Tiny monsters

For activity instructions, go to liberatingstructures.com →

Tiny monsters aka Tiny demons , Drawing monsters, and Uhuglettes. The metaphor of demons for an activity that’s about fears is on the nose though, and certainly, some of those demons are not tiny! On the other hand, monsters call for curiosity. I’ll go with Tiny Monsters as they were called in Studio.

In practice

I would love to facilitate this activity after the group conducts action planning for something that relies on self-organization and taking the initiative. A good example is setting your learning goals for the year.

Tiny Monsters is grounded in a deeply personal and possibly irrational source of emotion. Transposing fears, concerns and doubts onto irreverent characters that we then chose to befriend is such an elegant way of facing them. It lowers the bar, almost completely to the ground, for us to accept and then share their weighty presence in a way I’ve not seen in any risk management activity. There are echoes of a pre-mortem here but the idea of facing our fears is broader than trying to mitigate the chances of project failure.

This entry is part of Liberating Structures Field Notes, my collection of stories and reflections from the field. It's written for people who already know LS and are deepening their practice. If you're just getting started and looking for activity instructions, you'll find them at liberatingstructures.com..