In search of common sense

When we talk about common sense, most of us think of it as an individual trait – the everyday reasoning that helps us navigate ordinary problems. It’s the ability to make sound judgements that seem obvious and widely agreed upon.

That definition leaves room for the old joke: common sense isn’t as common as we’d like.

A fresh perspective

Our friend and colleague Terri recently introduced us to a richer way of thinking about it.

Instead of seeing common sense as something personal, she invited us to imagine it as a shared understanding – a collective sensory awareness. Picture an ecosystem where everything is connected and interdependent. The behaviour of one element affects the whole. Through that lens, common sense is what keeps the system in balance. It is practical, embodied knowledge that sustains relationships and health across the network.

Everything old is new again

That conversation sent us down rabbit holes exploring others who have wrestled with this wider definition. It turns out the collective mind is an ancient theme explored across various disciplines:

• Aristotle saw common sense as the faculty that integrates our senses.
• Jesus of Nazareth spoke of branches that cannot bear fruit apart from connecction to the vine.
• Giambattista Vico described the “entire repertoire of values, images, institutions…” that communities share.
• Immanuel Kant explored the communal faculty of judgement (sensus communis).
• Hannah Arendt called it “thinking from the standpoint of everyone else”.
• Ludwik Fleck showed how our perciption of facts emerge from collective cognitive practices.

When we reframe common sense this way, it is not static – it is a dynamic collective asset. It is part of the social capital that holds communities together.

This idea reminded us of a line from Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk:

“People today will mostly focus on the points of connection, the nodes of interest like stars in the sky. But the real understanding comes in the spaces in between, in the relational forces that connect and move the points.”

This has profound implications for leadership. It becomes less about control as the apex decision-maker and more about stewardship: tending the conditions that allow shared sense-making to flourish. A gardener cultivating the soil more than a warrior going into battle.

Looking back on 2025

As we reflect on the year just passed, we’re grateful for the invitations to step into the complex spaces. It takes humility to invite an outsider beyond the glossy marketing and into the messy lived reality. But without that invitation, we have limited capacity to work with the relational forces that are only revealed through interaction within the system.

We’ve seen breakthroughs where trust is strengthened, purpose is shared and explicit, and feedback is elevated as part of the collective mind. Common sense has been nurtured as a living, shared resource.

Thank you for allowing us to be part of that journey. Here’s to more connection, more shared understanding and more flourishing systems in the year ahead.