Category: Case Study

USV & Circl.es – Unlocking Social Learning in a Portfolio Community

: Circles Team

Union Square Ventures is a New York based venture capital firm that believes the best way to support their portfolio is by helping them learn and connect with each other. In addition to broadening access to content and community, their team has focused on building strong, trusted leadership networks across their portfolio of 115 active companies around the world. Their Network Lead, Lauren Young noted: “our team’s primary focus is to help our companies build better businesses. One way we do this is by increasing the speed of knowledge shared across the network.

“USV as a firm believes that we are not the experts in the room; rather, leveraging and building upon network effects can be one of the most impactful ways to build successful companies.”

USV as a firm believes that we are not the experts in the room; rather, leveraging and building upon the collective knowledge within our ecosystem can be one of the most impactful ways to help our companies build successful businesses.” Because of Lauren and her team’s proximity to the intense realities facing leaders of growing companies, they continually see the need to keep company leaders connected. “Building a company can be very hard, and today, the pace and intensity of growth and problem solving is never-ending. That’s why we seek out new ways to provide a trusted environment for senior leaders, executives, and founders in our portfolio to connect with industry peers.”

In the fall of 2021, as part of their ongoing efforts to connect leaders across companies, USV in partnership with Circl.es customized a version of Circl.es Foundations; a six -session journey of 90-minute sessions facilitated in curated small groups. Lauren explains how it fits a specific need in their broader learning and development curriculum: “Partnering with Circl.es has enabled us to provide a new layer of support: small group peer connectivity. Over the years, we’ve been asked by countless portfolio leaders for access to a space where they can ask questions and connect with others who are facing similar challenges. The foundation of this program was built from their feedback.”

“Partnering with Circl.es has enabled us to provide the exact layer of support we wanted– which was small group peer connectivity.”

Based on participant feedback, they have focused on two sorting criteria: department and seniority level. “Enabling participants to meet leaders who not only have the same functional expertise, but who are also facing similar leadership opportunities, increases the chances for them to develop stronger, more fruitful relationships.”  Lauren shared that one of the reasons they’ve partnered with Circles is to enable the executives in their network to really build a personal advisory board that they can turn to when they’re facing a challenge. Participants validated the importance of the peer element, with quotes like “I’m able to get perspectives on real time issues from peers” and “it’s great to have a place where I can be vulnerable with peers.”

Across the board, Circl.es Foundations yielded a fantastic response from USV participants: 100% of respondents would recommend the experience to a colleague. Overall, the feedback overwhelmingly validated the need for peer small groups in order to lead in the current climate. As one participant shared: “Being able to have a deep-dive session on problem-solving, and having it facilitated through a discussion broken up by certain themes, was very useful.” Participant Emily Bunin–Senior Controller at Kickstarter–shared that “transitioning into leadership as a professional can be challenging, and lonely at times. My USV circle provides a safe and supportive environment for me to face my fears, practice vulnerability, and remember that I’m not alone.” At Dwolla, Director of Finance Alicia Eichmeier mentioned that “it’s great to have a place where I can be vulnerable with peers” and Operations VP Jackie Ward said “it pushes me outside my comfort zone.”

“Transitioning into leadership as a professional can be challenging, and lonely at times. My USV circle provides a safe and supportive environment for me to face my fears, practice vulnerability, and remember that I’m not alone.”

Looking ahead, Lauren plans to continue to integrate participant feedback as well as the overall needs of the portfolio into this program. “Understanding our portfolio’s needs is critical to understanding where we, as a firm, can provide the strongest value proposition for them.” She appreciated the emphasis on strong facilitation, leadership-specific content and peer-led development that Circl.es has prioritized in their product and platform. Together, USV and the Circl.es team will add a layer of social learning into the fabric of the USV Network in 2022, forming new Leadership Squads each quarter, and providing peer learning & growth in a scalable format that reaches leaders one circle at a time.

