Modeling Language Spotlight
MG Taylor Axioms: A Model for Releasing Group Genius
November 3, 1997

 

axiom: a self-evident or universally recognized truth; maxim. An undemonstrated proposition concerning an undefined set of elements, properties, functions, and relationships; postulate (from the Greek, "that which is thought fitting or worthy")
--The American Heritage Dictionary

Perhaps the practice of releasing group genius abounds with universally recognized truths: perhaps there are none. The interaction of human beings with one another may involve levels of complexity beyond the comprehension of any one of us, and so truths may forever elude us. The sometimes magical outcomes of working together are better understood as emergent properties of a system of individuals, rather than the possession of any one individual. Collaboration is not found in any person because the phenomenon can only exist in the space and time around a group of people. In like fashion, swarming can't be found in a single bee but only as a product of the behaviors of individual bees that comprise the swarm. Bees don't know "how" to swarm: they know how to relate locally to the presence of nearby bees in the presence of some environmental or genetic stimulus and the resulting macro pattern of behavior is a swarm.

Each bee follows individual rules and these rules, held in common with many other bees, create the swarm. We can simulate what these rules might be using computers. The patterns of behavior of the specks on the screen mimic the behavior of the real swarm. We may never know what the real rules are (or if the universe actually works using rules), but we can propose an undemonstrated set of elements, properties and relationships that yield swarm-like outcomes. We can postulate axioms.

We can do the same for groups working their way through the creative process. Since the early 1970's MG Taylor has created events designed to increase the probability of the emergence of group genius, and also to improve and accellerate the effects. Our DesignShop® process allows organizations to accomplish in a few days what ordinarily would take weeks or months. Some outcomes simply cannot be achieved without the process because of the intensity of the focus and the dedication of everyone involved to a continuous block of time (usually three days).

What, if any, are the properties displayed by individuals in a successful collaboration that are absent in an unsuccessful event? We've had years to consider this question, and the result is the fourteen Axioms for releasing group genius. Individuals who employ these axioms create more powerful results together than individuals who do not: group genius has a better chance of emergence. They're axioms, and not laws because we only have the anecdotal evidence of hundreds of events conducted in MG Taylor Management Center® environments, Design Centers and NavCenter™ systems, but we have not proven a universal principle with mathematical certainty. The axioms must be accepted on faith--by playing 'Spoze with them--and let each individual judge the results for themselves.

Here they are in order:

  • The future is rational only in hindsight.
  • You can't get there from here, but you can get here from there.
  • Discovering you don't know something is the first step to knowing it.
  • Everything that someone tells you is true. They are reporting their experience of reality.
  • To argue with someone else's experience is a waste of time.
  • To add someone's experience to your experience--to create a new experience--is possibly valuable
  • The only valid test of an idea, concept or theory is what it enables you to do.
  • You understand the instructions only after you have assembled the red wagon.
  • If you can't have fun with the problem, you will never solve it.
  • Every individual in this room already possesses the answer. The purpose of this intensive interaction is to stimulate one, several, or all ofus to remember and extract what we already know.
  • Creativity is the process of eliminating options.
  • In every adverse condition, there are hundreds of good solutions.
  • You fail until you succeed.
  • Nothing fails like success.

The axioms can be grouped into rough categories. The first three concern visioning, learning and planning. The next three talk specifically about the mechanics of how people should and shouldn't share their experience as they collaborate. The third set of three concern engineering and solving the problems created by the first three. The next three address universal principles of creativity. And the last two are about the cycles of success and failure.

And now one at a time.

The future is rational only in hindsight
Many of us believe that we live in a rational world; a world where cause leads to an inevitible effect; where today is the logical outcome of yesterday. We can look at many objects that make up the fabric of our lives and recite their lineage. The television is a natural extension of our exploration of the electromagnetic spectrum. But if you read the story of a set of inventions from the vantage point of the time in which they were invented, there is little rational about their development--no givens; no logical descendents. Frequently the inventors themselves grossly misjudge the future of their inventions.

Planning in the enterprise must therefore be viewed in a different light. The axiom offers two approaches to this light. First, every effort at planning for the future should involve some degree of irrationality. Logically projected sequences of activities will miss the mark. Practically this means that every organization needs to plan not so much for certain specific futures, but for a range of them. Enterprises must pay attention to shaping their structure so that a resilient organism emerges: they must focus not only on doing the work, but on their ability to do the work.

There's another way of looking at this axiom. The only way to discover a rational future is to step into it and look backwards. By definition, a vision is planted firmly in another time--a time we believe is yet to be. People who entertain strong visions of what they want to create are seeing the future, and the clarity of that vision shows them the rational steps to take to bring some of that vision back to today, everyday.

Vision is not about predicting future events. It's about developing a synthesis of concepts which can guide the development of systems capable of implementing them. The systems may actually implement something ELSE, but their capability is based upon vision.

What does this axiom say about rules for individuals to follow in DesignShop processes in order to promote group genius? Foremost, it demands that participants and KreW be willing to play 'Spoze throughout the creative process and the event. Individuals should cultivate the ability to hold two opposing ideas in thought and work with them until a resolution, synthesis or choice clearly emerges. Next it asks that participants deliberately hunt for and define future scenarios that may at first seem implausible but represent a great possible challenge or opportunity to them and their enterprises. Finally it suggests that everyone cultivate the ability to project themselves into a vision--to walk around in it and feel it and to look back on today from the vantage point of that vision in order to see what needs to be done next.

You can't get there from here but you can get here from there.

Journal Assignment:  The next time you're in a meeting, DesignSession® or DesignShop® event, take a few minutes to note the success of the session, and the relative adherence of its participants to the Axioms. Experiment to see if you can find any correlation between the release or subduing of group genius and the diligence with which the Axioms are practiced. It doesn't matter whether the people in the session are familiar with the Axioms or not. Simply conduct some experiments to test the correlation.

 

The MG Taylor Axioms are protected by copyright. You can use them only by meeting these four conditions.

The axioms were copyrighted in 1982 by MG Taylor
this article copyright © 1997, MG Taylor Corporation. All rights reserved

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Journal Assignment:  The next time you're in a meeting, DesignSession® or DesignShop® event, take a few minutes to note the success of the session, and the relative adherence of its participants to the Axioms. Experiment to see if you can find any correlation between the release or subduing of group genius and the diligence with which the Axioms are practiced. It doesn't matter whether the people in the session are familiar with the Axioms or not. Simply conduct some experiments to test the correlation.

 

The MG Taylor Axioms are protected by copyright. You can use them only by meeting these four conditions.