Category: Liberating Structures

Tom Haskins on our Inner Teacher

In 2008 this blog post, growing changing learning creating: Relying on inner teachers, from Tom Haskin’s caught my eye enough to cause me to save the URL in a draft post. Revisiting it today, it still has resonance, but far beyond the classroom teaching context of the post itself. Please, after scanning the snippet below, go read the full post. Substitute what ever domain is yours for Tom’s as a classroom teacher.

Dawn on Skagit Bay, with Ika Island in the foreground and reflections on the tidal flatlands.

While blogging for the past year on related topics, I’ve come to the following realizations about the nature of a compounding solution in education:

  1. When we assume each student has an inner teacher within their minds, we will stop interfering with the discovery, cultivation and trust building with that inner teacher. The inner teacher will come to the fore of the students learning experiences and and reconfigure how they picture learning occurring. Problems with a particular learning challenge or patterns of learning efforts will get worked out between the student and the inner teacher who already knows what the underlying problems are.

As I read Tom’s words they resonate for me as a practitioner of Liberating Structures and more generally as a process person who deeply values learning, reflection and action. How do Tom’s words resonate for you?

Thanks, Tom!

(I’m having fun going through the detritus of draft blog posts!)

Uncertainty/Agreement Matrix

I have started going through the 419 draft blog posts sitting in my WordPress dashboard. Some are simply links of things I found interesting, and alas, many of those links (2006, 2015) are now dead and those drafts are deleted. There are a few nuggets.

I came upon this little doodle that emerged from/by people at the 2008 gathering of process practitioners, Nexus for Change. (Nexus continues to grow and thrive focusing on the domain of whole systems change. There are three videos which try and tell the story of its evolution.)

The image is of an agreement/certainty matrix based on the work of Ralph Stacey. I continue to use it as part of my Liberating Structures repertoire and it has infused and informed many other process approaches.

What attracted me to resurrect this image and post it is that there is still such resonance for me today. Much of my work of the past five years has been in this area of low certainty and low agreement – the stuff in the upper right hand side of the image. And of course the invitation into each piece of work has often been in the lower left – clients thinking they were working in higher agreement and certainty, only to discover they were not.

This shift of understanding where we place and understand our work (play, relationships, etc.) is both liberating, daunting and, sometimes, frustrating. It calls upon different skills and expertise. The lessons of the COVID era illustrate this. Just when we think we understand what is happening and how we might respond, things change. We have to find that space between “just do something useful today ” and live with the uncertainty and “unknowing.”

Photo of a hand drawing of an Agreement-Certainty matrix in various colors of pen.

From the Principles Chart on Flickr – Photo Sharing!

At the same time, this does not mean we ignore the lower left. There are things we can do with some amount of certainty. One that seems to have been somewhat abandoned is the choice to care about every person around us, and to act with kindness. Our uncertainty seems to have nudged many of us (USA I’m looking at you) towards self-preservation, or even outright selfishness, as if we deserve something. In uncertainty, all bets are off, including our past sense of entitlement.

What does this image tell me today? Keep ahold of the principles of our best selves and practice them together, with certainty and agreement. And let go of things that prevent us from seeing and experimenting with possibility in the areas of high uncertainty and disagreement. A classic wicked question and filled with potential dissonance. And possibility.

Part of a larger photo set from Nexus for Change in 2008 https://www.flickr.com/photos/choconancy/albums/72157604309184882

A Community Considers the LS “What I Need From You”

I’ve promised myself to start blogging regularly this year. One way to get a jump on it is to finish drafts that I never got around to publishing. This is one of them! Is there something you’d like me to write about? Leave a note in the comments!

Skagit Bay – and colors change all the time…

What I Need From You (WINFY) is one of the Liberating Structures that I avoided for a long time. My own fears? Lack of clarity about how the structure would work, particularly in view of the presence or absences of trust in a power-dynamically lit situation? That said, once I actually started using it, it flowered open with many useful layers. I found some particularly great insights AND, when my fellow practitioners share their experiences, I see even more. This is the value of a community of practice, my friends!

For context for those of you new to Liberating Structures, I love the short and sweet description from The Liberators: “Liberating Structures are a collection of interaction patterns that allow you to unleash and involve everyone in a group — from extroverted to introverted and from leaders to followers.” The help us find the sweet spot between over controlled and under controlled group processes to access the intelligence and action of everyone in a group.

Our LS community of practice functions partially on a Slack instance, where we ask and answer questions for each other. At some point last year there was a great question and answer thread around WINFY that was SO VALUABLE I wanted to capture it before it aged off of our free Slack instance. (As so much does!) The players gave me permission to share so I’m going to share the actual thread, then close with a brief summary of my own. Italicized comments are mine to explain stuff that might not mean anything if you aren’t in the community!