What Happens When Startup Founders Connect at Scale

: Circles Team

To realize any major goal, two heads – or three, or four, or eight to ten, connecting authentically in a circle – are better than one. Steven Krein, CEO & Co-founder of StartUp Health, knows this from personal experience. As he and his partner Unity Stoakes built a company to invest in “Health Moonshots” that strive to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone in the world, he has tried to bring this kind of deep, intentional community support to his portfolio of 350 investments in 26 different countries. 

When first designing a peer network for StartUp Health, Krein drew upon his personal experience as a young entrepreneur in the Young Presidents Organization (YPO). There, through monthly meetings with fellow entrepreneurs, he learned that even though everyone has their own exciting projects, they don’t have to navigate challenges alone. “The trust and peer support,” Krein says, “and knowing that I’m going to have dedicated hours every month to do that, has been invaluable to me as an entrepreneur.”

So, when StartUp Health started out almost ten years ago, Krein arranged his founders in groups, based on the YPO model, and brought them together to gather face-to-face. But, as their portfolio grew from local to global companies it was no longer feasible to gather entrepreneurs in a physical space.  In shifting to a virtual format, Krein tried using “Zoom, and all of its predecessors” hoping to still parallel the YPO magic the community brought to his career. In short, it just wasn’t the same. “We had been connecting eight to ten entrepreneurs at a time,” Krein says, “but we didn’t have a reliable, dependable, intimate way of doing it that really created the trust and consistency that I thought was needed from what I experienced in YPO.”

startup health circle

Then came 2019: A fellow YPO member asked Krein if he had seen Circl.es. “It was instantly the answer for what I was looking to bring to my community,” Krein says. “To be honest with you, I think it’s made all the difference over the past year for our portfolio. Circl.es gets you off Zoom and makes you feel more connected. There’s a warmth to being in Circl.es.”

“I think it’s made all the difference over the past year for our portfolio. Circl.es gets you off Zoom and makes you feel more connected. There’s a warmth to being in Circl.es.”

Besides recreating a feeling that mimics how individuals connect in a physical space – in circles as opposed to “rows of tiles” – Krein and StartUp Health’s entrepreneurs love Circl.es for its design with best practices on how humans best build relationships in mind. Instead of relying on a hierarchical structure for how sessions are typically hosted in traditional meetings or on webinars, everyone is in the circle and no one is the host; they are all equal, as in the simple yet universal symbol of the circle. 

“You can tell Dan [Hoffman, the creator of Circl.es,] is intimately focused on the details of a YPO-like experience,” Krein says, “It shows that it’s not just people working on a product – it’s a product that’s had a lot of thought gone into it.”

To make this warm, thoughtful experience possible, Circl.es collaborated closely with StartUp Health to design Health Transformer Circles and a program that tailored the software to their objectives. They worked together to create 14 circles, with an average attendance of 8-10 per circle, including co-moderators. In just four weeks, Circl.es launched the personalized program, laying the foundations for a culture of belonging and engagement with consistent norms and protocols. As a nod to his inspiration, Krein even integrated YPO members to serve as mentors within each circle giving his entrepreneurs an opportunity to collaborate with additional outside perspectives that also understand the power of surrounding a startup founder with the right network. 

“It’s an incredibly useful replication of what happens in person”

Krein especially appreciates a few key features. He says it’s helpful that the presenter goes to the middle of the circle with a timer in the upper-righthand corner to guide. He also loves the virtual representations of raising your hand, giving a thumbs up, or even having everybody’s circle crowd into the center for a virtual hug. Details like incorporating music and changing colors, too, provide a sense of progress and closure, while the agenda lets the group know when it’s falling behind. All of these aspects help recreate the closest version to an in-person meeting as possible, while reminding members that they’re in it together. “It’s an incredibly useful replication of what happens in person,” he says.

Of course, Krein couldn’t love Circl.es if his entrepreneurs and staff didn’t see the value. These entrepreneurs say that it offers a fresh and engaging approach to discussing business and personal issues, while helping them build the deep and value-aligned relationships they need in order to solve complex problems and make the world healthier. And for his staff, there’s been an opportunity to engage further with these entrepreneurs as well and become more embedded in their needs, strengthening the overall company focus and culture within the portfolio.

