Tag: liberating_structures

Liberating Structures Immersion in ATL September 18-19

Tired of unproductive meetings, stifling hierarchy, exclusion, mistrust and disengaged people? It’s time to jump into Liberating Structures for your life and work. To instigate more of this fun,  I’m heading South! Nadine Doyle and Robin Muretisch and I (and who knows, maybe some special practitioner guests if they can be convinced!) are hosting a two day Liberating Structures Immersion Workshop in Atlanta, September 18-19. You can find all the details here.   

What are you TALKING about?

Liberating Structures are simple shifts in the methods we use to bring people together to talk, think and solve problems together. With a click you will see I’ve been practicing and writing about them for some time now! Game changer? YES! Spreadable? YES! That means YOU can do them. 

What to Expect?

You’ll gain hands-on experience of Liberating Structures, a field-tested, results-focused collection of engagement structures which include everyone in shaping the future.  

Who is this for?

Anyone who is in or host meetings, teams, groups, even engaging and unleashing positive energy in your own family. Robin and Nadine have a special interest in Lean and Design Thinking so will connect some dots in that domain. Here is what they offer:

Are you a Lead or Design Thinking practitioner? Learn how integrating Liberating Structures (LS) into your work can take you to the next level! Lean practitioners see LS as relational coordination that complements more technical process improvement and value-stream mapping activities. Design Thinking gurus find that LS helps non-designers participate more fully in ethnographic observations and prototyping efforts.  

From me, expect the unexpected. I’m always interested in a twist! And, of course, chocolate! I’m really looking forward to hanging out in the ATL!

Roland Harwood on Tapping Each Other to Solve Our Problems

nancy and charles chatting
nancy and charles tapping into each other

Via Johnnie Moore (thanks!) comes something that is remarkably akin to the Liberating Structures approach I’ve been diving into deeply.

2 degrees of separation – 100%Open.

And so recently, we’ve prototyped an exercise at various workshops and events called ’2 degrees of separation’ that has worked so remarkably well that a) I wanted to share it and b) see if anybody can help prove exactly how it works. The way we have run it to date is as follows:

In a room of at least 30 people, ask everybody to think of a project or problem they are working on right now where what would really help them is to be introduced to a specific person or organisation.
Invite people to then take it in turns to shout out the name of who they are trying to reach, and also to briefly introduce themselves (if necessary) and why they want this introduction.
Ask the whole group if anybody knows that person or organisation directly, or might know how to reach them, and if so to raise their hands.
If so, just point them out to each other so they can chat afterwards and repeat the process a few times.
We’ve now done this exercise 3 or 4 times with group sizes varying from about 30 to nearly 100 and every single time we’ve been able to make a productive connection. And whilst I thought it would probably work I am struck how well it has worked so far.