Lead Better Meetings: A Liberating Structures Workshop

📅 Date: July 17th, 2025
🕒 Time: 1pm - 4:30 pm
📍 Location: American Underground in Durham, NC
🍽 Food: Snacks coffee included

They go fine. No major disasters. But it feels like people are just going through the motions.

It’s always the same few people who speak up.
The introverts tend to stay quiet, but you know there are untapped ideas left in the room.

You ask, “Any questions?” and hear crickets. A few polite nods. You’re pretty sure people are multitasking, replying to emails while half-listening.

You’re left wondering if anything actually landed. Or if it will stick at all.

Liberating Structures changes that.

These simple yet powerful activities unlock participation, build trust, and get people talking.

They shift meetings from

😐 “Why are we here?” → 🙌 “I’m so glad I showed up.”

Join us for a half-day immersion to experience the difference.

In just one day, you’ll not only feel what it’s like to be in a meeting where everyone’s voice matters, but you'll walk away knowing how to use 4+ structures to make that kind of participation possible in your own work.

Liberating Structures are a set of 33+ easy-to-learn activities that shake up the usual ways groups work together. These aren’t theoretical frameworks. They’re simple, flexible activities you can start using immediately to shift the energy in any room. They help teams generate ideas, make decisions, and solve problems in ways that involve everyone.

They were created in the early 2000s and have been evolving ever since. The roots run deep in complexity science, organizational development, and even improv. They've been tested across settings and industries, from team meetings to strategy offsites, and classrooms to boardrooms.

Plus they scale. Whether you’re working with 5 people or 500, in healthcare, education, government, philanthropy, or business, these tools are built to flex, adapt, and invite productive trust-filled conversations.

In this full-day, in-person immersion, you’ll:

✅ Experience some of the most powerful Liberating Structures firsthand and see how they make space for every voice, not just the loudest in the room
✅ Practice with others in real-time and get behind-the-scenes facilitation tips
✅ Explore how to apply Liberating Structures in your own life and work, in sessions with 5 or 500 participants
✅ Learn the core design elements that make Liberating Structures effective across organizations, sectors, and industry

🔹 Team Leaders & Managers looking to make weekly meetings more interactive, focused, and worth everyone’s time
🔹 Facilitators & Consultants wanting new tools to add to their toolkit and fresh ways to energize group sessions
🔹 Nonprofit & Community Organizers trying to lead more inclusive, participatory conversations that build buy-in and shared ownership
🔹 Educators & Trainers seeking engaging formats that move beyond lectures and get people talking, thinking, and doing
🔹 Event & Program Managers planning conferences or events and needing flexible structures that scale
🔹 New(er) Leaders ready to step into the role of guide or facilitator and build confidence running the room

✨ A tested series of Liberating Structures you can run in sequence
✨ Clear guidance on how to lead 6+ structures with confidence, clarity, and ease
✨ Insight into when to use each structure, and why they work so well
✨ A resource guidebook with templates, cheat sheets, and expert facilitation tips
✨ A renewed sense of what’s possible when you design for participation, not presentation

We’re Annie Grace and Shannon Varcoe, the team behind The Team Together, a facilitation agency trusted by Fortune 500s, nonprofits, startups, and universities.

With 25+ years of combined experience, they design and lead highly participatory experiences that surface priorities, build buy-in, and help teams have the real conversations that move work forward. Whether it’s an executive off-site, a strategy sprint, or a leadership cohort—online or in person—we help people talk with, not at each other.

We also co-founded Women Facilitating, a growing community for women who well, facilitate. Through events, resources, and conversation, we’re championing facilitation as a core leadership skill, and helping more women see themselves in this work.

We use Liberating Structures in nearly every session we run and figured it’s time we let others in on the best-kept secret that powers our facilitation practice!

Money shouldn’t be the thing that keeps you from joining .If you’re working at a nonprofit, in between jobs, or just can’t swing the full price right now, fill out this quick form to request a discount or scholarship. We’re offering a limited number and will reach out soon with next steps.

"I facilitated TRIZ [a core Liberating Structure] for a client yesterday and it went AMAZINGLY WELL!! I 100% would've been too nervous to try it if it hadn't been for the [Liberating Structures workshop] where I got to experience it and the behind the scenes instruction from you." - Tes (Co-Founder of Gather Better, guiding purpose-driven orgs to gather better)

"They not only taught us Liberating Structures but shared so many pro tips as they modeled them." - Ashley W. (Project Manager Fortune 500 Company)

"Annie and Shannon are superb facilitators in their own right--watching them at work is a delight and its own form of learning. " - John F. (Executive Director of Colorado-based nonprofit)

Info: What these tools are, why they build trust, spark participation, and work across every kind of team in any industry from grassroots nonprofits to Fortune 500 companies.

Info: The oh-so-simple, surprisingly powerful activity that will shift how you run every meeting unlocking everyone’s voice and ideas from the smallest to the largest groups.

Info: This activity reveals real stories of success so you can build on what’s already working (and spark fresh possibilities).

Info: Uncover the habits and patterns that quietly hold people back. This structure helps groups name what’s not working, and take real steps to stop doing it.

Info: Identify practical, doable next steps, so action isn’t delayed or overcomplicated. A simple way to get unstuck and start moving forward.

Info: Perfect for post-mortems, debriefs, and reflections. This structure helps groups move from scattered observations to shared insight, and toward clear, collective action.

Info: Make a plan for how you’ll use Liberating Structures in your own work—and hear how others are applying them too. Get inspired, swap ideas, and connect with people you can keep learning alongside.

Also check out other Meetups in Durham, Workshops in Durham.