I’m a huge fan of mastermind groups. I’ve been involved in them for over 30 years. Some of the groups I’ve been great and some, not so much.
I’ve noticed that there are things that will just massacre a potentially good group. Here’s my list:
Make sure you tell the world what happens in your group.
If you’re bound and determined to ruin your mastermind group, make sure you break confidentiality every chance you can.
Seriously, these groups are supposed to be about sharing information that is at best embarrassing. If you talk about what happens in your group outside of the group setting, this will kill your group.
BTW, confidentiality needs to go all of the way to your significant other……no one outside the group needs to know what happens at your meetings.
Don’t bother showing up.
If you commit to a group, then commit to it. You will miss some meetings. Just make sure that you don’t put your group at the bottom of your list of things to do.
If you find yourself doing this, then it’s best to resign. If you’re not there you can’t build trust. Showing up once in a while will hurt the conversation with regular attendees and you won’t add anything to the conversation…..or anything that’s useful.
Show your group how stupid they are.
A mastermind group is not the place to show the world how brilliant you are.
I’ve been in groups where there is one member who is bound and determined to show everyone how smart they are. They never make mistakes (at least in their mind) and they love to put down others in the group.
If you’re that person, stop now. If you have someone in your group like this, you need to stop them or ask them to leave.
Never have an agenda.
If your group doesn’t actually do things your most successful members will stop showing up. Not having an agenda will let your meeting wander and after a while you and the other members of your group might start wondering why take the time to attend meetings.
An agenda will focus conversation and allow members to think about what it is they want to accomplish during the meeting.
Make sure your members are not relevant to each other.
You don’t all have to be from the same industry but you all must have similar problems and opportunities. If you put a business with three employees in the same group with one with two hundred employees, both will get less than they should from the group.
In most cases someone with three employees is going to have a hard time relating to problems a big company has. The same would be true for the big company.
Remember, you’re joining a mastermind group so you learn from each other. Having relevancy between members is crucial step in achieving this outcome.
Don’t have a system for letting new people in.
One of the mastermind groups I was involved lasted for almost thirty years. We had lots of members come and go over the years.
One of the reasons this group worked so well was because we had a system for letting new members in. If one of our present members had any problem with the new member, they weren’t invited. It’s really that simple.
You don’t want to have bad chemistry and the best way to make sure this doesn’t happen is by having a strong selection process for new members.
Don’t have rules for running the group.
Having a few basic ground rules that are agreed and stated at every meeting is important. If you don’t have rules for your group, you can be sure that members will make them up or just forget things like confidentiality.
You might think rules don’t make sense with a small group. If you did, you would be wrong. Without expectations a mastermind group can easily devolve into something that’s a waste of time.
Why don’t you let me know what you think about masterminds in your world by clicking here? Have I missed anything? Let me know in the comments below.
Leave a Reply