Otto Scharmer: Cultivating the Social Field, and Promoting Collective Agency to Face the Polycrisis
Presencing Series Session 1: Presencing
“Presencing is about how to shift the business model from extraction to regeneration, how to shift the mindsets from ego to eco, and how to shift behavioral patterns from reacting against the past towards sensing and realizing the future.”
Collective Agency in Times of Crisis
“If we would all step up, the course we are on would already be altered.”
In the opening session of the Presencing Series, Otto Scharmer profoundly explores our current global moment. He poses a stirring question that frames his approach to transformative change:
“What if this is the moment I have been born for? What if this is the moment we have been born for?”
This inquiry serves as both a challenge and an invitation to changemakers worldwide grappling with unprecedented planetary challenges.
Otto applies systems thinking to illuminate the “poly-crisis” — a complex interweaving of three major divides threatening humanity.
- First, the Ecological Divide manifests through climate change and biodiversity loss.
- Second, the Social Divide emerges as increasing polarization and inequity, with societies “losing the capacity to make sense and respond to situations together.”
- Third, and perhaps most fundamental in Scharmer’s analysis, is the Spiritual or Inner Divide — our disconnection from deeper sources of meaning, evidenced by the pandemic of mental health issues and complicated by the rise of AI.
“We collectively create results that individually almost no one wants.”
The heart of our collective struggle, Scharmer suggests, is what he terms “the illusion of insignificance.” According to the Human Development Report he cites, 68% of people worldwide experience “a complete loss of collective agency” — the debilitating feeling that individual voices have zero impact on collective decision-making and action. Yet paradoxically, 69% express willingness to sacrifice part of their personal income to combat climate change.
“In a nutshell, that is our current moment. The 68% speaks to the insignificance — ‘I have zero impact.’ And yet, this 69% speaks to the illusion part, because it is an illusion. If we would all step up, the course we are on would already be altered.”
Drawing on complexity science, Scharmer references Nobel chemist Ilya Prigogine’s insight about systems far from equilibrium, where “small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to uplift the entire system to a higher order.”
This concept of bifurcation points in nonlinear systems suggests that small differences can dramatically tip a system in one direction or another at certain junctures between equilibrium states.
Scharmer observes that many changemakers sense we are living through precisely such a moment of planetary bifurcation. This recognition transforms the question from “What should we do?” to the more personally and collectively activating inquiry: “What is mine to do? What is ours to do?”
By methodically and intentionally “leaning into the current moment” together, he proposes that we can overcome the illusion of insignificance and activate our collective agency at this critical juncture in human history.
Transforming Self, Society & Business by Cultivating Social Soil
“Just like the field of agriculture, social fields also have two main components… social systems, which is the observable part… and social soil — the quality of the roots, the quality of our awareness, the quality of our relationships, how we think and converse and act together.”
Otto Scharmer draws a powerful parallel between regenerative agriculture and social transformation. Beginning with childhood memories of walking farmland with his parents in northern Germany, he shares how his father’s wisdom about soil quality has shaped his understanding of systems change. Scharmer recalls his father saying.
“The quality of what’s growing above the ground and the quality of the harvest of the outcomes that we create is a function of the quality of the soil.”
This fundamental insight now influences his work in social fields, where he sees the same principle in organizations and societies.
Scharmer identifies a crucial distinction in social systems: the visible “social systems” that we can observe, and the often-overlooked “social soil” — the quality of our awareness, relationships, and how we think, converse, and act together. This social soil, he argues, is what we must cultivate to address our most pressing challenges.
Scharmer´s presentation outlines a dramatic shift happening across sectors — from agriculture to education, healthcare to business. He describes this as an evolution from output-centric models (2.0) to stakeholder-centric approaches (3.0), and now toward regenerative, ecosystem-centric frameworks (4.0).
In agriculture, this means moving beyond sustainable practices to regenerative systems where “food becomes a medium for healing planet and people.” In education, it’s reimagining schools around “education for human flourishing.” Healthcare is shifting toward “strengthening the sources of health and well-being” rather than just treating disease.
Scharmer identifies a critical challenge as the disconnect between our current challenges and our outdated methods. “We are trying to solve 4.0 challenges with 2.0 methods and tools,” he explains, quoting a UN colleague who laments, “We are being encouraged to shoot for the moon to do great things while some of us are still driving the donkey cart.”
“The solution lies in developing practices that cultivate our social soil — deepening our quality of listening and conversation, connecting to emerging futures, and learning through action.”
The recently published Presencing book outlines these practices, emphasizing that “leadership and change do not start with a strategy; it starts with a process of becoming aware.”
By attending to the quality of our social fields — just as his parents tended to their biodynamic farm — Scharmer suggests we can enhance the conditions for transformation across systems, shifting from extraction to regeneration, from ego-system to eco-system awareness, and from reactivity to sensing and realizing emergent futures.
According to the Presencing Institute, the Presencing Series emerges amid today’s uncertainty and disruption, from a heartfelt recognition that we need spaces where remarkable stories of transformation, regeneration, and renewal can be shared, where visionaries, innovators, and change-makers can gather to learn from one another and co-create what comes next. This initiative creates a vibrant field for connection and collaboration at a moment when transformation is not just possible but necessary.
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My name is Helio Borges. Through coaching, courses, and consulting, I empower professionals and entrepreneurs to ignite creativity and innovation, prevent burnout, and nurture resilience. I reside in Montreal, Canada, and consult in person or via Zoom in English and Spanish.
For a half-hour free consulting session, contact me at:
Helio Borges. Montreal, QC. Canada. WhatsApp + SMS: +1(263) 383–1903. Mail: hborgesg@gmail.com
