Mastering Master Mind

Friday morning, early, I attended the monthly meeting of the Master Mind group I am a member of. We seven women have been meeting for over a year now. We formed soon after some of the members heard Jane Pollak speak at the Women's Entrepreneurial Network's annual business conference in October '04. We are all busy, so we decided to limit our group to seven people so that our meetings could be accomplished in two hours. We also decided to meet in our homes rather than our offices, so the host is not distracted by stuff. Our agenda includes, Success, Challenges and Goals. We time each part, with each member receiving three minutes dedicated to successes, 10 minutes to challenges and less than a minute to goals at the very end.

We can say that our group continues to be a resounding success. Some of us didn't know each other, others we knew slightly. While it is rare to have all seven of us in attendance as business and vacations take us away, now we are so connected, that we look forward to these meetings.

What is so amazing to me is that when the challenges are presented, usually the answer is so simple that the challenged member has to laugh. It's the old, "Why couldn't I think of that?" Also the few times that we have a full complement, it never fails that one member will need a bit more attention and time. We don't have to say, "Oh we're going to give more time to Debby," it just happens. Still we are efficient enough to finish on time.

We are a very diverse group as far as our work, and there are several other Master Mind groups that we know of, that are set up differently. One is a small gathering of retailers, and another is a diverse business group with both genders represented. Both have an agenda that is different than ours, not so structured.

Friday morning as we gathered around Lori Cannon's dining table, I reflected about our group. I think Master Mind groups are helpful because of the trusting relationships developed within each group. While we devote only two hours per month to each other, our friendship spans the other days of the month, making us want to help our MM friends everyday of the year.

What do you know about Master Mind groups? Do you have something better?