Journey to Johnsonville

Johnsonville navCenter
C O M M O N S

Journey to Johnsonvillle

i n t r o d u c t i on

Journey to Johnsonville will explore the ideas in common between what Ralph Stayer wrote in Flight of the Buffalo and applied at Johnsonville Sausage and what I developed in the building of the MG Taylor practice. Both these journeys started in the 1970s and reached a level of conceptual maturity by the end of the 1980s. Ralph and I unknowingly shared many ideas in common while, at the same time, approaching their application in different ways. In the course of the last 20 years, the ideas and methods which evolved from these two sets of experiences have continued to grow. There is both divergence and convergence between the two approaches which provides the opportunity for a rich synergy.

For me, the Johnsonville navCenter COMMONS presents an unique opportunity to partner in the creation of a learning-collaborative design space. To MG Taylor, every environment has three key elements: the physical space, the learning and work processes employed, and the technology augmentation configured to support a new way of being and working.

The Johnsonville Way, if taken literally as something to bring about to its fullest possible expression - which is the way I take it - requires an environment like no other. It has taken a generation for the Johnsonville Way to get to where it is. It has taken a generation for MG Taylor environments to get to what they do today. These are Journeys of the past. The JOURNEY of the future is the opportunity to design - to mark out - by employing the mutual and combined aspiration of these two traditions which are both driven by a vision yet each to be fully realized.

Given this challenge, preparing this Program Statement has proven one one of the most difficult and enjoyable exercises I have worked on. The purpose of the program Statement is to create the problem of the project. The problem is the composition of the end state vision, the present reality, the blocks between THERE and HERE, and the design strategy to synthesize all this into an elegant and practical solution capable of facilitating the Johnsonville Community to new heights.

We are entering a period unprecedented in human history. The next generation, by any way of measuring it, will experience as much social, economic, political and spiritual change than the sum of the documented human story. This will require personal transformation and the recreation of all human organizations.

This magnitude and rate of change will challenge us all. Some will hunker down and try to make the old ways work a little longer. Some will give up. Some will see the great opportunity, which present and future disruptions present, and will emerge with new solutions, products, organizations, forms of wealth, ways of living and working, and do so in a healthy and sustainable way.

One reading of the back of the Johnsonville Sausage business card reveals an unambiguous statement of the choice which this community-of-work has made.

The mission of MG Taylor is to support individuals - we call them transition managers - in this QUEST. We do this one individual, one community, one business, one government, one region at a time by providing a tool kit to facilitate - to make easy - their work. As we do this, we create a ValueWeb® capable of dealing with the systemic issues which are bigger than any one of us.

It is from this perspective, the merging of two transformational traditions with an eye on a better future, that the Johnsonville navCenter Commons is conceived.

Matt Taylor
January, 2009

focus of this page

This narrative will document my personal thoughts and experiences through Phase One of the project: the opening of the facility for use on April 6, 2009.

It will be from here that many of my past personal experiences, descriptions of the MG Taylor Models, Methods and Tool Kit, as well as what I am learning as the project progresses will be documented.

To me, all work is personal and it has greater systemic origins and future consequences than any one individual can conceive. Each project is an “example of one” of an emerging idea. The sum of all these projects makes a body of work - and it is in this - where significance can be found. Past work, and yet-to-be-realized work, is the context within which this work must be understood.

The measure of a good piece of work is when it comes out a total - and pleasant - surprise and at the same time is exactly what was intended. When this result is experienced by all members of the Design/Build/Use Team, then it can be said that GroupGenius® has been practiced. It is essential that a commons for learning and creative collaboration be brought about by the same means as, and an exemplar of, the end result which is expected by the environment’s use. The Commons must facilitate the Johnsonville way. The Design/Build/Use Method must be a faithful expression and application of the combined Johnsonville and MG Taylor way of working.

The ends and means are one.

more coming

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