Now, already in year two of the program, Krein realizes that a hierarchical and cold video conferencing software could never work. In addition, when the pandemic hit, StartUp Health had already embraced a virtual format of their program which eliminated the need to pivot quickly to this approach. All he had to do was remember, from his YPO meetings, the essential role that a reliable, dependable and intimate circle of peers plays in innovation and connection. Krein says, “Circl.es is very much one of the monthly rhythms that all of the entrepreneurs get to participate in.” Now, when StartUp Health’s entrepreneurs feel disconnected or stuck, they look forward to their next session on Circl.es as a reminder of collaboration and inspiration. 

“Even though creating communities is hard, Circl.es makes it easier.”

Building the best peer network collaboration opportunities for entrepreneurs has been an ongoing quest at StartUp Health and Krein now rejoices in seeing the entrepreneurs in his portfolio connect, make strides towards their goals, and is reminded that even though creating communities is hard, Circl.es makes it easier.

To hear more from Steven Krein about working with Circl.es to create Health Transformer Circles watch his interview with Logan Plaster, Editor, StartUp Health Magazine here.

Breaking Apart To Feel Together: How Circl.es Helped EDENS

: Circles Team

How does a company dedicated to building community achieve this among its own employees? 

It’s a question that EDENS, a retail real estate owner, operator, and developer, has set out to answer. For more than 50 years, EDENS’ mission has been “to enrich communities,” said Caroline Davis, EDENS’ Vice President of Employee Engagement. “Peoples’ quality of life is higher when they are able to interact in a place that adds value and meaning to their life.” 

The COVID-19 pandemic, however, put EDENS’ work to the test when communal interaction in public became a health risk, and stay-at-home orders were legally mandated. This was as much a challenge to EDENS’ internal sense of community as it was to its business. 

As with so many other companies that went remote in March 2020, EDENS found this change “radically shifted the way we interacted with each other,” as Davis put it, including a “level of fatigue” with standard video platforms used for meetings. “That piece of feeling truly connected was missing,” Davis added. 

This physical disconnection also made the equity and inclusion work EDENS had already committed to that much harder. This was most starkly clear over the summer when EDENS hosted an all-staff meeting to discuss Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The entire team used a standard virtual platform in which many people kept their cameras off. Consequently, the conversation failed to reach a desirable level of authenticity and emotional safety, according to Davis.

EDENS CEO Jodie McLean remembered a platform she had used previously that could help her employees connect. After using Circl.es at the Aspen Institute Resnick Aspen Action Forum in her capacity as a Liberty Fellow, McLean decided in October last year to purposely build an opportunity for EDENS to use the platform.

“I’ve never partnered with another vendor who felt more integrated and more supportive than Circl.es”

Circl.es joined forces with EDENS to facilitate a value-based inclusive leadership summit with content inspired by the curriculum the Aspen Institute had created. The process included helping with the logistical challenge of forming groups in the platform and ensuring all groups had consistent experiences. “I’ve never partnered with another vendor who felt more integrated and more supportive than Circl.es,” Davis added. “They felt like an extension of us, and it was incredible.”

Circl.es was game-changing for EDENS for a few key reasons. 

First, rather than convening a 200-person staff in a single virtual space, employees were broken up into smaller groups — circles — that allowed each member to have “true equity” as Davis described it. Circl.es accomplished this by keeping all group members on camera and placing them each in individual, equal-sized circles, within a larger circle. Rather than reinforce a hierarchy that sometimes happens in a corporate setting, Circl.es created a space in which every employee had an equal voice — in which they were able to talk to each other rather than talked to. 

“Circl.es’ features helped conversations feel less awkward and more authentic,” Davis noted. On other video platforms, participants tend to talk over and interrupt each other, mainly out of the lack of being able to perceive others’ body language or other subtle social cues. Circl.es eliminates this by allowing participants to raise their hands, sort participants into a set order in which to speak, and “making everyone feel like their voice was equally important,” said Davis. 

