Circles of Connections
Long before books, YouTube, AI, or universities, humans learned by observing, questioning, storytelling, and participating around the circle, around the fire, around the wise women, elders, and storytellers of the tribe. We gathered to share stories, pass knowledge from one generation to the next, celebrate, grieve, sing, dance, and strengthen the bonds that held communities together. These small tribes, and later larger communities, were focused on how each person contributed to the circle of living.
This research also connects to what scientists call the Social Brain Hypothesis, the idea that human brains evolved in part because navigating relationships, cooperation, communication, and community became increasingly important to survival. We are not only problem-solving creatures. We are social creatures. For most of human history, learning was not separated from relationships. It happened through relationships, through observation, through stories, through questions, and through participation.
Researchers studying hunter-gatherer societies found that once the work of the day was done, much of the evening was devoted to conversation, storytelling, singing, dancing, and other forms of social bonding rather than productive tasks. In other words, when people finally had free time, they often chose to spend it together.
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This is why I wonder if we continue returning to circles when we want people to learn, connect, share stories, and make sense of something together. We also can have eye contact and shoulder-to-shoulder connection, and perhaps more importantly, we can see one another, react to one another, and participate rather than simply observe.
Many studies from education to leadership suggest that circular and U-shaped seating arrangements can increase participation, visibility, and discussion because people can see one another more easily and become part of the conversation rather than observers of it.
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At the same time, research shows that seating arrangements influence how power appears in a room. Put people around a rectangular table and we immediately know where the power sits. The people at the ends of the table are more likely to be perceived as leaders or decision makers. A circle does not remove power, but it changes the invitation. Everyone has an opportunity to contribute.
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So do people prefer circles to connect?
It Depends
Sometimes we dance and learn in rows. The shape itself does not create meaningful connection. The environment does.
This is the expertise that we have been testing for years with cohorts, groups, and teams so we can understand how to leverage the peering experience when we work with our clients. This is not a "this is the only way!" Rather, if you want to leverage the power of peers, there are a few ground rules worth paying attention to.
Small Circles Matter
Organizations often want to influence everyone at once. More people. More communication. More meetings. More alignment. Yet meaningful conversations rarely begin with everyone. They begin with a few people who are willing to participate.
Most of the time, three people are better than larger groups because it becomes harder to hide and easier to participate, but sometimes to build confidence and skills you start from two and then move to three.
What I find interesting is that we often try to create change by making the circle bigger, when in reality the most sustainable change usually starts with a small intentional circle that eventually expands because people found value in being part of it.
Questions Create Space
You must focus more on questions than giving answers, unless a person in the group is specifically asking for advice, but asking creates more space for curiosity rather than fixing the person your way.
We live in a world that loves answers. We want the shortcut. The checklist. The three-step solution. Yet answers often push us toward judgment. Questions move us toward curiosity.
Asking questions or sharing how we do something rather than saying "you should do..." is a better way for the person with the challenge to choose what they take and what they leave behind. Learning becomes something they discover rather than something we prescribe.
Presence Matters
If we sit in a meeting or learning experience with our phones and laptops, we are distracted. We are only partially present.
This is why in Walking Mastermind, when people walk and talk, we never engage phones, and the leader is always leading the way of the walk so the others can focus on the walk and the connection.
The goal is not to eliminate technology. The goal is to create enough space so people can pay attention to one another.
Difference Creates Learning
For some reason, we are constantly encouraged to find like-minded people. I understand why. It feels comfortable. Familiar. Safe.
The challenge is that like-minded people often bring us familiar thinking.
Difference creates learning.
We learn from people who bring different experiences, assumptions, industries, and perspectives, often more than we learn from people who think exactly like we do.
When we pair you with the people you know, you are often less challenged to explore ideas that are unfamiliar because you tend to hear from "your people" what you already know or expect to hear.
Research on weak ties suggests that new information, ideas, and opportunities often come through people outside our immediate circle.
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https://news.mit.edu/2022/weak-ties-linkedin-employment-0915
This is one of the reasons we often pair people with someone they do not know. Not because strangers are better. Because difference creates learning. When we become curious about how someone else sees the world, we expand our own.
Commitment Creates The Ripple
The final piece is commitment.
We have been in many meaningful conversations, and what I find interesting is that while they can create awareness, ideas, possibilities, and even energy, they do not automatically create change. People leave inspired from conferences, workshops, books, podcasts, and conversations all the time, yet very often little changes afterward.
Maybe that is why we always conclude with a commitment. Not because commitments are magical, but because at the end of a meaningful conversation there are often dozens of ideas, possibilities, perspectives, and actions someone could take.
The question becomes: What from all the choices you have from this conversation, what is one choice, one promise you are making into this room, into this circle, that you are taking on to move forward?
What we find interesting is that the commitment is not really to the circle. It is mostly to yourself. The circle simply gives you a place to say it out loud.
And then we add the "beyond" question.
Who can you bring with you into that commitment?
Because when I look at how ideas spread, how communities grow, and how change happens inside organizations, it rarely happens because everyone received the same message at the same time. More often, someone tries something, shares something, invites someone else into the conversation, and the circle expands.
That is where the ripple begins. Not in the conversation itself, but in what people choose to do with it afterward and who they choose to bring along.
The Takeaway:
When you want your people to learn better, start with a circle.
If possible, pair them with someone they do not know and give them prompts or questions. Even one good question can be enough to help people move from judgment and fixing toward curiosity, exploration, and choice.
There is much more to this craft, and we continue to learn every time we bring people together, but perhaps that is the point. Meaningful connection is not created by putting people in a room. It is created by intentionally designing the conditions for people to learn from one another, contribute to one another, and leave with something worth carrying forward.
