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

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Authors: Henri Lipmanowicz,Keith McCandless

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

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