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Q Liberating Structures user group

An opportunity to try some Liberating Structures together - join the fun, and learn new skills to use in your work.

5 May 2022
12:00 – 13:00

This special edition of the “Q Liberating Structures user group” introduced a practice that is not a Liberating Structure, but one that shares overarching applicability and practicality, further diversifying our group facilitation toolkit in new directions.

We welcomed person-centred care pioneer Helen Sanderson from Wellbeing Teams to guide us through the different types of decision making.

In the interactive call, Helen and Joriam (from the SIG support team) guided attendees through an interactive board where they were able to place their own decisions and better understand what style of decision making would work best. This practice was part of a new course called Radically Good Meetings.

The plan:

  • Greetings – 5 mins
  • Interactive: what decisions did you see last week? – 5 mins
  • Introduction: who does the decision belong to? – 10 mins
  • Interactive: distributing your decisions – 5 mins
  • A rundown of the the different decision making styles – 10 mins
  • Interactive: the best style for each decision – 5 mins
  • Q&A – 20 mins

The use of Liberating Structures (LS) in improvement work has spread widely since the first trainings at Q annual events and the immersion workshops Q offered. Many people find them an inspiring way to enable more inclusive, innovative, productive (and fun) meetings and projects.

This Q Liberating Structures user group offers a ‘safe space’ to share our experiences and try out different Liberating Structures together – both new ones, and more familiar ones. It’s a peer-learning space – where people like you will lead (or co-lead) each LS, rather than veteran trainers.

As one participant in one of our meet-ups put it: “I didn’t realise how much fun I’d have – but I also learnt something“.

LS feels particularly timely at the moment, with so many meetings moved into Zoom, Teams etc due to COVID-19. Yet the opportunities that Liberating Structures give us for making these truly engaging, fun and creative meetings are all too often missed when people run their meetings. We can change this!

This group is organised by Matt Clack, MaryCate McLennan, Lyse Edwards, Jonathan O’Reilly and Matthew Mezey.

Find out more about all the Liberating Structures, including FAQs and how-to’s.

To hear about future meet-ups, join Q’s Liberating Structures in healthcare Special Interest Group – all welcome (includes a sign-up page if you’d like to try leading a particular Liberating Structure in this safe space).

There’s also an LS user group (started by two Q members) in Scotland. Contact Kirsty Ellis – and other groups in London, Cardiff, Leeds and the West Midlands. (Please note: the Leeds and West Midlands groups are still suspended due to the pandemic).

Watch the recording

Download the slides