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One of the magazines I most look forward to getting at the office is Stanford Social Innovation Review, a quarterly published by the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society. That's a mouthful, but the magazine's raison d'etre is simple: What does the latest research say on how we can make the world a better place?

This hits the sweet spot for association leaders, who seem to love hard data as much as they love their mission. There's plenty of good stuff in the latest issue (Fall 2011), but I was particularly drawn to "Circles of Change" (subscription required), an article about how small groups of volunteers can work together on specific problems to gain more knowledge about an issue or organize to improve their status. "One of the oldest, most widespread, and effective tools for creating personal change is the Circle," writes Tracy A. Thompson, a professor at the University of Washington's business school. (I imagine the folks at Google Plus have been thinking along much the same lines.)

But Circles, in Thompson's reckoning, shouldn't resemble the kinds of groups associations are familiar with, such as boards, or section councils, or task forces. Almost by definition, those groups are hierarchica—Triangles, as Thompson metaphorically puts it—while true circles are are hierarchy-free. Four things define Circles, she writes: "egalitarian participation, shared leadership, group-determined purposes and processes, and voluntary membership."

You needn't have read Lord of the Flies to be skeptical about how long an egalitarian group is going to stay egalitarian. Thompson is too: "Triangle dynamics are pervasive in human interactions, so the roles that Circle organizers and facilitators play need to be carefully monitored. Circle facilitators need to be acutely aware of how easily Triangle behaviors can slip in." She cites a few examples of cases where it's worked—microfinance self-help groups in India, for instance. I can imagine a few cases where it might work in associations. Perhaps an ongoing discussion group among self-selecting industry leaders within an association can routinely brainstorm ideas on new products and services. It wouldn't be time-limited, as task forces are. Nor would it have a specific set of things to accomplish, as section councils do—that requires reporting out to leadership, necessitating Triangular behavior. But it would give the organization a space to improve itself from within, and free the group from downward pressure to generate regular "report-outs," let alone results.

But even as I type that, I have my doubts. Our instinct is to build rules into any group, and inevitably some people want to take charge more than others. (And would you sign up for an open-ended group with only a loosely formed goal?) So here's what I'm curious about: Would a Circle format work in your organization? And if you think it would, how do you keep a Circle from becoming a Triangle?