Liberating Structures: Old Wine In New Bottles?

Liberating Structures are a collection of interaction patterns that allow you to unleash and involve everyone in a group — from extroverted to introverted and from leaders to followers.

Liberating Structures are co-developed by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless. I sometimes get feedback: “Hey, this structure <insert example> wasn’t invented by Henry & Keith; it was initially created by…

My answer to that is always:

📌 If you think you’re the original creator of something, it only means you haven’t found the real original creator yet…
📌 By no means do Henri & Keith pretend to have created ALL Liberating Structures!

I’ve experienced Henri & Keith as masters of collaboration. They uniquely develop some of the structures. Others came to birth by closely collaborating with and drawing inspiration from others.

Simply check the LS website and read the attributions.

For example:

• Open Space Technology: Invented by Harrison Owen (see Open Space Technology: A User’s Guide). Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless developed the short form to fit the Liberating Structures collection.
• Agreement~Certainty Matrix: Adapted from the work of professors Ralph Stacey and Brenda Zimmerman.
• Nine Whys: Inspired by Geoff Bellman, author and consultant.
• Impromptu Networking: Inspired by June Holley, network weaver.
• Wicked Questions: Inspired by professors Brenda Zimmerman (see Edgeware) and Scott Kelso (see The Complementary Nature).
• Appreciative Interviews: Inspired by and adapted from Professor David Cooperrider, Case Western Reserve University, and consultant Dr. Tony Suchman.
• 25/10 Crowd Sourcing: Inspired by improvisationalists, including Keith Johnstone.
• What, So What, Now What: Chris Argyris introduced the “Ladder of Inference” in Reasoning, Learning, and Action: Individual and Organizational (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1982). Peter Senge popularized it in The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization (New York: Doubleday, 1990).

With none of these Liberating Structures, they pretend to have invented them themselves. They have (re-)designed all these structures with five design elements in mind: arrangement of space and materials, creation of an invitation, distribution of participation, allocation of time & steps, and the configuration of groups. It’s what they all have in common, although each structure has a unique way of using it.

So, are Liberating Structures old wine in new bottles? 🍷

Maybe. But it’s a wine that aged well, and I love the collection of bottles they gathered! ❤️