Everyone knows the strategy by heart — and everyone pulls in a different direction.
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.
Strategy Knotworking (SKW) involves everyone who has to make the direction real — not just the top.
For example: Everyone on the management team can recite the five strategic pillars flawlessly. Yet one department is working on growth through new customers, while another is busy cutting costs — both "according to the strategy," in opposite directions.
Liberating Structures for this situation:
Purpose-to-Practice (P2P)
Purpose-to-Practice doesn't impose the strategy from the top — it has the group work it out itself: in groups of four, participants clarify five elements via 1-2-4-All — purpose, principles, who needs to be involved, structure, and concrete practices.
Because everyone helps write what the strategy means in practice, it becomes something people recognize as their own — not just a line they can recite without ever having to fill it in themselves.
Strategy Knotworking (SKW)
Strategy Knotworking works through six questions — from purpose to concrete action — and at every question involves the people who have to carry the direction forward, not just the ones who came up with it.
A question like "what's happening around us that requires change" gets answered with the whole group, using Critical Uncertainties as a tool. The result is a strategy everyone has thought through the translation of together — not just the wording.
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.