We Are An Executive Design House
At the heart of The HuPerson Project is a discovery. Our living system is in trouble right now. In order to take care of our whole ecosystem, we need to become whole human beings, skillful with new ways of knowing beyond our habitual ways of thinking, doing, and being. With the future as our ally, business can accomplish great things, creating prosperity and bringing needed stewardship to our world. Rather than simply projecting the present onto the road ahead, together we can align with a new vision and real change. The HuPerson Project will co-design your business with you, cultivating the courage to be bold at the intersection of all contradictions.
Alice is ready for a new way to meet the game of business, because the game of business itself is changing. (If you’d like to meet Alice, check out the Fall 2024 Collection)
As a couture executive design house, we have one offer: a new kind of DesignOS for leaders, made-to-measure.
Principle 1: What wants to happen?
Traditionally; “profitability is a performance requirement.” We look for solutions to metrics showing problems with profitability.
For us, the most fundamental principle: we are not looking for rational solutions. We aren’t even looking for a solution. It’s about what wants to happen. And not acting until it’s indicated, instead, sensing when what wants to happen emerges.
The metalevel of what wants to happen will make itself known, and our traditional way of trying to figure out or look for the linear, paint-by-numbers, recommended process, can lead to a blindness to what wants to happen, and we can get in the way.
When you are looking for the algorithm a+b+c that we’ve been told will give you a solution this can be dangerous, especially in our blooming wicked problem world.
Principle 2: Is this a living company? What would make it so?
What makes a company living? Beyond the question of, will this company continue? The question is, is this a living company, a living business for all involved, beyond positive cashflow and happy stakeholders?
What is the design of the game for this company? Is there something more than just continuing to exist as a company? Is this the game that wants to be played? What is the design of the game for this company that life calls for?
How far upstream can we design from and where is the opening for what wants to happen? That opening is probably not in the expected place and is usually a surprise.
Look for surprise, desire surprise.
Reach out for the unexpected turn.
Resist looking back.
Who does this company want to be and become?
Principle 3: Made-to-measure
Made-to-measure means this is always unique. This means each company is a unique game, and has a unique way of playing the game with the opportunity of being the future of this game.
Where would made to measure make the difference in the way your game of business is being designed? How would made-to-measure make your company a living company?
Principle 4: Awake Aware
Where would awake aware make a difference in the way your business game is designed? How would awake aware make this a living company?
Principle 5: Upstream Design
How far upstream do we need to go to get to the thinking that designed the algorithm for the steps of the current design? What is the structure of mind that asks for an algorithm that leads to the design that wants to happen?
We don’t go for pain points. We are looking for the place that created the place that created the design that created that pain point. What was the thinking, the design that created the algorithmic set up of steps that created what is now called a pain point? Not a solution to the pain point, it’s looking for the source and design that created the pain point.
Principle 6: Going to the Source
What is the source of your design?
What’s the source of your pain point?
What’s the source of your current articulation of who you are?
What’s the source of your identity as a company?
How We Future Proof Your Business Through Executive Couture Design
Our inspiration for custom design comes from haute couture with its emphasis on specially-made solutions, combining intelligence, elegance and beauty. As we address the depth and breadth of your company, our executive design team helps you experience a new way of being to continually lead with your company’s future. The discovery at the heart of the HuPerson project will surprise you, as you combine profit with beauty, goodness, and stewardship.
INITIATING INQUIRY
We begin together by taking the measurement of your aspirations, your dilemmas, and your confirmation biases. Inquiry designed for you will help you let go of conditioned habits of mind that no longer serve, allowing for a new way of knowing (co-sensing).
HIGHEST POSSIBILITY
From the vantage point of a new intelligence, together we develop a vertical business case / executive design brief and experience what’s truly possible for your leadership to prosper as it aligns with life (co-presencing).
UNIQUE SIGNATURE
We discover how your uniqueness can co-create the future of your domain, and how your unique signature can continually evolve into new territory. Together we look at what your business is called to do and to become (co-evolving).
CREATING PROTOTYPES
Imagine there’s a future that wants to happen. We design with you what’s next, responding to that future that wants to happen. What would that look like in terms of stewardship of both your business and the world we share? (co-designing)
Our TeamMeet The Designers
Inquiry + science + art + spirit = an inspired team who has taken a deep dive into new ways of knowing to tap into a new intelligence for business leadership.
Jill Taylor
Jill Taylor is a transformational business strategist and co-founder of The HuPerson Project, a platform designed to help leaders architect whole-company transformation from the inside out. With over three decades of experience, Taylor has advised executives and leadership teams navigating disruption across sectors.
As interim CEO of Burgerville, a regional quick-service restaurant chain, Taylor led a multi-departmental pivot through overlapping crises including the COVID-19 pandemic, cybersecurity threats, and wildfires. Her leadership catalyzed a restructuring of the company’s operating model, introduced regenerative supply chain initiatives, and positioned the brand for long-term resilience and regional impact.
Taylor previously co-founded The Taylor Group, a consultancy focused on transformational leadership. Her cross-disciplinary training in human development and systems transformation includes study with originators of several pioneering methodologies. In 2022, she was named one of Portland’s Most Influential Women by the Portland Business Journal.
She continues to advise, speak, and facilitate with a focus on leadership mastery, cultural integration, and future-ready business design.
Daniel Goodenough
Daniel Goodenough is a purpose architect and co-founder of The HuPerson Project, bringing three decades of expertise in guiding organizations to align deeply with their mission. He played a critical behind-the-scenes role in the transformation of Burgerville, providing executive development that enabled the company to respond to crisis with increased cohesion, adaptability, and purpose fidelity.
Goodenough’s methodologies center on unlocking purpose as a strategic advantage—enabling businesses to stay aligned with their core essence while navigating market shifts and operational complexity.
He is the author of The Caravan of Remembering: A Roadmap for Experiencing the Awakening of Your Life’s Mission (2016), a guidebook that has informed the journeys of those seeking clarity on personal and professional direction.
Goodenough’s body of work integrates human systems design, mission-driven leadership, and transrational awareness, supporting leaders to cultivate cultures of meaning and long-view responsiveness.
Published WorkWe’ve Got Big Ideas
Take a look at these informative explorations that will expand your range of skills, broaden your capacity, and address the exponential changes facing business.
The Game of Business: What Sets It Apart From Every Other Game?
In a Nutshell: What makes the game of business distinct from other games? Historically, the game of business has been arguably about making money, bottom line. HuPerson perspective shift: business can be about the flow and ‘currency’ of life force, a distinction that makes space for a new way of doing business. Daniel Goodenough and […]
Inquiring into Inquiry: What is dynamic inquiry?
Many of us imagine that we understand inquiry. After all, we make about 35,000 choices per day, many of which are linked to asking ourselves questions. Yet is that inquiry? In this paper we explore the way dynamic inquiry can advance the vision of your company in surprising ways. SHORT TERM INQUIRY Business leaders are […]
The Point of Purpose
A company’s sense of purpose is receiving increasing attention in the business world, giving us a more sophisticated understanding of its role beyond augmenting the bottom line. Should we then be looking at imbedding a process for achieving purpose, asks Jill Taylor? Our understanding of purpose now includes a developing awareness of the company’s mission […]