Facilitation with “Liberating Structures” is easy to learn

Leaders can develop facilitation skills on-the-job with liberating structures

When working with these leaders, I often refer to the toolkit Liberating Structures for team meetings and sessions. For this, I highly recommend the book by Daniel Steinhöfer from Vahlen Verlag, the website www.liberatingstructures.de, and the Liberating Structures App LISA for both reading and practical application!

What are the Liberating Structures?

Liberating Structures is a well-equiped toolkit that enables the team’s full participation and inclusion. With it teams co-operate more, better ideas emerge unexpected and the full potential is realized, much more than with traditional meeting structures as it shifts focus from individual expertise to the collective expertise of the group.

The impact of Liberating Structures is broad—ranging from “finding the right decision” and “from decision to action” to “reviewing and reflecting on decisions,” including conflict resolution and even strategy work for start-ups. The individual methods are sophisticated yet intuitively easy to grasp. They use engaging metaphors, enlightening questions, and skillful sequences (known as strings) that can be flexibly tailored to suit different occasions.

Let’s have a practical look at the example “Home Office”

The issue of home office work is currently a concern for many companies. The following string can be effectively used with teams to address the question of who works from home, when, and why, and when it might be better for the team to come into the office.

For preparation – clarify your expectation as leader

What are my “Go’s” & “No Go’s”? It is worthwhile to communicate these upfront and clarify initial questions to establish a good basis for the string, which then includes the following three Liberating Structures:

1. User Experience Fish Bowl:

Two to three employees take a seat in the center of the Fishbowl and share their experiences of home office during the pandemic in an informal, unrestricted conversation. Everything can be expressed, whether positive or critical. The rest of the employees sit in an outer circle, listen, and at the end, ask questions or share their own observations.

2. 1-2-4-All:

Now, all employees have the opportunity to speak, using a sequence that considers both the “loud” and the “quieter” people:

• Individual Reflection: Each employee briefly reflects on their ideal office/home office situation.
• Pair Discussions: Followed by five-minute discussions in pairs.
• Group of Four Discussions: Then discussions in groups of four, again for five minutes.
• Plenary Exchange: Finally, the groups of four share their insights in the plenary session. This ensures everyone has shared their perspectives and ideas, leading to a common understanding.

3. What? So What? Now What?

This shared understanding serves in the next phase as the basis for the final step. In the What? phase, facts from the previous discussions are collected. In the second round—So What?—everyone interprets these facts. The separation of fact and interpretation is crucial for Step 3, the Now What? Here, the team discusses how to proceed with the home office policy and what further development steps are possible or necessary on the longer run.