Coaching practices for Three Circles Cft

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Three Circles Cft, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• People show up to our hard conversations still carrying whatever happened ten minutes before
• When we sit down to hash something out, it always turns into me-versus-them across the table, and I’m looking for a way to give everyone something shared to focus on so it stops feeling like two sides squaring off.
• I’m pulled in a dozen directions and none of them is clearly the thing
• I’m trying to keep everyone close at once and the result is that I’m stretched thin and fully present with no one
• Every time our group meets, the same two or three loud voices run the whole conversation while the rest go silent, and I can feel the quieter people having things to say that never get the chance to land.

Practices that may help

1. Use check-in and check-out rounds to hold the whole person
   Every circle opens with a personal check-in and closes with a check-out — creating a container with a beginning and an end.
   The Circle Process (Kay Pranis)
2. Design a centerpiece that holds the circle’s purpose
   A shared object at the center of the circle externalizes the group’s collective intention.
   The Circle Process (Kay Pranis)
3. The Circle Process (Kay Pranis)
   The circle process, developed by Kay Pranis from Indigenous peacemaking traditions, is a structured group conversation that uses a shared centerpiece, a talking piece, and guiding values to create a space where every voice has equal weight. It’s used for conflict resolution, community building, and harm repair. Research on circle use in schools and communities shows improvements in discipline rates, sense of belonging, and conflict outcomes, though rigorous experimental evidence is limited.
4. Map your three circles honestly
   Separately answer each circle — passion, best-at, economic engine — before looking for the intersection.
   The Hedgehog Concept
5. Circle of Competence
   Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger’s circle of competence is the idea that each person has a domain where their knowledge is genuinely deep, and that the highest-quality decisions come from staying inside that domain — or clearly knowing when you have stepped outside it. The hard part is not identifying the circle but accurately estimating its size.
6. Triage your outer layers to protect inner-layer capacity
   You cannot expand your inner circle without something moving outward — the constraint is cognitive, not motivational.
   Dunbar's Number
7. Use the talking piece to enforce equal voice
   Only the person holding the talking piece speaks — everyone else listens.
   The Circle Process (Kay Pranis)
8. Limit Consulted to people whose input genuinely changes the decision
   Every C is a two-way conversation that costs time; over-consulting is as dangerous as under-consulting.
   The RACI Matrix, Made Practical
9. The keeper holds process, not content
   The circle keeper’s job is to protect the process — not to facilitate outcomes, give advice, or judge.
   The Circle Process (Kay Pranis)
10. Expand the circle deliberately, not aspirationally
    Grow your circle through deep study and feedback, not by simply believing you are competent.
    Circle of Competence

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