I’m in a few masterminds, and I adore them all. Leveraging the expertise of other people = incomparable.
I made this “How To Run A Mastermind” checklist a year or so ago, and completely forgot about it. Nathan Gilder asked me for it today, and when I gave it to him, he said it was pretty valuable. Hopefully it helps someone else too:
How To Effectively Run A Mastermind
-Decide on type of MasterMind (supportive or paid)
-Determine purpose
-Figure out who you want in the MasterMind – what types of qualifications do you want people to have, how much diversity do you want, and how many people.
-Find members. There are a lot of ways to do this. Some ideas are to ask people, place ads, go on forums, look at social organizations, work, ryze.com, Yahoo! Groups, meetup.com, or save your time and use the “Search” function on MasterMind Zone.
-When interviewing people, make sure that people exhibit certain qualities. For example, you want to make sure that you have people that are “take action” types, and not people who are the negative “victim” type. You also should look for people who are eager to improve.
-Survey members, decide what everyone can bring to the table
-Decide how long each session should last, allotting for socializing and break time. Break it down by how long each members gets to talk (including the time that they receive feedback). It is very imperative to stick to this schedule, or people get frustrated that meetings consistently run too long, and there is not a clear focus.
-Decide when and where to meet
-Either make a leader, or opt to rotate leadership. Somebody needs to be accountable for watching time, relaying messages if people miss a meeting, and contacting people if there’s a change.
-Set rules and goals during the first meeting. One common rule is that everything said during the meeting needs to be confidential. Other rules are to not be able to shoot down ideas, have an open mind, be absent or late too frequently, or not achieve states goals consistently. Decide on consequences for rules. Everybody should also identify a long-term goal on the first meeting.
-Encourage people to share “brain food” – books, music, movies, quotations, websites, etc.
-Set timer as each person talks, carefully making sure that everybody talks only as long as they have set for them.
-When people give feedback, it needs to be brief and to the point so that everybody can give feedback according to time allotments. Sometimes feedback won’t be needed though, as a person might decide to simply ask to be held accountable for something by the next meeting.
-Be the one to go the extra mile. Someone has to lead before others will follow.
-At the end of the meeting, ask if anybody needs accountability until the next meeting (perhaps they need a call from another member to keep them in check).
-In future meetings, make sure that everybody gives a brief update of their progress from last meeting.
-Review rules periodically so that everyone follows. The biggest “crime” usually is people talking past their allotted time period.
-Once established, everyone has to vote unanimously on new members.
