowerPoint presentations followed by managed discussions. 

Decisions made during these meetings depend for their implementation on the “vast majority” who were not included in the process. Organizations that use LS have instead access to a variety of structures for including their “vast majority” in shaping direction together.

What traditional top-down assumptions do Liberating Structures challenge?

Two implicit assumptions underpin top down traditions:

• the “vast majority” have little or nothing to contribute that could make a significant difference (i.e. bottom-up is useless);
• the “vast majority” will be willing (i.e. will offer no resistance) and capable of rapidly and effectively implementing decisions from which it was excluded.

We all know those assumptions are not valid but conventional structures force us to exclude the vast majority in shaping their future. Therefore, huge opportunities exist for organizations that find ways to effectively and authentically engage their “vast majority” (including in many cases customers). This is precisely what LS do and, frequently, formal leaders are relieved, delighted and surprised by the opportunities that open up with LS use.

What happens when Liberating Structures are put into action?

Including and unleashing nearly everyone with LS:

• Improves decisions
• Boosts innovation
• Accelerates and improves the quality of implementation
• Enables rapid adjustments to change. 

LS answer the question “how can we engage the ‘vast majority’ practically and cost-effectively?”  Much more is possible as trust and shared ownership increase. 

What keeps Liberation from turning into chaos?

Liberating Structures literally liberate groups and their energy, and this freedom combined with appropriate structures, allows them to tap into their collective intelligence and creativity. Each LS has a microstructural design that clarifies purpose and group interactions with a sequence of steps. For instance, one structured step could be as simple as “spend fifteen minutes in groups of five developing a list of all the activities required for doing an XYZ”. While microstructures impose constraints that focus group attention and purpose, their other main role is to enable all participants who are affected by a challenge to shape responses and solutions. This creates real possibilities for developing bottom-up proposals and actions. Enabling and constraining are complementary.

How does more Structure Liberate?

The structure side of LS make it easy—and safe—for all participants to express their views freely and fully. There is no control on the content of group conversations. Instead results emerge bottom-up from the whole set of interactions liberated by LS. A minimum structure liberates the maximum freedom to explore solutions. Rather than serial processing in one large group, LS utilize parallel processing among individuals, pairs and small groups. By design LS distribute control so that participants can shape direction together as the action unfolds.  

Are Liberating Structures difficult to learn?

No. However they need to be experienced at least once to understand and believe what they can achieve. LS are as subtle and simple as they are powerful. They are counterintuitive in a culture dominated by the logic of top-down organizing and control. Fortunately a practical understanding of most individual LS methods can be developed in less than one hour each, enough to go out and try them with little risk. LS users act their way into new thinking rather than thinking their way into new acting.  More practice generates more confidence and capability.

How are LS different from Lean or Design Thinking approaches?

Users report that LS are complementary to technical, expert-centered methods. LS do not replace these approaches. They are appropriate for use by everyone,especially non-experts.  LS can add momentum to change efforts that have stalled or reached limits. LS cultivate ownership beyond typical programs that promote participation.

Lean practitioners have successfully integrated LS into their work.  Often, they see LS as “relational coordination” that complements more technical process improvement and value stream mapping activities. Design Thinking practitioners also find LS complementary. LS help non-designers participate more fully in ethnographic observations and prototyping efforts. With Lean and Design Thinking, LS complement efforts to distribute participation and unleash creativity up and down in the organization.  Many more people can be included without extensive training.

What is the best way to learn to use LS?

A 2-3 day immersion workshop followed by brief one-on-one coaching sessions is the most effective approach. In very rapid cycles, a “do one, do another one” learning method is employed.  After LS are introduced, communities of practice are formed to support informal spread of skills and field experience.

LS are not best practices imposed on a whole organization; they do not rely on expensive and lengthy efforts to train people in an attempt to change their behaviors. They are instead a set of simple microstructures from which individuals/groups can choose what suits their likes and dislikes then mix-and-match them flexibly to address their challenges.

Who should be included in a LS immersion workshop?

Include a diverse mix of leaders, managers and front line colleagues from the same organization or with shared interests. Up to 180 participants can learn the approaches together. LS are about working together and they are best learned together. A typical invitation plan is illustrated below.

Why include leaders & front-line together?

Complex issues involve multiple functions, levels, & disciplines. Adopting new methods of working together requires the involvement of multiple layers, engaging all relevant stakeholders regardless of their formal position. Learning together provides the coordination “platform” for discovering how LS generate better than expected outcomes. Learning together also builds the communities of practice that can launch LS quickly throughout the organization. Confidence builds when everyone starts on an equal footing and there is no waiting for permission.

What are key elements of a workshop?

A three-day immersion workshop features strategic themes and a progression of LS. Each session is co-designed with clients and customized to address specific innovation opportunities and shared challenges. Below is one example.

 

Why so many, so fast?