OK, here is the transcript!

lolo
A question re (WINFY –> we use the icon as shorthand in Slack!): :winfy:
I’m not fully understanding the reasoning behind the “No discussion! No elaboration” piece of the sharing. Why wouldn’t elaboration or discussion be helpful? Or do people often follow up this activity with something else to address if a ‘no’ came up? I appreciate that if there’s a ‘whatever’ that it means that there’s a need to clarify the request and so a second round could be done, but “I will try” or “No” with no discussion or no elaboration feels like the opposite of building trust.

fisher
I tend to describe this rigidity as purposeful: there’s no need to justify why it’s a no. WINFY isn’t meant to be a negotiation. If you need me to get you a report by Friday at 12, and I say no. What more is there to discuss? Usually, people want part of the need met – “well we can get you half the report by Friday at 4”. That’s not the need. Do you mistrust the person’s initial request – do you think you know better than they do what they need? I find WINFY goes right at two types of trust. Do I trust that you how your own needs better than I think I can know your needs? Can I say no and deny you an essential need and believe we’ll still be ok relationally?

keithmccandless19
Saying no or whatever or huh in WINFY is an invitation to offer an honest and direct signal. So many of the explanations muddle the relationship and trust among people… particularly when you are working across functions that are very different. Also, getting very short answers out helps everyone see the interrelatedness of what is needed to move forward together. Each individual request is not sacred but rather part of a critically self-organizing set of entanglements. The next straw may break the camel’s back. Often one function or action must be sub-optimized to address the mix of needs expressed across the whole group. Last, it is a good idea to make space for more explanation and follow-on commitments after :winfy:. Helpful? Confusing? Nonsense?

lolo haha18
@fisher & @keithmccandless Thanks so much for your explanations!I appreciate what you bring in here, @fisher, around not only emphasizing the non-negotiation but also intensive negotiation happening where there’s a real need to pose whether you can really know the other’s need better than them, and whether you can accept the relational impact of saying no to their need. How have you experienced people with perhaps more positional power handle the added heat of that need?@keithmccandless I love what you’re saying here, too! I appreciate the need for a brief and non-confusing signal. What have you followed up with to offer space for more explanation or commitment follow-up after :winfy: ? I also welcome other feedback from those who haven’t commented yet!

fisher
@annajackson has some hard stories about using :winfy: with funders and grantees that were tricky given the power relationships. In my experiences, functional groups will often say “Yes” to a leadership team. If you are holding the structure, you often have to intervene a bit and gently nudge them to consider whether it is a request that is clear enough for a Yes or No – or whether it ought to be a huh. You can make it quite playful and eventually someone will say Huh or Whatever to the bosses and there’s usually a cathartic cheer. All of us tend to be underspecific in what our actual needs are and so you have be sometimes a little stiff in terms of supporting groups – especially those without positional power or authority to use No, Huh, and Whatever more frequently.As with most LS, frequent and consistent use of WINFY as a regular interactional or operational structure dampens the anxiety and increases the fluidity.

lolo haha
Thank you @fisher !!

Ziryan
@lolo haha, beautiful question. I have seen WINFY address two major assumptions within a company. People feeling comfortable enough to say Huh or No, and people feeling comfortable enough receiving Huh or No.I facilitated a workshop ones in which we wanted the sales team and development team to work together to sell more Agile contacts instead of fixed scope and deadline contracts. Almost at the end of the workshop, I asked the sales reps, including the sales director to state what they need from the development teams to be successful. The teams only had a few Yes while having lots of Huh and a few No. The sales director was not amused, and I had to intervene and address the trust issue. After the intervention, the sales director cooled down and was grateful for the honesty of the development teams that they did not understand what he exactly wanted from them. They decided to work together to formulate what the director needed and followed up by another WINFY to clarify if it is a Yes, huh or a No. Had I not intervened and allowed discussion, the development team would have been overwhelmed by the reasoning and negotiation power of the sales reps and director. They would end up frustrated and eventually giving in by saying Yes and still doing No. Or, making assumptions in what the director and sales reps needed. And most importantly, the issue of trust and lack of collaboration would not have been discussed and remain in the air like the elephant in the room.

lolo haha
Awesome anecdote, @Ziryan !! Thanks for sharing, sounds like it’s one of those that may need a good deal of added facilitation depending on the trust and communication skills within the team!:heart:1

fisher
I find :winfy: to be the most exhausting and actively held structure. In my experience, there’s quite a bit more hanging on during that structure than in some of the others.:+1:1

keithmccandless
Tempted to share more stories when the people with less power gave honest & risky answers and the people with more power responded with surprise/confusion/curiosity. (Working in healthcare is instructive because there are complex power dynamics). If there is a pattern, I would say the people with more power are unwitting and making unexamined assumptions about the relative importance of their role. Most often, the BIG WINFY insight revolves around interdependence. Eyes are suddenly open to what we need from one another to accomplish something important to everyone.