Participants’ ability to give other members in their circle a hug or lend support in the form of a “plus one” also helped facilitate a conversation that was “fluid but purposeful,” according to Davis — especially when it came to discussing difficult topics, like diversity and equity, which was the focus of the readings to which group members responded.

It turned out that breaking apart was exactly what was needed to help the company feel more together. 

Circl.es “gave us a chance to hear different perspectives from people who think differently than we do,” one employee reflected. Another shared that the platform “allowed for uncomfortable discussions in an intimate environment” and noted “it was easier to share this way.” 

In fact, in a post-discussion survey, while at least 50% of employees reported they did not initially want to come to the meeting, 90% reported that they loved the experience.

What’s more, the staff’s experiences with Circl.es had an immediate impact on how they interacted with each other. While reconvening for a debrief of the Circl.es experience in their normal video platform, employees were “incredibly active” in the chat box, which Davis noted had rarely happened in previous meetings.  Employees were “showing support and reaching out to each other and saying how much the day meant,” Davis continued.

Circl.es has since become such an integrated part of EDENS’ communications structure that it’s taken on its own vernacular. “We say, ‘This is something we should get into a circle and discuss’…it’s become this special place for people to meet that feels very safe,” Davis said. Most recently, EDENS used Circl.es to reconvene the same groups who met in October to discuss another Martin Luther King, Jr. piece, “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life,” in February. Though it was a busy time for the company, “people made the time and felt really energized after the conversations,” Davis said. 

“We know when we connect with each other, we drive our engagement, which impacts our wellbeing at work,” Davis said. “It helps our productivity and that’s an investment that is well served.” 

Not only has Circl.es benefited employees by “elevating” the way they virtually met, but it also helped the company itself. “We know when we connect with each other, we drive our engagement, which impacts our wellbeing at work,” Davis said. “It helps our productivity and that’s an investment that is well served.” 

EDENS plans to use Circl.es well beyond the end of the pandemic, because, as Davis said, “EDENS employees now connect with the common language of gratitude for the conversations and connections they have with each other and the ability to be seen. I attribute that to Circl.es giving us the space and the place to do that.”

Connection Without Campus: Circl.es Helps Wharton, Harvard and the Aspen Institute Replace the Irreplaceable

: Circles Team
connection without campus

We miss campuses! The smell of crisp fall air, sparkling new school supplies and the smiles of friends we missed all summer. This isn’t just nostalgia; the campus is a powerful setting that energizes learning.

“An almost seismic sense of expectation emanates from a college campus. That is the true elixir of youth: the grand, the glorious, the magnificent hopes and dreams because all things – all things – are yet possible.” – Carolyn Hart

We mourn the loss of campuses for our children, but also for our grown-up selves. Some of the best ideas flow from formal offsite gatherings with colleagues, or informal dinners shared with peers.

Bolstered by a true sense of urgency and ingenuity, the instructors at The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard Business School and The Aspen Institute, turned to Circl.es to create an online space that feels as connected as meeting face-to-face. The answer, in part, was a unique virtual setting. But they also did things differently, designing inclusive interactions and using a process for engaging in small groups… circles instead of rows. 

The Wharton School of Business

The Wharton School of Business is one of the nation’s top business programs. With 600+ incoming freshmen, they needed a way to welcome and orient new students that felt as genuine as the on-campus experience.  

Circl.es is a system to create intentional, inclusive and authentic dialogue.  Wharton’s goal was to instill a sense of belonging and connection for new students, who would not be able to establish community in an in-person environment. They married restorative practices with Circl.es technology to run 54 small group sessions in one day, welcoming approximately 600 new students and fostering a sense of community among them, even without setting foot on campus.

Each group was run by a Circl.es-trained facilitator (50+ upperclassmen leaders), with incoming students joining from all over the world. Circl.es gave these students a wonderful opportunity to join others, and find positive connections in a time when they may have been feeling vulnerable and unsure. As one student put it…

“It was my first encounter with my cohort leaders and other classmates. It felt great to finally open up and hear what everyone is thinking about the upcoming semester.”

