The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures: Simple Rules to Unleash A Culture of Innovation by Henri Lipmanowicz, Keith McCandless Page B
Authors: Henri Lipmanowicz, Keith McCandless
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effective ways—if it is possible—is to experience an Immersion Workshop. A Liberating Structures Immersion Workshop is like a foreign-language immersion course that temporarily relocates you away from a familiar culture. In an Immersion Workshop, you experience nothing but the language and practices of Liberating Structures. There are no presentations, facilitated discussions, updates, brainstorms, or open discussions. Having a team of people from your organization participate in an Immersion Workshop—or, even better, when the organization holds an Immersion Workshop in house—makes it possible for a critical mass to form around Liberating Structures, making it more likely that they will take hold and spread.
Liberating Structures are not difficult to learn, but they need to be experienced at least once to understand and believe what they can achieve
.
Liberating Structures are not difficult to learn, but
they need to be experienced
at least once to understand and believe what they can achieve. The reason is that their impact is counterintuitive because it cannot be explained by the logic of top-down command and control that dominates organization cultures. Fortunately, you can develop a practical understanding of most individual Liberating Structures in less than an hour each, enough to grasp them and then try them out with little risk. Taking this approach, Immersion Workshop participants repeatedly act their way into new thinking as they witness what can be accomplished when letting go of control with the support of simple but clear structures. Practice and debriefs with peers generate more confidence in the new methods. The participants discover the validity of the Liberating Structures principles personally rather than being told about them.
What’s the Purpose?
The purpose of an Immersion Workshop depends in part on whether participants are all from the same organization or come from different ones.
For Participants from the Same Organization
For participants from the same organization, these are typically the objectives:
To have people experience and learn together what they will need to practice together on the job
Towork on real-life challenges and issues that are common concerns to all participants
To discover what can be accomplished when leaders and frontline people work together and a diversity of functions are included
To create enough critical mass to allow Liberating Structures to easily take hold and spread within the organization
By design, the Immersion Workshop is a quick, compressed model of all of the Liberating Structures principles. For example, one way that Principle #1, “Include and unleash everyone,” is brought to life is with the structure of the participant group: the workshop includes people from all layers of the organization and from the complete range of organizational functions. The makeup of the workshop group consciously mirrors what participants might want to emulate on the job when they start using Liberating Structures in their everyday interactions.
For Participants from Different Organizations
The purposes of an Immersion Workshop for people from many different organizations are:
To experience many different Liberating Structures in a short time
To appreciate how universally useful Liberating Structures are
To discover what is possible when a group of very diverse people work together
With various organizations represented in the room, participants are exposed to many different ideas and to people who come from a variety of positions and fields. Unlike other types of public workshops, Immersion Workshops are not tailored for a particular audience, such as leaders or managers or HR professionals. Instead, they are constructed so that everybody can bring his or her challenge, with the idea that the more diversity in the participant group, the richer their experience.
In a multi-organization workshop, people see for themselves what can be accomplished in very
Liberating Structures are not difficult to learn, but they need to be experienced at least once to understand and believe what they can achieve
.
Liberating Structures are not difficult to learn, but
they need to be experienced
at least once to understand and believe what they can achieve. The reason is that their impact is counterintuitive because it cannot be explained by the logic of top-down command and control that dominates organization cultures. Fortunately, you can develop a practical understanding of most individual Liberating Structures in less than an hour each, enough to grasp them and then try them out with little risk. Taking this approach, Immersion Workshop participants repeatedly act their way into new thinking as they witness what can be accomplished when letting go of control with the support of simple but clear structures. Practice and debriefs with peers generate more confidence in the new methods. The participants discover the validity of the Liberating Structures principles personally rather than being told about them.
What’s the Purpose?
The purpose of an Immersion Workshop depends in part on whether participants are all from the same organization or come from different ones.
For Participants from the Same Organization
For participants from the same organization, these are typically the objectives:
To have people experience and learn together what they will need to practice together on the job
Towork on real-life challenges and issues that are common concerns to all participants
To discover what can be accomplished when leaders and frontline people work together and a diversity of functions are included
To create enough critical mass to allow Liberating Structures to easily take hold and spread within the organization
By design, the Immersion Workshop is a quick, compressed model of all of the Liberating Structures principles. For example, one way that Principle #1, “Include and unleash everyone,” is brought to life is with the structure of the participant group: the workshop includes people from all layers of the organization and from the complete range of organizational functions. The makeup of the workshop group consciously mirrors what participants might want to emulate on the job when they start using Liberating Structures in their everyday interactions.
For Participants from Different Organizations
The purposes of an Immersion Workshop for people from many different organizations are:
To experience many different Liberating Structures in a short time
To appreciate how universally useful Liberating Structures are
To discover what is possible when a group of very diverse people work together
With various organizations represented in the room, participants are exposed to many different ideas and to people who come from a variety of positions and fields. Unlike other types of public workshops, Immersion Workshops are not tailored for a particular audience, such as leaders or managers or HR professionals. Instead, they are constructed so that everybody can bring his or her challenge, with the idea that the more diversity in the participant group, the richer their experience.
In a multi-organization workshop, people see for themselves what can be accomplished in very
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