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Innovate and Enjoy with Liberating Structures

Can the most productive meeting be one that starts without an agenda?

Can one minute of silent reflection change the outcome of a meeting?

Can the majority of people in an organization be willing and able to contribute something that will make a significant difference?

Can meetings be fun?

With Liberating Structures, answers to all those questions can be an enthusiastic “Yes.”

Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless tell how Liberating Structures work in their article in Performance, a quarterly business publication of the Global Business Thinktank of Ernst & Young. Liberating Structures are a growing collection of processes and methods that make it quick and easy for a group of any size to change how its members interact and collaborate. They are designed to tap into collective intelligence, liberate energy and stimulate creativity. You have probably heard of Open Space Technology, Conversation Cafes, and Storytelling. There are many more, and some may surprise you. They interesting to learn, productive to use, and engaging for participants who discover that their own ideas are significant, and that people in conversation together can produce solutions for all kinds of thorny issues.

In the experience of these authors, both Liberating Structure pioneers, including and unleashing everyone brings hope and trust to organizational life. Henri Lipmanowicz is a founder of Plexus Institute and chairs its Board of Trustees. He retired in 1998 after a30 career at Merck, where he was president of International Region and Japan division. Keith McCandless, a founding partner of the Social Invention Group, is a consultant with expertise in strategis planning, leadership and organizational development. Lipmanowicz and McCandless both served as coaches for healthcare organizations in in the Positive Deviance MRSA Prevention Partnership, an initiative to halt the spread of MRSA in healthcare.

Read their article here and learn how these innovative practices can bring about positive change in large and small organizations of all kinds.