– Wharton Circles Participant

Circl.es allowed Wharton students to hold space for each other and engage in restorative practices to support all new students, and ensure their year got off to a great start.  

Harvard Business School

During the Owner/President Management (OPM) program at Harvard Business School, top executives look to expand their business knowledge, leadership skills and the overall value of their companies. Building peer relationships is a central part of the value proposition. When on campus, the program deliberately houses eight students together in a specially configured “living group.”

Living groups share their most personal experiences, both from business and life, as part of the program, so connection with others is key. HBS didn’t replace this by trying to simulate late-night dorm interactions. Instead, they wove small group work into the online course curriculum. This occurred in pre-program Circles, where students’ connections before beginning their coursework provided a ‘running start’ to their OPM experience. 

Once the program was underway, Circles provided the space for students to engage in case prep work, small group breakout sessions, pitch/innovation competitions and project work in a way that organically strengthened these connections. The space even provided opportunity for the more informal & social aspects of the experience. An HBS Circles participant noted that trust was established after just two sessions. It was also said that…

“Circles did the job that the bar, dorm and cafe used to do.” – Chad Gordon, OPM Program Lead

By encouraging authentic virtual conversations, Circl.es transformed working sessions into opportunities for real connection and relationship-building. 

The Aspen Institute

The Resnick Aspen Action Forum (RAAF) traditionally took place in Aspen, at one of the most stunning campus settings in the world. Without this asset, the team needed a new approach to ensure the 2020 seminar was as impactful online as it had been in person.

Because Circl.es allows people from all over the world to connect deeply, the seemingly insurmountable drawback of losing their campus actually turned into a benefit for RAAF; more leaders from around the world participated in 2020 than ever before.

One of the event leaders called Circl.es “The Great Equalizer” because people couldn’t see how everyone else arrived. They just logged in. The Circl.es platform provided the space for Aspen’s signature form of text-based dialogue with a cohort of Fellows from around the world.  Over the course of the 3-day event, Fellows joined with their cohort, led by an Aspen Moderator for 90 minutes each day, and found points of connection with like-minded leaders they might have otherwise never encountered.  

Within their Circles, everyone was given an equal voice in the dialogue. In the end, by ensuring inclusion and fostering intentional discussion, the Circles seminars garnered rave reviews, such as… 

“Every single member of the group expressed gratitude, value, and a desire to meet again.” – Aspen Circle Participant

Creating Connection

For Wharton, Harvard Business School and the Aspen Institute, losing use of their campuses brought major challenges around delivering the high-quality education for which they are known. By teaming with Circl.es, they discovered a new path: intentional conversations that facilitate inclusive dialogue.

The world has shifted, and we know that we must strive to discover new ways of connecting.  It’s not about a precise replication of the in-person meeting experience. No one can virtually reproduce a cool autumn breeze or the breaking in of new books. However, by keeping their eyes on the essential goal of human connection, these three institutions forged new ground in the Fall of 2020, by delivering world-class instruction with the power of intentional, small group Circles. They found a way to deliver connection without the campus.

Breaking Out

: Circles Team

Can an online learning event be as engaging as a live one, or even more engaging? Online learning is notorious for distracted multitaskers and high drop out rates.

The secret, according to experts, is breakout groups. I’d point you to

How do you provide consistently high-quality breakout sessions? What’s the best way to structure them to stay on point? How do you ensure they’re facilitated well without professional facilitators in each room? How do you keep tabs on progress when you can’t walk around a room and visit tables?

