Most of this week I was in Hamburg for the Liberating Structures European Learning Gathering (LSELG). It was pretty great.
Before that I caught up with my friend in Texas, Nakia; and talked with David – the other co-organiser of Liberating Structures London – about the user group.
My highlights of the gathering
- Collaboration! I love co-designing and co-facilitating sessions, and I got to do that as part of a team of 4 in front of 100 people, and as part of a pair with a group of 5.
- Started a daily gratitude practice that’s deeper than I anticipated & still sustainable. Was great to lead a session on this with Tas.
- Experienced structures new to me (always fun), including Bowl of Queries with Keith McCandless, Question Storming & Flocking
- Reminded to simplify by Henri Lipmanowicz when he talked about only needing 9 of the LS repertoire 😱 and that it’s more important to actually use Liberating Structures than to learn more of them (fair!)
This clearly struck a chord with a lot of people, Christiaan published an article about it, and many people commented on his LinkedIn to say that the ideas resonated with them too - Going out on to the street and using Liberating Structures with an actual stranger. I was so anxious about it, but Sophie and I went out and did Troika Consulting with a random person. And then I felt invincible. Thank you Ruben for inviting us to do this, and encouraging us to get out of our comfort zones!
Another review of the Gathering
Writing session was awesome
I knew I wanted to work on building a daily habit of writing. So, that’s what I made space for at the gathering. And apparently 11 other folks were intrigued by the idea too. So, we used Liberating Structures to build/progress our practice in an hour.
We started with 1-2-4-all about writing challenges we face. And then took a minute to write Liberating Structures that could help with each of these challenges.
Then we formed groups and used Liberating Structures to make progress during the session.
My group was the ‘how to get started’ group, and we used Jot. Bin. Pants to outline and actually write stuff in 7 minutes. I wrote the first draft of my weeknotes.
What’s next?
- More collaboration – I made a list of people I want to collaborate with. Next is to identify small next steps (15% Solutions) and implement
- Email the other members of the ‘how to get started’ writing group with details of our virtual writing support group
- Make a list of practices I want to stop doing and share it online, like Keith on Creative Destruction
- Make a simplified cheatsheet & set of cards for the 10 Liberating Structures I want to use as my core practice and practise more
- Make a (15%) plan for introducing & embedding Liberating Structures
- Practise Liberating Structures every day – include on my weekly log so that I remember to do it. Record which LS I use each day.
- Today I did a Spiral Journal using Grief Walking invitations (i.e. just Step 1) as a retro of the week & the LSELG experience
- Write up & publish my sessions on writing & gratitude
- Looking forward to watching How to stop screwing yourself over
Reading fanfiction is one of the ways I celebrate success and reward achievements, so this meme was very apt.