The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures: Simple Rules to Unleash A Culture of Innovation

BOOK: The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures: Simple Rules to Unleash A Culture of Innovation
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Praise for Liberating Structures

This book is so needed and so useful. The authors understand that the world is changed through small, elegant shifts in the protocols of how we meet, plan, conference, and relate to each other. The genius of this book is how it puts in the hands of every leader and every citizen the facilitative power that was once reserved for the trained expert. This will be a required text for all programs on leadership and change.

Peter Block
Bestselling author of
Flawless Consulting, Stewardship
, and
Community: The Structure of Belonging

A treasure trove of simple, practical methods to stimulate critical conversations and liberate the full potential of any group, from the frontline to the C-suite.

Cheryl M Scott
Global Programs Senior Advisor, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Liberating Structures will forever change the way we look at collaboration, learning and leadership by showing us how structures are critical in the world of work. Simply put, this book is for every leader who wants innovative but proven methods to transform his or her organization and engage its members in that journey of discovery.

Pat Witherspoon
Dean, College of Liberal Arts, The University of Texas at El Paso

As a Wall Street Journal columnist covering executive leadership, I discovered Lipmanowicz and McCandless in the early days of their work with Liberating Structures. Today, as an entrepreneur in a complex industry, I use those practices routinely. Any group, anywhere is inherently poised for rapid transformation. Liberating Structures make it simple to turn this potential into reality.

Thomas Petzinger Jr
. Founder of five life science companies and former Wall Street Journal “Front Lines” columnist

The authors have drawn on pioneers in complexity science research, making insights immediately useful for people in the field. Liberating Structures invite frontline ownership of challenges by engaging everyone in a way that encourages them to become part of the solution and take action.

Brenda Zimmerman
Associate Professor of Strategy/Policy, Schulich School of Business, Toronto

Liberating Structures have given me not only many powerful new ways for engaging employees and customers; they have also succeeded beyond my imagination in providing endless new approaches to improve productivity and creativity, all in a fun and enjoyable way!

Guy Eiferman
President, Healthcare Services & Solutions, Merck & Co

Billings Clinic has been using many Liberating Structures for a decade. The engagement and emergence of new and stronger teams that include staff, leaders, physicians and nurses has helped us to improve patient experience and safety while reducing costs in an extremely complex healthcare environment. Highly recommended.

Nicholas Wolter, MD
CEO, Billings Clinic

Bringing Liberating Structures into my work is restoring my soul. Thank you.

Deb Witzel
Executive Director, Longmont Community Justice Partnership

Being able to manage interactions with Liberating Structures helps me be more self-confident and a better leader in the eyes of my team and my customers. Being an early adopter increased my influence in the organization and is one of the reasons I’m now a member of the senior management team. Liberating Structures helped me grow in my career.

Vanessa Vertiz
Business Unit Director, Lima, Peru

For the past eight years in Latin America and Italy Liberating Structures has helped me and my teams work through a wide range of issues. They became a way of doing business and to move organizations and people to new heights.

David Raimondo
General Manager Latin America, Coopervision

There are those rare but delicious moments when you stumble across a resource that transforms everything. Liberating Structures have provided a delightfully rich repertoire of methods that live up to their bold name—liberating participants to engage, collaborate and reach into their collective wisdom to address their concerns and goals. And not just for my practice, but increasingly as fruitful tools for managers and staff across the Yukon Government organization.

Barrett W. Horne
OD Consultant with the Yukon Government, Canada

A must-read guide to transform how you engage others. Liberating Structures offer elegant approaches to get the most out of every discussion, meeting or workshop. Our NGO uses them internally and with our partners around the world. From Tanzania to NYC, from St. Lucia to Liberia, I have been amazed watching Liberating Structures unleash the potential of each gathering.

Sean Southey
Executive Director, PCI Media Impact

Holy smoke:
www.liberatingstructures.com
might be one of the most useful websites I’ve been introduced to since Google. The only words that come to mind are swear words, and I’m on county email.