There are challenges, but virtual breakouts offer at least four big opportunities:

Deeper Learning. Doesn’t learning happen best in small groups? The practice of learning in “Circles, Not Rows” has been our inspiration for years. In circles, people open up, reveal their real challenges and let in new ideas. Most adults learn better when having a dialogue about a current need. When sharing experiences, they learn better and the effects last longer. This is why Circle-style learning is so beloved by members of

Valuable Relationships. One of the worst aspects of moving online is that you lose the hallway, elevator, lunch or bar conversations where relationships are built. But with proper structure, the participants of a small group can connect even more quickly and meaningfully than when they make table-talk. This leads to meaningful relationships. If you keep the groups together, they form lasting bonds, sharing networks and helping each other outside the training world. As our friend Andy Billings from Electronic Arts quipped, “We spend time choosing the best presents (content) but participants just want to play with the boxes (relationships).”

Sustained Learning. What motivates participants to continue to practice learnings over time? Teams. People will show up for each other all day long before helping themselves. The Stanford research cited above shows it (16x more likely to complete a course than alone!), as does our experience. And all-of-a-sudden, the learning isn’t building-constrained. Go from a huge room of people meeting once, to small, intense groups meeting over time. Reinvest the saved travel time. Take advantage of peer accountability to drive sustained attention to a topic, and to support follow-through, which we know is required for behavior to change. If you do a good job framing the small group, and creating a dynamic of helping each other, they will stay together.

Teaming Skills. Take advantage of the team “dojo” to teach teaming skills in a safe place. Give participants turns at facilitating as part of the learning experience, and provide feedback to facilitators. Show how good meeting structure works. People can experience the power of psychological safety and vulnerability, and how to create it. Participants experience the effectiveness of team accountability, and how inclusion puts a plethora of diverse ideas on the table. Another one of our sayings: if you learn in teams, you’ll learn to lead teams that learn. Learning programs can play a crucial role in organizations struggling to improve collaboration by making team-based learning central to their approach.

The traditional “classroom” mode of presenting content to rows of individuals is a hard habit to break. Even our video conference tools are built more for presentations than conversations – one person is big by default with the others off screen, able to hide. And the closeness of Circles can produce uncomfortable conversations that some resist. Yet Learning & Development (L&D) professionals are no strangers to making people a little uncomfortable, for their own good, yes?

We believe that human connection is the magic ingredient in developing workers and leaders. Here’s how to put human connection front and center, and create an awesome event:

  • Small groups
  • Structured conversations
  • Facilitation
  • Intentional setting

Small Groups. Having people experience the entire learning journey in circles is the best way to translate live rooms to online rooms.

  • Form Circles of 4-9 people before or at the start. Be deliberate about Circle creation. Turn the time saved by travel into a brief meeting to
  • Restructure the session to go to breakouts 2-3 times while together. Have teams report out in between.
  • Have the Circle continue. Setting up 2-5 short sessions after the workshop will keep attention on topic and focus on its real-life applications, multiplying your returns. Once the connection is built, the gravitational pull of helping each other will keep the Circle coming back to attend these sessions.
    (We see over 80% attendance in our corporate Circle programs, even after 6 sessions).
  • Regroup. Why not gather again in 90 days, for an hour, and report out? What’s a learning journey without a final exam or performance? It’ll keep focus and give a real sense of closure.

Structured Conversations. It isn’t enough to let the small group just “talk.” Simple structures multiply the productivity of the group. We use the term “agenda” – but not as in a list of things to talk about, as in guidelines for how to run the conversation. For example:

  • Advance-plan questions or prompts for discussion.
  • Equal talk time. Use facilitation tricks like random order and a timer.
  • Reflection. 60 seconds to think after a question feels weird at first, but shortens and deepens responses, allowing everyone to be present to hear each other.
  • Meeting openings. Use a prompt to prime the topic and engage emotions, right away.
  • Meeting close. Make sure to integrate the discussion into action items, or learnings that you can report out.

There are many other structures that you can use when creating your agenda. A Circle fosters inclusive conversations, psychological safety, and peer accountability. The trick is to take the cognitive load off the newly formed group by providing them one clear choice. Over time, these structures are internalized and the conversation gets more organic.

laptop impactful facilitator

Facilitation. Wouldn’t it be powerful to have a facilitator in every breakout? Having a clear and thoughtful structure makes it possible for a motivated amateur to facilitate. One way to motivate them is to make facilitation part of the learning journey itself – this is a skill most professionals value.

