The world today is volatile, unpredictable, and seems to set new records of nature’s devastating powers every week.

All the while, humans everywhere are struggling over the right way to harness and render harmless all the forces threatening the extinction of humanity.

Why have we failed so miserably at managing our domestic and global affairs that we are facing this impasse now?

Perhaps we have placed our bets too much on only one part of the cluster of elements that make up our GOVERNANCE, the part called government.

We often wish that government could be more effective if it functioned more like the private sector; and we often wish that private sector businesses would operate with the compassion and moral imperatives of non-profit organizations.

The truth is, they cannot and should not simply be like one another. BUT they do have to work together to bring the best each segment has to offer to bear on our common problems. That is the key difference between governing—problem solving by that single institution—and governance, which is collective and collaborative.

It is likely that most forms of government (and even governance) have been tried one way or another at some point in history. Man tries, fails, and tries again. And things change constantly. We should never assume that whatever systems we have at any given moment are going to solve our problems. We must always be looking for changes and fixes.

It is quite possible—even very likely—that the complexities of today’s world have been tried and stretched to (or past) the breaking points of previously established means of solving today’s serious problems.

The reality of today’s moment is that IF we do not soon find a way to unravel our problems, the world as we know it may become unrecognizable. (Think today’s Puerto Rico! Or worse.)

Amazingly there are people today who are thinking or saying that if the world is going to end, so be it: it IS, after all, going to end sooner or later. They think that this moment is no better or worse than any other and so we should go ahead and roll the dice now!

But the option is not binary—like turning a light on or off. The outcome of a global conflict or catastrophe surely would be very messy. While a lot of people (even most people) are likely to be obliterated, many will be left in a barren world not at all hospitable to humanity as we have come to know it.

That is why this may be the very MOMENT to try new ideas as we stare at each other on the brink of blowing up our present and past.

Thus, the time has come to move towards genuine GOVERNANCE!

There is the notional intersector in which government, business, and not-for-profits can and must come together and find and make the essential judgments to make sensible compromises to solve problems everywhere.

Rather than resign ourselves to whatever is going to happen, we must take control of our deteriorating world and try whatever it takes to get back on track towards a bright future for ALL!!