Every individual target makes sense on its own; added up, they don't deliver the result anyone wanted.
Recognize this situation? Below are the Liberating Structures that change it — a concrete example, and the reason this one fits here. New to Liberating Structures? Here's what it is.
Generative Relationships STAR shows how the team actually works together, beyond the separate targets.
For example: Every employee hits their individual targets. Yet the team as a whole doesn't deliver the intended result — nobody ever checked whether those targets actually add up together.
Liberating Structures for this situation:
Ecocycle Planning
Ecocycle Planning literally places everyone's piece side by side on one shared map: every activity or goal gets a spot in one of four phases — birth, growth, decline, or creative destruction — and only then does it become visible how the pieces relate to each other.
It often turns out the team is collectively pouring too much energy into goals that all sit in the same phase — say, all "growth" — while nobody's picking up the necessary maintenance or renewal. That's exactly where the sum stops adding up.
Generative Relationships STAR
Generative Relationships STAR doesn't look at the goals themselves, but at how the team actually works together: each team member rates the team on four axes, including how diverse the perspectives are (Separateness) and how much they undertake together (Action).
A team can score high on individual action here and low on tuning — exactly the pattern where every goal checks out on its own, but there's never enough mutual adjustment to make them add up together.
No certification, no lengthy prep — read the steps and try it at your next meeting.
Keep exploring
Browse the full list of 43 structures, or get support if this situation is too complex to facilitate yourself.