I don’t want to undersell the value of experienced, skilled facilitation (as an exceptional example and shout-out, check out

“Offsite” Setting. L&D leaders go to great pains to locate live learning sessions in appropriate settings. It boosts learning when you take people out of their day-to-day mindset, fast. Isn’t it even more important to do that online? Think beyond the squares: use music, images, and strong openings to set a mood of openness and wonder, conducive to learning. Tech chaos can have the opposite effect.

circle session

And now the commercial – Circles is a gang of people with a process and platform for engaging, small group learning. We make it easy to design sessions, form small groups and measure how they do. We provide a purposeful setting, scalability, and professional service, powered by our technology. We can work with any major video conference provider for large sessions, and enhance the experience with Breakout Circles™️ that keep going.

Case Study Results: Millennium Forum

: Circles Team

Do Circles work?

Hard data is hard to get. And then there’s the question: What outcomes are we looking for?

We’re proud of our partner, Millennium Forum. They run an amazing Circles program for K-12 teachers. Their research partners and team have helped them design ways to measure and learn from outcomes.

First, some context…

In general, we talk about three categories of outcomes:

• Educational. Circles make it easier to sustain and apply learning, extending programs like manager training.

• Social. Participants get close. They help and support each other in ways that transcend any particular topics.

• Cultural. A circles experience shifts you to be more inclusive, vulnerable, and accountable. Diversity becomes a strength.

Each Circles program and partner emphasizes different outcomes. Millennium’s “Theory of Change” focuses on the second and third categories. By taking care of each other, educators will take better care of their classrooms.

Their latest mid-year results show real success:

What about you?

Do you suspect similar outcomes from your Circles programs, only haven’t measured them? Are these high scores for helping teachers help students analogous to helping managers help employees?

Case Study: Adding Depth of Communication in a Fast-Paced Environment through Peer Learning

: Circles Team

Managers at a growing national company operated within a fast-paced environment, where intense workflows often limited interaction opportunities. The company sought to cultivate a sense of unity among its managerial workforce, and to increase connectedness with the company culture and vision.

After careful consideration, Circles peer learning emerged as the best option to achieve the following objectives:

  • Building relationships
    – unite diverse department managers through engaging, in-depth discussions.
  • Conscientious leadership
    – create high-performing leaders that drive company culture and values.
  • Individual growth
    – promote an environment of continued learning and self-improvement.

Through Circles peer learning, participants deepened connections through meaningful conversations involving vulnerability, leadership principles and the power of story. A balanced culture of a unified collective and individual growth emerged through the Circles experience.

Circles supported facilitators to create a psychologically safe and inclusive space in which every member felt visible and valued. The experience was carried forward beyond the structure of Circles peer learning, and was developed as a company-wide practice focused on meaningful engagement.

Access the complete case study

Case Study: Cementing Leadership Development through Peer Learning

: Circles Team

A world-leading food processing and packaging company runs an annual leadership development program for high-potential employees. The four-month international program aims to address individual leadership challenges to help participants transition into executive roles within five years.

After three iterations of the program, the company decided to try a complementary approach; one that would continue to keep participants engaged after the program, encourage ongoing networking with their peers and inspire them to continue the sessions themselves after the four month program. After some analysis, it became clear that peer learning circles might meet these objectives.

The goals of the circles were:

  • Engagement
    ​ – increase engagement beyond the leadership development program.
  • Relationships
    ​ – sustain meaningful relationships with peers for improved team performance.
  • Self-direction
    ​ – encourage self-directed sessions for continued learning and support.

With the peer learning circles, participants were encouraged to share both organizational ​and​ personal challenges – adding a new depth to the sessions. Building upon existing trust between the participants formed during the initial program, these sessions created a safe space for open and honest discussion, gently addressing specific challenges, and strengthening the team as a whole.

As a result, not only did participants deepen connections with their peers and build a trusted support system, they also understood the power of peer circles and committed to continuing the process beyond the program.

Download the complete case study

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