There are times in our lives when a book or resource hits our desk and it seems to be the right book for right now. That was the case when I first read about and then ordered 'The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures - Simple Rules to Unleash a Culture of Innovation' by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless.
The work of community change calls for a focus on shifting the needle on complex challenges or problems. There are different players, different perspectives and different understanding or knowledge about both the community and the issue that is being tackled. Bridging these multiple perspectives can make community change efforts more challenging and less effective.
The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures is both a guide to thinking differently about engagement and a treasure trove of tools, exercises and reflections on how to plan and work differently with a complexity and community change lens.
"We believe Liberating Structures are transformational because they are purposefully designed to make it easy to accomplish what is missing in most organizations, namely to include and engage people effectively and to unleash their collective intelligence and creativity."
The book is constructed in five parts: the first part focusing on the hidden structure of engagement; parts two and three providing ideas for getting started and application stories from the field; part four includes a repertoire of 33 tools that can be easily applied alone or in tandem to unleash creativity and engagement and the final section is an afterword and additional resources. Lipmanowicz and McCandless have also created a website which includes the key components of the book as well as videos of the tools in action.
My book is already dog eared and I have incorporated some of the Liberating Structures to help groups move forward. If you are working in the field of community change, this is a must-have resource for your bookshelf.
Learn More:
- Visit the Liberating Structures website
- View my CIS 2015 Embracing Emergence workshop for a look at Liberating Structures in action
- Download TRIZ: A Liberating Structures Tool
