Customer case: Kasvuryhmä

Environment shapes how we think, learn, and grow.

In collaboration with Growth Collective (Kasvuryhmä), I joined a discussion exploring how learning and growth are influenced not only by what leaders do, but by the environments they create. The conversation focused especially on the social environment: how interaction, presence, and collective state shape thinking, collaboration, and development at a biological level.

I had a pleasure to join a discussion with Growth Collective to explore a question what role does environment play in human learning and growth, especially for leaders?

The conversation focused on how social environment shape how people think, learn, collaborate, and ultimately grow into larger roles. This is biology.

About Growth Collective

“Kasvuryhmä is a growth collective for bold Finnish scale-ups. Together, we ignite innovation, share experiences, and drive transformative growth for companies shaping the future.” Kasvuryhmä is a peer-based learning community for growth-oriented CEOs and founders of mid-sized companies. Its mission is to accelerate sustainable growth by bringing leaders together in trusted, high-quality environments.

What research tells us about learning and physiology?

Environment works below our awareness.

Research across neuroscience, physiology, and behavioral science is clear on one thing: humans continuously adapt to their environment, and mostly outside conscious awareness.

1. Physical and social environments influence physiology automatically

Physical factors such as light, noise, spatial layout, and sensory load influence arousal levels, attentional capacity, and cognitive energy.

Social environments, such as tone of interaction, hierarchy, trust, and psychological safety, have an even stronger effect. The physiological state of others in the group (their level of load or ease) is continuously sensed and reflected across participants, shaping the collective state of the group. This aligns with research traditions on physiological synchrony, emotional contagion, and social neuroscience, which show that human states are not isolated but co-regulated in social contexts.

Humans are biologically tuned to detect social cues: who holds power, whether it is safe to speak, whether mistakes are punished or explored. These cues are processed rapidly and largely unconsciously, shaping physiological states before conscious thought even begins.

2. From physiology to learning

These physiological shifts matter because they directly affect how the brain functions:

Thinking: Elevated threat or uncertainty activate physiological processes, that narrow attention and favor fast, defensive decision-making. A regulated state supports clarity, reflection, and complex reasoning.

Collaboration: When the body senses safety, human physiological processes function optimally for collaboration. People listen better, synchronize more easily, and engage in constructive disagreement. When it senses threat, collaboration becomes guarded or performative.

 Learning: Learning requires error tolerance, and cognitive flexibility. These depend on physiological conditions that support exploration and curiosity rather than protection.

In other words, learning in a group is a process that can be understood and shaped through biology.

Shortly about power and hierarchy

Power dynamics amplify environmental effects.

Leaders’ physiological state, whether calm and collaborative or carrying a high load, becomes visible through presence, behavior, and emotional tone, and carries disproportionate biological weight. Subtle signals such as pace of speech, reactions to dissent, and how uncertainty is handled shape others’ physiological responses unconsciously, often more than words do.

This is not about good or bad leadership. It is about understanding that hierarchy is biologically real, whether acknowledged or not.

A Leader’s Role: Creating Conditions for Growth

From a biological perspective, leadership is less about driving performance and more about shaping conditions for optimal performance and growth.

Leaders influence learning and growth when they:

• Pay attention to her own physiological state: What are you spreading to others?

• Observe: What others need now? Calmness or energy? Safety or challenge?

• Focus equally the quality of interaction, not just words or content

• Build trust first, and create constructive challenge second

• Remember that clarity, learning, and collaboration emerge when people feel regulated enough to think

The goal is not to remove pressure from business, but to ensure that pressure does not collapse thinking.

When leaders understand how environment works on humans, they can create settings where learning, insight, and growth become not forced, but possible.