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What is a Liberating Structure (LS)?

“Simple rules that make it easy to include and unleash everyone in shaping the future” – Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless

When you have a group of people, in a meeting or a workshop, you usually have some with a stronger voice, others who won’t say anything, and some who will follow the flow without really taking part. Decisions and outcomes of the meeting will, most of time, only represent the ideas of the most powerful in the room.

Shaping your meetings differently, by using some tools like the LS, can change this and allows everyone to be heard, share ideas, feel empowered and included.

This is important in your team, but even more when you work with wider groups. If you want your session to be richer and people to fully participate then you need to make sure you include everyone and give them some space where they feel safe to express themselves.

There are a lot of different LS, all easy to learn. Find out more on this website.

10 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
  • Emphasise possibilities: believe before you see
  • Invite creative destruction to enable innovation
  • Engage in seriously-playful curiosity
  • Never start without a clear purpose(s)

Some commonly used LS

Impromptu networking

Simply move around, find someone you don’t know, then ask and answer the following questions with 2 minutes each, do 3 rounds, so each participant meets 3 people.

  • I’m here because …
  • Something I’ve been thinking about is…
  • What I’d like to explore is…

Constellations

This is about using the physical space to express yourself, making things visible without having to share. For some people, it’s freeing as they don’t need to speak.

Examples:

  • Group of people in big room. Ask: “Find the group you belong to work-wise”. Keep the instructions vague enough to leave room for reflecting about how participants feel about where they belong compared to another group, “do I join that group?”, “do they accept me as one of them?”
  • Another exercice where you place yourself looking at what you feel you are working with (Problems, Systems, Futures, Solutions, People, and Facts) and then looking toward what you are aiming at. 6 Cards for each theme have been put in various places in the room before hand to help the participants place themrselves
  • Place yourself on a line depending on how much experience you have in a subject. This can then be used to form small groups. The point is to put the participants at the same level to avoid a power relation in the group. As a novice you could feel less relevant and might not speak as freely

Appreciative interviews

In a small group (4 is a good number):

  • Work in pair first: share a story about a moment at work we had a success with another person in the group, and they will share one in return
  • In the bigger group, tell the other person’s story to the others. It’s a really good way to force you to really listen (as you will have to tell the whole group after) and to ask questions to make sure you really understand it was well
  • From this, try to find the root causes of the success these stories where telling.

Picking a ‘success story’ is a way to make the participants feel power automatically from it.

1-1-2-4-All

Everyone in the group is included (often not the facilitator) and has an equal opportunity to contribute.

Ask a question in response to the presentation of an issue, or about a problem to resolve or a proposal put forward.

Start alone, then in pairs, then foursomes, and finally as a whole group.

What is needed:

  • Unlimited number of groups
  • Space for participants to work face-to-face in pairs and foursomes
  • Chairs and tables optional
  • Paper for participants to record observations and insights

Time needed:

  • Silent self-reflection by individuals on a shared challenge, framed as a question. 1 min.
  • Generate ideas in pairs, building on ideas from self-reflection. 2 min.
  • Share and develop ideas from your pair in foursomes (notice similarities and differences). 4 min.
  • Ask, “What is one idea that stood out in your conversation?” Each group shares one important idea with all (repeat cycle as needed). 5 min.

3 by 3 writing

This one is about answering 3 questions, 3 times:

  • Some of the most memorable ups and downs of my experience with LS have been…
  • Three things I’m learning about applying LS in practice are……
  • Three things I’ve learned about myself as a facilitator through this have been……

You answer 3 times because the 1st thing that comes to mind is probably what you would say to someone any time, but the more you think about it, the more likely your are to find the deep reason.

25/10 crowdsourcing

Can be used to select questions at the end of a talk.

  • The speaker asks the audience to write a question on a paper
  • Mix the papers in the room by exchanging papers with each other
  • Mark on a scale from 1 to 5 if it is an interesting question
  • Mix the papers again and mark a different one
  • Do that 5 times, so you end up with all papers with 5 marks at the back which you add
  • The questions with the highest total are asked.

It’s a good way to get really interesting questions, that the majority of the group got to chose.

Open space

The key principles for this one are:

The Law of Two Feet means go and attend whichever session you want, but if you find yourself in a session where you are not learning or contributing, use your two feet!

  • Whoever comes are the right people
  • Whatever happens is the only thing that could have happened
  • When it starts is the right time
  • When it’s over, it’s over

Learn more about Liberating Structures

There is a lot on this website: http://www.liberatingstructures.com/

On Twitter: @LiberatingStru1 for Scotland, @LibStructLDN for London or @LSEurope for Europe

On Slack: https://www.liberatingstructureslondon.org.uk/slack/

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