Common Will ~ Otto Scharmer On Brazil Thriving

MIT colleague Otto Scharmer wrote a very compelling piece Uncovering Common Will comparing his observations of Brazil with the US, where he saw...

"...three relevant pieces of data:

1. I saw great companies like Natura that do business by routinely working and collaborating across all social, economic, and ecological divides;
2. I saw greatly innovative sustainable cities like Curitiba in which government, business, and the community have been collaborating across fairly open boundaries for about four decades; and
3. I saw the Economic and Social Development Council (CDES) that regularly convenes about a hundred leaders from civil society, business, academia, and government to dialogue and co-create an agenda of the future.

What do these three examples -- Natura, Curitiba, CDES -- have in common? Their common element is that they are based on uncovering common will (which then in turn creates the required political will): a shared understanding of the current situation, of who we are, and where we want to go. That’s exactly what’s missing here in the US. Here we have an ever-widening vicious cultural and political divide that rips the country apart..."

Beyond common sense and common ground is common will.