How I learnt to use Liberating Structures
So I have good news and bad news.
First the good news, Liberating Structures(LS) are surprisingly easy to learn and use, yay! The bad news, the way I learned, and the only way I can speak of, is 100% experience based. That is to say that to experience is to learn. My process is to learn/experience and as soon as possible try. Just try. To use LS does not require a certification or any other credential, so yes if you have experienced and you know how to look up the 5 structural elements of LS, then yes you do know enough and are more than qualified to try. So I just experience and try and learn and try and learn then experience more and try and learn and try and learn.
Back to the good news, to be as concrete as I can be, I went to my first meetup of the Netherlands LS User Group in March of 2019. Almost a year later I’ve attended a total of eight meetups and one two day immersion workshop from The Liberators. In a total of 12 half days I’ve experienced 26 of the official LS, 5 of those still in development, and of those 31 I have tried and learnt from all but 11. I’ve used meetings, trainings, workshops, Scrum Ceremonies and meetups I organize/facilitate to try to use LS. Any opportunity where I find myself in front of a group of two or more is a great opportunity to try and learn.
The secret of my sauce has been to experience, try and learn as fast as I can. It genuinely surprises me writing this that I’ve been able to go from almost completely ignorant to relatively confident in less than a year. There is certainly more to learn, and I am happy as hell to continue.
From here I want to deepen my experience and learning, as well as practice sharing what I have learnt. Please join the NL User Group, or find a group in your part of the world here, so that we can continue learning from, by and with each other.
So this has been my experience but I’m just as curious to learn from you:
How have you learned LS?
What places, practices and people have accelerated your learning?
Keynote Speaker on the Power of Conversation, Executive Coach for leaders who want to drive change through dialogue.
5 年Learning by doing is ultimately the only way! Reading cookbook won't make you a chef, right? Very interesting to hear about your learning journey. Which pattern did you try first? What gave you the courage to try?
Facilitatrice de questions pour dirigeants humanistes et conférencière. Methode Lego? Serious Play? |Host Podcast: Oui et| Facilitator
5 年I learned it with KAOSPILOT . Tro?ka is one of my favorite LS
Co-founder The Liberators & Columinity: a product to help teams improve based on scientific insights. ??
5 年Thanks for sharing Jeremy! I got introduced to Liberating Structures by Johannes Schartau, via Christiaan Verwijs. Organizing our first Liberating Structures Immersion Workshop, together with S. Fisher Qua?and Keith McCandless?was a tremendously exciting and valuable experience! At that time, I was a starting LS practitioner, co-organizing the workshop and having me explain some structures, encouraged me to dig deep into the concept quickly. Like Jeroen already mentioned, learning by doing is powerful, but learning by teaching/explaining as well.?
Founder of workshops.work || Podcaster || PhD in Behavioural Economics - Building collaborative cultures, one workshop at a time
5 年Thank you for sharing your LS journey Jeremy Nathaniel Akers! I agree that there is only one way to learn Liberating Structures: by practicing and doing. The way I learned about LS was through Max Brouwer who shared his experience on my podcast https://workshops.work/podcast/021/ - Max! How did you learn (about) LS?
Agileholic
5 年Cool post Jeremy! I first encountered LS during the Scrum Master Advanced training from Barry Overeem and Christiaan Verwijs. Since then I was hooked. I attended multiple meetups and Immersion workshops and used them at work. But my learning really accelerated when I started to organise and facilitate meetups and workshops myself. Learn not only by doing, but start teaching and sharing your knowledge!