Circles

Circles are a structural pattern used in many organizational frameworks – from traditional governance to sociocracy to modern facilitation practices. At the most basic level, a circle is a membrane protecting a defined group of people, to hold focus, accountability, and relationship. This closure isn’t about exclusion; it’s about clarity. We know who is part of the circle, what the circle is for, and what falls within its decision-making domain.

For methods like sociocracy, circles are also mapped to the authority map. This kind of clarity supports coherence. When circles are well-defined, we don’t have to constantly renegotiate who gets to speak for what, who makes which decisions, or who holds responsibility. The pattern of “this group holds this domain” lets everyone orient. This is especially helpful in large or complex systems, where coherence would otherwise fray.

But circles also support weaving. Internally, a circle can deepen relational coherence: members see each other regularly, learn each other’s rhythms, and develop shared language and trust. They form a subcontext that is nested into the broader context, just deeper and more focused around the specific task. Just like a kidney will be filled with special tissue, special information, and special patterns, a circle will be “filled” with special workflows, know-how, memories, cycles and rhythms related to the function and goals of the circle. 

Externally, circles often “link” to other circles – through double-linking in sociocracy, or through liaison roles, facilitators, or rotating chairs in other traditions. These links serve as fibers that stitch the organizational fabric together. It’s an closed-but-connected kind of pattern where the openness is clearly defined to make sure that information can flow from the circle to other circles. 

When circles fray or become incoherent, it’s often because the boundaries have blurred or become hollow. Who’s in and who’s out is unclear. Roles aren’t well understood. Decisions are made elsewhere. Or meetings feel disconnected from real work. In these moments, the circle pattern stops holding coherence and becomes performative.

A healthy circle is both closed enough to maintain integrity and woven enough to stay connected to the larger whole. It is a space where coherence can be practiced, maintained, and passed on.

Circle aims and domains

Circles are more than a group of people, and this is important enough to list separately. Circles are defined by having an aim and a domain. 

Typically, it is described as “an aim is a description of what a circle does” – like producing explainer videos about meeting facilitation. The domain is the area of decision making of that circle”, for example the Youtube account, all video equipment and explainer videos. 

Yet, in the language I developed here, there’s a different way of describing them. The aim is a context shaper: it reduces the options to a set of activities. It’s important to note that this is intended as a model – the aim is a language-based statement that tries to define what kinds of activities this circle is supposed to be engaged in. 

Honestly, in practice, people operate most often with a felt sense of how the people understand the circle. It’s not necessarily about what’s written but what people associate with it. More than by reading the aim, a circle aim can be understood by getting to know the circle and its activities. 

A domain is something different – it identifies the “body part” that this circle has control over. As such, it’s often material or tangible things (albeit often virtual like “list of all donors”). Its things can be “owned” and that this group is responsible for. The domain is therefore technically not a context shaper but identifies a part of the authority map. 

This can be confusing because in a system like sociocracy, where those who do things are also the ones making decisions about that area of work, aims and domains sound almost the same: marketing circle does marketing and holds all things marketing in its domain. This sounds like a redundant statement which confuses learners. Yet, it’s useful to be able to list the set of possible activities separately from a part of the authority map, the “body.”