liberating structures

After a year and a half of panicked, rushed remote and hybrid work, we are long overdue a calm presence - a voice of reason. Someone to steer the ship and settle the stormy waters, to help us see sense and chart a path towards a more successful, enjoyable, and thriving hybrid work environment.

We need Cliff Pollan!

Cliff’s been navigating the depths of hybrid and remote work for decades – having penned articles about video calls before Zoom was even a noun and worked in hybrid-first companies before the internet even existed!

I invited Cliff to hold a conversation about hybrid work, what we need to take on (and leave behind) to make it succeed, and the role of facilitation in that success.

This conversation truly opened up a world of possibilities, perspectives, and positive ideas for me – I hope it will do the same for you!

Find out about:

• The deeper-than-expected roots of hybrid work
• Examining and overcoming the linguistic traps in “remote work”
• Why agency is at the heart of successful hybrid teams
• Understanding hybrid work as a space, rather than just a collection of tools
• Navigating the ‘laws’ of video calls, visibility, and presence
• Facilitation as an essential professional and life skill
• Why we need to abandon the idea that the physical space is ‘the centre of the universe’

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 Click here to download the free 1-page summary.

A huge thank you must go to SessionLab, the sponsor of Workshops Work. Claim your free two months of SessionLab Pro now – this deal is exclusive to Workshops Work listeners!

Questions and Answers

[01:02] When did you start calling yourself a facilitator, if you do?

[01:33] How would you describe the ‘craft’ of facilitation?

[03:15] What makes a workshop fail?

[05:41] Can you explain a little about Welo, the tool you’ve developed?

[11:00] How did you perceive and experience hybrid work pre-pandemic?

[16:29] What role does agency play in making hybrid work succeed?

[20:13] How do ‘office hours’ work in a virtual space?

[27:17] Do you have a favourite icebreaker or interaction-promoting exercise?

[32:27] What role does video play in hybrid work?

[35:58] Did we need to collectively experience ‘Zoom fatigue’ to find the right frequency for video calls?

[40:23] How important is it to share your reason for having your camera off?

[43:44] What does it take to equip people with the skills to facilitate better, more equitable discussions?

[46:31] Why have we not yet had the watershed moment of widespread facilitation training?

[52:22] What merit is there in having on-site staff share the same space in a hybrid meeting?

[55:48] What is it about sharing a physical space that feels special?

[58:28] If your team sits across time zones, how can you account for the impact on group dynamics?

[59:36] What is the one thing you would like listeners to take away from this episode?

Links

WELO - Cliff’s company

Connect to Cliff:

On LinkedIn
 

Check out the podcast map to see the overview of all podcast episodes: https://workshops.work/podcast-map

These days, a lot of the work inside and outside organisations is done in groups. Like task forces, Scrum Teams, management teams or your local church committee. Despite the benefits of working in groups, there are also several risks. Groupthink is a social bias that is clear example of this.

In this episode we explore what it is, what causes it and how to prevent it. Especially when it comes to developing strategy, we feel that Liberating Structure - and Strategy Knotworking in particular - can be a great help.

We're eager to hear your take after listening to the episode. How have you dealt with Groupthink? Let us know!

This podcast is an audio recording of this post on Medium:
http://bit.ly/2s1rw8j

Donate to support our work
https://bit.ly/supportheliberators

Follow us on Medium:
https://medium.com/the-liberators

In this episode, I talk to Max Brouwer, a change-agent, scrum master and facilitator who also runs a solo consulting business max.co. The core of our conversation is the method of “Liberating Structures” and we dig deep into different exercises (so-called “structures”) and how to effectively apply them in different contexts. We also talk about the role of managers as “facilitating leaders” and how to avoid the “leadership bias” when a senior manager joins a workshop. 

I was particularly curious to learn about Max’ experience of organizing Meet-up events that bring together groups of unrelated people to learn and experience “Liberating Structures”. Amongst others, I learned from Max a nice add-on to my favourite “premortem” exercise: After a brainstorm on how to fail a goal, he asks participants to highlight those items that they are already doing and challenges them on how to stop doing that. 

Don’t miss the part when Max shares how he dealt with the situation when a manager started co-facilitating the workshop and questioned the process. And don’t miss our heartful laughs throughout the show (which I decided not to delete just for the fun of it).

Click here to download the free 1-page summary

Don’t miss the next show: Subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

Feeling inspired by the conversation in this episode? We can have our own - take a seat at my virtual table as part of a Mastermind Group.

Questions and Answers

[1:36] If you were a hashtag, what would you be?

[2:26] What is a change agent?

[3:43] Can you learn to be a change agent and how do you become one?

[6:23] What have you learned from being a consultant about facilitation?

[9:09] Must the CEO be present in the workshop? 

[11:10] Can you briefly explain the concept of “Liberating Structures”?

[14:49] Do you usually co-facilitate workshops with other practitioners of “Liberating Structures” (Liberating Structuralists??)

[20:05] Can you share the story about the manager who started co-facilitating? 

[25:33] Can managers become “facilitating leaders”? 

[28:03] Do you think we can create a “kitchen table” atmosphere at work?

[31:00] How do you adjust your string to different topics of a “Liberating Structures” Meet-up?

[34:08] Often I came across the method of ‘min specs’ – can you explain to me what this means?

[35:50] Which list is usually longer – the list of the dos or of the don’ts? 

[40:28] How you design a Meet-up workshop for which you most often don’t know the group of participants?

[45:53] What makes a workshop fail?

[47:08] What shall the audience remember from our conversation?

Links to books and exercises we discussed:

• Lean Coffee (Meeting format)
• Impromptu Networking (Exercise)
• Fishbowl conversation (Exercise)
• Wicked Questions (Exercise)
• Min specs (Exercise)
• Triz (Exercise)
• Worldcafé (Exercise)
• Our sponsor

Check out the podcast map to see the overview of all podcast episodes: https://workshops.work/podcast-map