A Modeling Language

Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.
— Joe Sparano

If you know me well, you know that one of my favorite images is Escher's "Drawing Hands", 1948 Lithograph.  Really, is there any other way that life creates itself? The Latin derivation, modulus is the diminutive of modus, which means measure, rhythm, harmony. So a model is a little measure, a little rhythm, a little harmony--a slice.

When Matt and I met in 1976, his language was "architecture/design/build" and mine was "education".  I was a doer and he was a designer. We were both entrepreneurs and visionaries.  Still we saw things from different vantage points. When we decided to bring our ideas together and develop a process to enable groups to think, play, and work differently, we had to create a language which would help us to do this ... to bring our different languages together and create something born of our  vision and ethics. Our dialogs were like Eschers hands -- with each exchange, we were growing a new language.  The result was a modeling language which we have used for more than 30 years now to help us come to understand and share our own thinking with our network and clients throughout the world. 

As stated on the MG Taylor website, a model is a "slice of reality"  --- a vantage point of perception.  Our models are for creating an infrastructure and process for dialog and diagnosis of a situation.  Each model is designed to hold a "truth" and to unfold a story by and with the users.  For instance, our Stages of an Enterprise Model, is true for all stages in nature as well as organizations and other human developed enterprises.  When we have used it with members of a corporation or community, they come to see themselves within a larger context.  The dialog leads to seeing an organization as constant change. It provides a way to step back and examine the stages of an organization from a higher plane. When employees and managers play with this model, they aren't forced to change. They gain a new understanding of what it means to be in sync with an idea, project, or organization. They want to ride these waves of change. 

None of our models are about people; rather they model underlying stories about different situations and possibilities.  They are not right or wrong or better or worse than other models. That is not the point.  They are a language that helps us come to know how to test, design, use and provide feedback to our own processes. Our Seven Domains Model helps understand why we leave people out of our models. 

As you explore the models, you will see glyphs inside each one.  Think of these as giving deeper meaning ...offering aspects of  rhythm and harmony.

For the few of us who have used the modeling language for years and years, no conversation or dialog goes on -- whether about and with clients, our families, or communities -- without using the language to sharpen our thinking and cohere our thoughts into some form of action.  It is why clients often tell us  how the magic of play and work intertwined, opens so many new avenues of thought and freedom.  Most of all, I love it when people I am working with come up and tell me stories about how they have radically changed their mind about a situation or person because of an event we have facilitated.  This is using the modeling language at its best... very invisible but yet serving its purpose.

Our modeling language and models on one hand, the reality of a situation on the other hand -- drawing each other into a much more creating place and space. 

Siblings

Just imagine the joy of getting up everyday to just imagine.                                  
-cary


On December 14th, my younger brother, Cary, passed away.  This is a tiny slice of his story and what I learned from Cary, his wife, Glenda,  daughter, Kristin, my brother, Bill, and his wife, Emmy, and the wonderful community that surrounded him as he left us. 

The quote above is from Cary's website. He was a designer and architect. He is one major reason why downtown Kansas City has come back from oblivion.  He fought for years to have the community re-envision the downtown as a vibrant community full of life and vitality, not only during the day, but at night as well.  He has a number of signature buildings in the city that helped to turn his dream into reality.  During our Remembering Cary ceremony, I learned just how much he had contributed to his dream. 

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Wayfinding

Over the past several months, we—Gail and Todd, mother and son, partners in business, have been developing a long essay on what we call wayfinding. We have been working together as collaborative process designers and facilitators for nearly twenty years.  In this time, we have jointly designed and facilitated more conferences, workshops, sessions, happenings and other forms of convening than we can count.  While we have coauthored numerous essays, white papers and letters, this may be our most substantive written collaboration to date.

As we continue to iterate, refine, illustrate and hone our writing into a form that can be independently published, we have decided to post the paper as a series of journals, welcoming your thoughts and comments to help us move and shape our ideas going forward.

On to Wayfinding

... Rise WITH the Occasion

Everyday our children spread their dreams beneath our feet.  (paraphrased from Sir Ken Robinson's TedTalk, referring to a poem by William Yeats.)

"A three year old is not half a six year old."  Both of these comments are from Sir Ken Robinson's 1010 Ted Talk.  Eighteen minutes and he can say so much.  This is definitely a talk worth watching.  I claim that we (most of us) understand what Sir Ken is saying. People from all economic sectors, races, cultures, understand his words and concepts.

How is it then that we are so slow to embrace the unknown? As Sir Ken emphasizes as he quotes Abraham Lincoln:  "we must rise with the occasion, not to it." That implies that we are all in this together. We are going into the unknown with each other, supporting each other, having the resources to seek together.  This is what a revolution is all about.  Let's get back in touch with real, vital, life-giving education.

Sir Ken Robinson says it all with humor and seriousness.  Let's undergo this revolution together student by student ... dream by dream.  I think it is time for a Slow Education movement. 

My Ripples

"If you did not do what you did today, for example, the entire world would be in some way different.

Your acts ripple outward in ways that you do not understand, interacting with the experience of others, and hence, forming world events. The most famous and the most anonymous person are connected through such a fabric, and an action seemingly small and innocuous can end up changing history."

Jane Roberts
The Nature of the Psyche: It's human Expression, 1979

This is a quote I have used so many times. I think about it often ... but more or less as an abstract.  Lately, I find myself trying to sense the ripples I have sent outwards because of my smallest and largest thoughts and actions.  This statement has become personal.  I can remember being in 8th grade the first time I thought about my actions in the world.  That was 60 years ago! I wonder what my balance is for changing history ... for the better or for the worse?

I think of Buckminister Fuller who asked himself if one human being could make a difference. He documented his life calling himself, Guinea Pig Bucky.  It's interesting to appraise another's life.  Bucky's life was as full of "failures" as it was of success.  How do events ripple out? How do they get woven into the larger fabric?

I think of my Mom's Mom. She was always there for my brothers and me and our friends.  We spent summers with my grandparents and she worked tirelessly to make things work for us while never hesitating to scold and teach.  Yes, she lives still. She is part of my fabric.

I recall several things that have helped me understand how non-linear actions are ... how things I have done ripple out and perturb the universe in strange and delightful ways.  In 1972, I created the Learning Exchange in Kansas City Missouri.  I left the Exchange and the city in 1979 believing I had completed a cycle and that the Exchange was in good hands. In 1997, I was invited to return to KC and help celebrate 25 years of success with the Exchange.  I got a call from a reporter asking if she could interview me while I was in the city.  As we sat and talked over coffee she told me her story: One of the premier programs that I started just before leaving was Exchange City, a program for 5th graders to come to know the workings of a city. Students would come from all over the city to take part in running a town for a few days. Students would vie for being Mayor, or banker, doctor, baker, etc.  This young women interviewing me told me her Exchange City story. She wanted to be Mayor or banker but was not selected to be either. In fact, she got her last choice ... that of being a reporter.  Now here she was 15 years after her City experience interviewing me as a reporter. She said that week in Exchange City changed her life.  What part did I play in that? I was long gone before she entered the program.  Ripples ...

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