My Summary

As I read through the thread, the emergence of patterns of interaction – particularly those habituated through roles and power positions – help us see MANY things in a new light. If we can find simple ways, like WINFY and other LSs, to make patterns visible, then we can explore and act upon them. The SIMPLE part is essential, because it is so easy to get lost in a verbal analysis and miss the point.

This is why I love Liberating Structures!

Designing and Hosting Virtual Field Trips (MOIP #10)

Moving Online in Pandemic is now #MOIP! This is 10th in a series of posts about the tidal wave of moving online in the time of Covid-19. #1, #2, #3,  #4 , #5 , #6, #7, #8 and #9.

I’ve mentioned my work with the Floodplains by Design network over the past few years. We have been doing a lot of experimenting and practicing with online meetings and events over the last 11 months. We captured a few of our practices and now I’ve drafted an article on Virtual Field Trips. And yes, I’m looking for your review to help improve it. Right now it lives on a Google doc where you can comment. You are also welcome to comment generally here. Care to help? I’ll post the intro below. And THANKS!

1. Introduction

At the Floodplains by Design (FbD) Culture and Capacity Action Group (C&C) November 2020 meeting, we recently reviewed and reflected upon our experiences and value of field trips to FbD project sites. (See figure 1.) COVID-19 has curtailed our face to face field trips, demanding a new, virtual way of meeting these needs. 

With the C&C’s focus on building and supporting a learning network, we are interested in the overall set of learning and network weaving practices that can help spread and deepen IFM. This document offers insights and useful practices for designing and implementing virtual field trips (VTS) to support Integrated Floodplain Management (IFM). It also helps us share in general the value of, and practices around field trips which are useful in our work together whether we are F2F or together online. It builds on our first document on Virtual Peer Assists.

We hope that through these occasional articles/resource documents we can make our learning more widely available across the FbD network and beyond. 

The first section of this document  reflects more generally on the purpose and value created through field trips. The second section addresses specific practices for planning and executing virtual field trips. A resources section follows for additional information.

Figure 1: Harvest from the November 2020 brainstorm on VTS

We created this first draft of useful virtual field trip practices using four guiding questions. 

  1. What general immediate and longer term value is created through field trips in our integrated floodplain management (IFM) work? This establishes a shared baseline understanding of field trips in IFM. 
  2. What specific purpose(s) and value creation do field virtual trips serve in our work right now? With whom? Clear purpose drives how we design our VFTs.
  3. What useful field trip practices have we learned for VTFs?
  4. How might we know when we are making progress on this purpose? Like any practice, we assume that as we learn, we can improve our practice.

I’m happy to post more here if that is useful… and know the doc got pretty LONG!

MOIP #9: What I’ve Learned This Spring

Working from home… in the bedroom version!

I wrote this short article for our Liberating Structures extended network of practice. I thought it might be useful here too!

The last few months have been rich with lessons for our amazing global network of LS practitioners, and all the sub-communities it holds. Here are my lessons that have been surfacing:

  1. Creative destruction RULES. DEConstruct before trying to REConstruct offline events into the online space. TRIZ is our friend!
  2. The six knotworking questions are SUPER useful at this moment in time for developing flexible, emergent plans.
  3. Critical Uncertainties was MADE for this time!
  4. This is an oldy, but a goody: slow down to go fast. While we can dance with abandon at the novelty as we move and reframe different Liberating Structures online, we must also hold space for people to move forward together when the moment calls. This translates to fewer structures piled into an online meeting, holding generosity to extend our practiced F2F timings and keeping technical options at the min specs, vs max specs. (Purpose to Practice is helpful here!)
  5. Ask for help. Ask specifically and offer your first ideas. This way people are more likely to respond and respond generously. As our Slack community grows and grows, we want each person to find and offer value. So ask as specifically as you can. Show you have done a little thinking already…
  6. Offer help! The connections we create through these asks and offers weaves our network.

There is a LOT more… right now I’m processing what I’ve learned through three series of rather intense online events, thinking about time, space, embodiment, humane-ness and all sorts of good stuff. So more to come. But if I wait to “finish” this, I will never finish this!!

What have you been learning?