Read Online The Surprising Power of Liberating Structures: Simple Rules to Unleash A Culture of Innovation by Henri Lipmanowicz, Keith McCandless - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Henri Lipmanowicz, Keith McCandless
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consequences of leadership and work practices but as standard defects of all organizations. It is quite common to explain them away by blaming “imperfect employees.” Another common rationalization is, “It’s the same everywhere.” Without visible alternatives to inspire them, there are no discussions of what might be.
Patching Up the Symptoms
If/since leaders don’t blame themselves, they don’t feel compelled to change their ways. Instead, solutions take the form of palliative programs that attempt to improve the symptoms without addressing their root causes. For instance, programs to motivate employees, instead of fundamental changes to avoid demotivating them in the first place (none of us was born with a demotivating gene). For instance, more wall charts posted in meeting rooms about running effective meetings, instead of fundamentally changing their meeting designs and methods of participation. For instance, massive reorganizations or system-wide training programs, instead of creating structures to make it easier for everyone to contribute his or her best.
So, on the one hand, it would be fair to say that leaders are to blame for the chronic problems of their organizations since they are perpetuating the practices that caused them. On the other hand, it is also fair to say that in fact they cannot be blamed because they don’t see any other practices being used around them. Everybody seems to be doing the same thing and having more or less the same problems. And lots of leaders have been quite successful and handsomely rewarded in spite of these problems. So why change? Why even bother looking for something else?
Here are some of the questions to consider.
Does the value of your decisions depend on the input and expertise of others in your organization?
Is your business becoming more complex and/or less predictable?
Does your organization need to innovate or boost its rate of innovation?
Is your competition growing stronger and changing more and more rapidly?
Is your workforce becoming more diverse and more geographically dispersed?
Is attracting and retaining top talent becoming more difficult?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need to strike at the root causes of dysfunctional teams, unmotivated employees, tedious and fruitlessmeetings, and other side effects of conventional work practices in your organization. Take a close look at what follows.
The Good News
The good news is that command and control is not the only game in town; there are other work practices that are much more adapted to the challenges faced by modern organizations. These alternative ways of working together are designed to get things done while overcoming typical leadership challenges. From the start and in every interaction throughout your organization, you can build trust, engage everybody to participate and speak up, break down silos, invite people to contribute to their full potential, and reduce resistance to change. Our thirty-three Liberating Structures are purposely designed to accomplish these goals. They can be used by organizations to structure a wide range of their activities, from everyday interactions, such as meetings, one-on-one conversations, and small and big projects, to strategizing, change initiatives, and customer interactions.
In Chapter 3 , we outlined ten Leadership Principles that become routine practices when Liberating Structures are used on a regular basis ( Table 4.1 ).
This is how people can choose to relate to others for the purpose of creating successful organizations where people thrive, but principles are useless unless they come with the necessary know-how to turn them into reality. Liberating Structures provide the “how-to-do-it” that makes them come alive. In our experience, even leaders who most desperately want to be inclusive don’t know how to do it. When they discover Liberating Structures, they are thrilled to finally have in their hands practical ways to be the
Patching Up the Symptoms
If/since leaders don’t blame themselves, they don’t feel compelled to change their ways. Instead, solutions take the form of palliative programs that attempt to improve the symptoms without addressing their root causes. For instance, programs to motivate employees, instead of fundamental changes to avoid demotivating them in the first place (none of us was born with a demotivating gene). For instance, more wall charts posted in meeting rooms about running effective meetings, instead of fundamentally changing their meeting designs and methods of participation. For instance, massive reorganizations or system-wide training programs, instead of creating structures to make it easier for everyone to contribute his or her best.
So, on the one hand, it would be fair to say that leaders are to blame for the chronic problems of their organizations since they are perpetuating the practices that caused them. On the other hand, it is also fair to say that in fact they cannot be blamed because they don’t see any other practices being used around them. Everybody seems to be doing the same thing and having more or less the same problems. And lots of leaders have been quite successful and handsomely rewarded in spite of these problems. So why change? Why even bother looking for something else?
Here are some of the questions to consider.
Does the value of your decisions depend on the input and expertise of others in your organization?
Is your business becoming more complex and/or less predictable?
Does your organization need to innovate or boost its rate of innovation?
Is your competition growing stronger and changing more and more rapidly?
Is your workforce becoming more diverse and more geographically dispersed?
Is attracting and retaining top talent becoming more difficult?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need to strike at the root causes of dysfunctional teams, unmotivated employees, tedious and fruitlessmeetings, and other side effects of conventional work practices in your organization. Take a close look at what follows.
The Good News
The good news is that command and control is not the only game in town; there are other work practices that are much more adapted to the challenges faced by modern organizations. These alternative ways of working together are designed to get things done while overcoming typical leadership challenges. From the start and in every interaction throughout your organization, you can build trust, engage everybody to participate and speak up, break down silos, invite people to contribute to their full potential, and reduce resistance to change. Our thirty-three Liberating Structures are purposely designed to accomplish these goals. They can be used by organizations to structure a wide range of their activities, from everyday interactions, such as meetings, one-on-one conversations, and small and big projects, to strategizing, change initiatives, and customer interactions.
In Chapter 3 , we outlined ten Leadership Principles that become routine practices when Liberating Structures are used on a regular basis ( Table 4.1 ).
This is how people can choose to relate to others for the purpose of creating successful organizations where people thrive, but principles are useless unless they come with the necessary know-how to turn them into reality. Liberating Structures provide the “how-to-do-it” that makes them come alive. In our experience, even leaders who most desperately want to be inclusive don’t know how to do it. When they discover Liberating Structures, they are thrilled to finally have in their hands practical ways to be the
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