We design many LS experiences in a rapid sequence to:

• Provoke a discovery that LS are useful for a very wide range of challenges
• Ensure that everyone is likely to find a few methods to start using immediately
• Help participants gain confidence through practice on diverse issues
• Show how new ideas and answers repeatedly emerge bottom-up
• Discover how LS methods are modular and can be mashed-up easily
• Demonstrate LS generate results without tight fidelity
• Match the fast speed of frontline working conditions

Since Liberating Structures are not imposed, how do they spread?

The contagion starts with the initial LS workshop where participants invariably have a lot of fun experiencing the various microstructures. This has been the case in all countries and settings regardless of the differences in culture. Long rounds of applause are a frequent occurrence at the end of the workshops. Since the workshop uses current challenges from the participants as case material for the sessions, productive results are generated as LS are being introduced for the first time. The “fun” continues at work where using LS is neither complicated nor a lengthy time-consuming process. Newcomers learn from being included in a work experience and get attracted by the same elements of fun and surprising results. Because LS are effective for addressing everyday as well as complex problems, they attract attention and broad participation.

What challenges are being addressed with LS?

The challenges presented to us by workshop participants during the 1-on-1 consulting sessions have ranged from strategic to one-to-one issues. Examples include: re-making mundane-yet-boring meetings; introducing a new product or service; making personnel decisions; training sales organizations; exploring new strategies in tough markets; shifting from a product to a customer orientation; inviting customers to co-develop new ways to succeed together; redesigning management meetings; dealing with the consequences of reorganizations or downsizing; resolving organizational conflicts; mergers of two distinct organizations; and, transforming the culture. The more familiar people become with LS the more opportunities they discover to use them.

How are changes arising from using LS sustained?

Self-organizing attributes help make solutions that emerge from using Liberating Structures sustainable and self-spreading. People learn and implement best when they discover solutions themselves, among peers in their local context. Resistance to change evaporates because ownership is shared.

What problems do Liberating Structures solve?LS help with challenges at multiple scales: from individual relationships all the way up to community movements

LS stimulate innovation and productivity at all levels. For a large class of management challenges, too few people are included in planning and coordinating a response. Engaging more people at multiple levels, earlier and more strategically, can dramatically boost capacity for solutions that generate spectacular and unexpected results. Clients have actively engaged their customers using LS. In turn, customers often want to learn LS for use in their own work.

What should leaders prepare for?

Using LS the first time can be unnerving for leaders. LS require leaders to willingly let go of control. Fortunately benefits become quickly visible (as early as during a workshop), providing reassuring evidence that letting go of control was a responsible choice. LS are especially attractive to leaders who are frustrated with traditional approaches, are ready to adopt a bold approach, and are comfortable working with ambiguity.

What are the origins of Liberating Structures?

Building on a few methods introduced in EdgeWare in 1998, LS draw from emerging insights from complexity science, organizational development, improvisational arts, and user experience. Keith McCandless and Henri Lipmanowicz have partnered with clients to develop and refine a broad array of LS starting in 2003.

Why do they work?

LS employ micro-structural design elements that distribute participation, engaging everyone in shaping a common future.  These novel structures guide new behavior. LS are more unit-based and local, with solutions worked out by front-line groups in partnership with leaders instead of imported “best practices.” LS grow through informal social networks and decentralized communities-of-practice rather than the organizational chart via buy in initiatives. LS are practical, simple, and ready to be adapted in everyday settings without additional education, training or certification. LS enhance relational coordination of tasks and shared ownership at all levels. Everyone has more freedom and more responsibility for making local and global changes together.

Where have LS methods been tested?

Starting in 2003, LS was first developed and tested in Latin America. Workshops and action research projects have been conducted in Europe, Canada and the US. Organizational settings include: multi-national business, hospitals, government, schools and non-profit organizations. For more information on early prototypes, read Liberating Structures: Innovating by Including and Unleashing Everyone

Are there principles that guide LS use?

LS make it possible to live by the following principles: include and unleash everyone; practice deep respect for people and local solutions; build trust as you go; learn by failing forward; practice self-discovery within a group; amplify freedom and responsibility; emphasize possibilities—believe before you see; invite creative destruction to enable innovation; and engage in seriously-playful curiosity.

What is special about the Liberating Structures approach?

Unique synergies arise from combining the following elements:

• A large collection of simple and practical self-organizing microstructures
• An immersive 3-day workshop design that makes it possible for a large group of co-workers to experience and internalize many LS very quickly
• Inclusion of all organizational levels (top to frontline)
• Personal experience of jointly shaping wise responses to current challenges
• One-on-one consulting sessions that immediately follow the workshop help participants move right away from learning to implementation

Together, these elements make it possible for an organization to start rapid cycles of experimentation, launching a transformation that includes everyone.

Annotated Menu of 33 Liberating Structures