The Modelling Language:

A Point Of View
So old it’s new?
 Language: What is it?
Oxford English Dictionary:
• “The method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the
use of words in a structured and conventional way
• a non-verbal method of expression or communication : body language”

Professionally Personally

Is it just about communication with others?

 Language: What is it?
• Is language important to someone alone on a
desert island?

A tool of cognition* – for individuals as well as groups

*cognition is a group of mental processes that includes attention, memory, producing an
understanding, learning, reasoning, problem solving, and decision making
Language: More than cognition?

Language

Perception Cognition

Culture

Fundamental to our experience and understanding of the

world?
 Professional Languages
• Mankind searches for universal ways to interact
within their communities
– Soviet : Capitalist nuclear scientists
• The poverty of common language for a profession
• The need for professional precision
e.g. Myocardial infarct
Infarction = Tissue death caused by a local lack of oxygen, due to
an obstruction of the tissue's blood supply
Myocardium = The thick layer of muscular tissue within the
heart that is located between the endocardium and pericardium
The MG Taylor Modelling Language: Why?
• A new profession:
– Enabling organisations to become requisite with the
exponentially increasing rate of change and complexity
– Enabling the emergence of creativity, collaboration,
innovation and Group Genius
– Defining, designing and delivering work
• The end user, the participant, shouldn’t have to know
anything to be successful

A grammar and lexicon for ‘practitioners’ to use

The MG Taylor Modelling Language: What?
A language with 3 levels of recursion*
e.g.

33 Interactions Paragraphs

22 Models made up of Glyphs Sentences

“Words”
11 Glyphs
Terms of art

“We’ve begun to tap the 1stst layer of a discipline of great depth”

* characterized by recurrence or repetition

 Glyphs – the starting point
• Deep rooted in human history are drawn objects that posses shared meaning
• As early as Mayans and Egyptians pictograms/hieroglyphs to convey sound and
ideas
• Key to functioning of society today – e.g. Road signs in Europe...share meaning and
common use
• Many professions have their own symbols or signs
– e.g. Map makers, Chemists
 Glyphs
• In MG Taylor system and method BUT,
Glyphs are: -Need a high level of common use
- “Energy centres” - Not designed as a language that
- “Talismans of a way of being” stands alone...augmented with
• Contain exact meaning that is existing verbal, kinaesthetic and
intrinsic to the system of work visual languages
• They enable making of a common
experience, a Body Of Knowledge
and a practice
• Create a culture to enable
creativity and collaboration to take
place
 Glyphs – the starting point
• Each Glyph has:
– A ‘pictogram’ / image / symbol
– Eytimology: origin of the word
– Symbology
– A place in (at least one) model
 Learning the language
• “When you can create a pun using Glyphs,
you’re on your way to mastery.”

• When you can put aside dictionaries and

grammar books and think in a new language
the language can be used as a vehicle for
learning more
 Learning the language
“This effort is the beginning. It has a long path
ahead of it. Nether the less, even in its present
form it is a powerful tool for betterment if
diligently applied to it’s designated field of
application.”

Matt Taylor (2012)

 Glass Bead Game
• Although the models can be studied and applied
individually, their full power is only unleashed when
considered in an interconnected and collective manner
• Hermann Hesse's masterwork Magister Ludi
: The Glass Bead Game as a metaphor for describing
how to use the models together
• In the past Facilitators and Knowledge Workers played
Glass Bead Games by translating current conditions
into design solutions by using the models as catalysts
and filters
The solution box of this Point Of View

VISION • PHILOSOPHY • PROGRAM