What are Liberating Structures and how to start using them
Liberating Structures are a selection of 33 alternative structures for facilitating meetings and conversations, curated by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless.
Liberating Structures are intended to up-end the normal way meetings and collaboration are typically organized, which is usually top-down with restricted participation created intentionally or due to entrenched group dynamics.
To facilitate significant, transformative changes in organizations, we need to make a profound change in how people interact, not just at offsites and other special occasion meetings, but in the weekly team meetings, ad hoc design sessions, and problem-solving get-togethers that make up daily life in organizations.
“Liberating Structures introduce tiny shifts in the way we meet, plan, decide, and relate to one another. They put the innovative power once reserved for experts only in the hands of everyone,” cocreators Keith McCandless and Henri Lipmanowicz wrote on their website. “Liberating Structures are a disruptive innovation that can replace more controlling or constraining approaches,” they said.
To employ them, the creators recommend starting with the simplest, one of which is called “Wicked Questions.” The idea is to “spark innovative action while diminishing ‘yes, but…’ and ‘either-or’ thinking.”
Why Do Microstructures Matter?
Organizations usually try to change everything, but end up changing nothing.
Most companies want to drive change by focusing on macrostructures–things that are built and designed for the long-term and that are hard or expensive to change.
Macrostructures include tangible structures such as office buildings, factories, logistics infrastructure, and more. They also encompass intangible assets like strategies, organizational structures, policies and procedures, grants of authority, etc.
Microstructures, on the other hand, are simpler and cheaper to modify. They include meeting rooms, presentations, agendas, feedback, and other small structures. We usually use them to collaborate and co-create with our colleagues and teams.
For most companies microstructures become fixed, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Changing these microstructures provides a quick way to improve how we work and innovate.
