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Liz Twelves

Management Consultant

Twello Limited

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  • Great Liberating Structures query on Twitter just now, from @lizzie12s @liztwelves :
    “Anyone out there using participatory meeting processes e.g. Liberating Structures to run your more ‘formal’ meetings, like your Board meetings or committees?”

    Can anyone help?

    (PS How did you manage to end up on the Q site twice LIz – we’ll need to rationalise that!)

    • In my previous role (at a national regulator) I did run a board session using a technique called Kaleidoscope, which I’ve since used in my current role to run a Senior Leadership Team meeting. I don’t know that Kaleidoscope is a Liberating Structures technique but it is definitely in the spirit as it asks participants to step outside of their own…Read more

      • Hi Kate,
        Interesting to hear about ‘Kaleidoscope’. (Is there a guidance page for it online somewhere?)
        Funnily enough, there’s arguably an interesting – but uncommon – step beyond that to something called ”(‘Systemic’ or) Organisational Constellations’.
        This will typically invite individuals to stand up to create a ‘living map’ of the issue in…Read more

      • Wow. How did that go? How did people respond? Sounds like a brave step to take! Was it for a particular element of the meeting or for the whole of the agenda?

    • Thanks Matthew, I’ll have to take a look at Constellations. It does sound similar to Kaleidoscope. I don’t know if there is a written guide to the latter – I shamelessly plagiarised it by a fellow Q member and QI enthusiast, Jo Vigor (who I can’t seem to @ tag for some reason). I’ll have a go at explaining briefly…

      It works really well for work…Read more

      • Maybe ‘Kaleidoscope’ is the Liberating Structures-ified version of ‘Constellations’….?

        Though I suspect all the moving around in space, repositioning, the deep relational questions asked etc might make it a more somatic, visceral experience than a Kaleidoscope role-play.

        I don’t really know where to recommend re further info on Constellations…Read more

    • Thanks for posting this here Matthew. I’m particularly if people have redesigned their whole way of doing meeting business. I feel sure there is a better way. Imagine though asking a Board to work in a very different way. I sense that power is a big part of what gets done and how in very senior contexts.

    • @liztwelves It was definitely a very different way of working! It was quite uncomfortable for some colleagues – though in a way that’s the point, if it helps us step outside of our comfort zones and look at tricky issues in a different way. In both cases I used it for a specific item on the agenda, and created space for feedback afterwards, to…Read more