Ryan Murrey
Acting Executive, Washington State CASA

The
Surprising
Power of
Liberating Structures

Simple Rules to Unleash a Culture of Innovation

Henri Lipmanowicz   Keith McCandless

Copyright © 2013 by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless. Some rights reserved.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. This allows others to reproduce, distribute, adapt and build upon our work non-commercially as long as they credit us and license their creations under identical terms.

To view a copy of this license visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/legalcode

Published by Liberating Structures Press

ISBN 13: 9780615893372 (Liberating Structures Press)

ISBN: 0615893376

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013951395

Liberating Structures Press, Seattle, WA

CONTENTS

Prologue        As Easy As ABC

Chapter 1     SMALL CHANGES, BIG DIFFERENCES

The Invitation

What’s Ahead

Part One: The Hidden Structures of Engagement

Chapter 2     WHY MICROSTRUCTURES MATTER

              
How invisible structures shape everything that gets done

                       
First, a Few Definitions

                       
The Neglected Power of Microstructures

                       
Microstructures Enable and Constrain

                       
The Elements of Control

                       
Conventional Microstructures: Too Much Control and/or Too Little Structure

                       
From Too Much or Too Little Control to Well-Structured and Distributed Control

Chapter 3     LIBERATING STRUCTURES FOR EVERYONE

              
How easy it is for anyone to radically improve the way people work together

                       
A Liberating Structure in Action

                       
Harnessing the Power of Small Changes

                       
Principles and Practices

                       
Measuring Inclusion and Engagement: IE Quotient

                       
Liberating Structures and Culture Change

                       
Liberating Education

                       
What to Expect

Chapter 4     LIBERATING LEADERSHIP

              
How leaders can avoid perpetuating the problems they complain about

                       
The Bad News: Unintended Consequences and Side Effects

                       
Patching Up the Symptoms

                       
The Good News

                       
The Possibilities

                       
The Choice

                       
A Word to the Skeptic

                       
The Big Shift and Payoff

                       
The Biggest Leadership Challenge

                       
Liberating Leadership Starts with You

Part Two: Getting Started and Beyond

Chapter 5     GETTING STARTED: FIRST STEPS

                       
Menu of Liberating Structures

                       
Safety First

                       
Breaking with Tradition

                       
Your Own Fears

                       
Three Pathways to Fluency and Routine Use

                       
Immersion Workshops

Chapter 6     FROM FIRST STEPS TO STRINGS

                       
Matching a Challenge with Specific Liberating Structures

                       
Five Sets of Strings

Chapter 7     FROM STRINGS TO STORYBOARDS

                       
Launching a Multi-Stakeholder Collaborative Project

                       
Developing Strategy and Building a New Leadership Team

                       
Advancing a Broad Movement across Many Regions

                       
Composing for Large-Scale Projects

Part Three: Stories from the Field

                       
Fixing a Broken Child Welfare System: Tim Jaasko-Fisher

                       
Inclusive High-Stakes Decision Making Made Easy: Craing Yeatman

                       
Turning a Business Around: Alison Joslyn

                       
Transforming After-Action Reviews in the Army: Lisa Kimball

                       
Inventing Future Health-Care Practice: Chris Mccarthy

                       
Creating More Substance, Connections, and Ideas in the Classroom By Arvind Singhal

                       
Getting Commitment, Ownership, and Follow-Through: Neil Mccarthy

                       
Inspiring Enduring Culture Change While Preventing Hospital Infections: Michael Gardam

                       
Dramatizing Behavior Change to Stop Infections: Sherry Belanger

                       
Developing Competencies for Physician Education: Diane Magrane

                       
Passing Montana Senate Bill 29: Senator Lynda Bourque Moss

                       
Transcending a Top-Down, Command-and-Control Culture: Jon Velez

Part Four: The Field Guide to Liberating Structures

                       
1-2-4-All

                       
Impromptu Networking

                       
Nine Whys

                       
Wicked Questions

                       
Appreciative Interviews (AI
)

                       
TRIZ

BOOK: The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures: Simple Rules to Unleash A Culture of Innovation
6.65Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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