Otto Scharmer’s CASA Collective Action through Social Awareness - an actionable approach to societal transformation

I met Otto Scharmer at MIT many years ago in his Theory U workshop. He has an energizing approach to helping people transform their understanding of themselves in order to then transform the world for the better.?He has now formed an approach named CASA: Collective Action through Social Awareness. The point he makes is we don’t engage with complex issues like climate change until we realize it affects us personally and globally. Once we realize this we are energized to take on the challenge from a global standpoint. ?I find the movement from me to we that occurs in the climate change simulation he runs shows clearly how we can move from an individual egocentric experience to one that is ecocentric and inclusive of everyone. Here is how he describes the movement in the simulation:

“One standard module in the programs at MIT that I run with executive leaders from Asia and other parts of the world invites them to participate in a climate change simulation game in which they play the role of climate negotiators, using science and real data. In the game, when a country or stakeholder team makes a decision it’s input into a model that then tells the decision-makers how that decision will affect the planet by 2050 and 2100. None of the behavior is scripted. But here is the pattern that I have observed time and again: In round 1, the executives’ decisions are largely self-interested and usually lead to medium-term disaster (because they largely conduct business as usual — i.e., the current path). In round 2 of the game, most teams make more radical decisions and cuts — but the positive impact is still far from what the planet requires. Then the participants are shown what sea-level rise will do to the cities they happen to live in. As these visual images begin to sink in, and participants realize that many of their coastal cities will be underwater, they begin to address the issues with greater dedication and urgency. They also reach out to the other players to cooperate and make deals collectively. By round 3 or round 4, the collective impact of the players has moved toward the 1.5 degrees centigrade target for average temperature increase that climate scientists know is necessary to meet.

In other words, the evolution of the unscripted team behavior tends to follow the path mapped out in the upper half of figure 3: NOT SEEING the collective impact that their actions have on the planet (denial); NOT FEELING the impact despite seeing the data clearly in front of them (de-sensing); and NOT ACTING, despite knowing the facts and already feeling the impact (collective apathy).

The feedback of the simulation illuminates the players’ blind spots. Yet their behavior remains largely unchanged until the results become experiential or personal. Crossing the threshold from apathy to action requires letting go of the stakeholders’?ego-system awareness and developing a shared?ecosystem awareness of the whole. Once that is in place, it leads to swift, decisive action.

Figure 3: Two Relational Structures: Architectures of Separation, and Architectures of Connection

The structural difference between the grammar (and field) of absencing and the grammar of presencing is that the former is based on a cognitive?architecture of separation, while the latter is based on a cognitive?architecture of connection?(see figure 3).

Architectures of separation?embody a disconnect from reality on three levels: (1) knowing (a disconnect between Self and World: denial), (2) relating (a disconnect between Self and Other: othering), (3) and agency (a disconnect between self and Self: depression).

Architectures of connection?transform these conditions by?building containers?that hold the possibility of deeper reconnections on the level of knowing, relating, and agency. In other words, the transformative and healing architectures of connection are based on the principles that?mind and world are not separate, that?self and other are not separate,?and that?self and Self are not separate.?Cultivating these areas of awareness develops and deepens our scientific, aesthetic, and ethical-practical capacities and knowing, and thus outlines the core curriculum for a 21st-century school.

So how do we transform social fields of destruction and absencing? By replacing cognitive and social architectures of separation with architectures of connection across all sectors of society.

Transforming the patterns of absencing will require us to strengthen and cultivate the capacity to connect and feel the resonance in all of our foundational relationships — with each other, with our planet, and with ourselves — and then to generate creative action from that shared connection and resonance.”

In a recent post about the war in Ukraine titled Putin and the Power of Collective Action from Shared Awareness, Otto describes his CASA approach in two parts: Part 1: The Social Grammar of Destruction and Part 2: The Social Grammar of Creation.?I highly recommend reading this insight into how we can cocreate collective action through a new understanding of how we relate to ourselves and the world.

I also recommend looking at Otto’s USchool Tools for Transformation project, titled Democratizing Access to the Tools for Transformation. It is a new initiative to build a school without walls that can share the tools needed for societal transformation.