Recently, I came across a curious mathematical theory. It said that if you play Tic-Tac-Toe not on a traditional square board, but on a donut-shaped one — where the edges connect — the game becomes impossible to win and everyone ends up tying.
My immediate thought was People Analytics and the cultural models we design. We love circles: the continuous employee journey, the feedback loop, endless development cycles. It made perfect sense to think that by enclosing culture inside an infinite “donut,” we eliminated competition and forced everyone to cooperate.
But since I like to validate intuition, I started looking into the actual mathematics behind it… and what I discovered completely changed how I think we should manage talent.
It turns out that in traditional Tic-Tac-Toe (the square board), a tie is the norm when both players know what they are doing. The board has limits, corners, and edges that allow players to block each other. But when you bend that board into a donut shape, the number of winning possibilities explodes. Without borders, a tie becomes mathematically impossible. Someone always wins — and they win fast.
And that is where the real danger lies for those of us managing people.
The Danger of “Donut Cultures” in HR
Without realizing it, HR has spent years running away from the “square model” — traditional structures, hierarchies, and clearly defined boundaries — because they feel slow and bureaucratic. In that pursuit, we started drawing “donuts” in our presentations: cultures where everything is hyperconnected, feedback is 360° and immediate, and hierarchies are fluid or nonexistent. We believed circularity would create harmony.
What mathematics teaches us, however, is that the donut does not create peace. It removes the brakes.
In a “donut culture,” where there are no boundaries or edges to slow the flow, balance does not emerge. The opposite happens: cannibalization accelerates. The loudest subcultures or the most aggressive profiles dominate the board much faster because the system has no corners where people can protect themselves from the noise or simply pause. Burnout is not an accident in these circular models; it is the logical outcome of a game with no clear ending.
Why “Square” Structures Are Not Bureaucracy — They Are a Defense Mechanism
Sometimes, a little bit of “square structure” — clear boundaries, processes with a beginning and an end, and healthy limits — is not heavy bureaucracy. It is a defense mechanism that prevents the system from devouring itself.
This is not about going back to the last century. It is about understanding that if we are going to create high-speed circular dynamics, then the rules of the game must fundamentally change. We cannot force people to compete for limited resources inside an endless donut and expect collaboration to emerge magically.
The next time we design a cultural model built around perfect circles, it is worth asking ourselves whether we are truly creating an ecosystem of infinite collaboration — or simply bending the board so competition becomes faster and more ruthless.
What shape does your culture have today? Is it a predictable square or a hyperconnected donut?
By Yoel Kluk, Partner at Olivia Mexico.