Mastermind Groups and Accountability

"Nobody made you do this, did they?" Her wonder was focused on the fact that I had generated this piece of promotional literature without anyone telling me I had to. In a way, that wasn't entirely accurate. I had committed to my mastermind group that I would have a new direct mail piece by our next meeting time.

One of the benefits of a mastermind group is the power of accountability and commitment. My group consists of six women, including myself. We are all entrepreneurs and each represents a different industry-from inventor to conference planner. Our format has evolved over the years we have been together. We meet once a month for about two hours. We rotate whose home we go to, always order Chinese takeout, and spend the first half hour or so eating and socializing. Then we begin to go around the room sharing our successes since our last get-together.

It's important to catalog these successes. A time management expert advised me years ago to make note of successes. "How will you know if you're winning or losing if you aren't keeping score?"

The round of sharing successes is a great score-keeping device. Especially when I come to a mastermind group meeting feeling discouraged. That's when members will remind me what an extraordinary run I've had for the past three months, or encourage me to hang in there because I've worked through similar setbacks before. It's thrilling to hear each other's successes, motivating and inspiring. It's about the only place we take the opportunity to brag-except in our PR!

The second time around the room we share challenges. Penny is feeling burned out. Margie is sick and tired of the just misses in her competitive industry. Betty has an employee who should wear less-revealing garments to work.

It's enlightening to hear the issues at our individual workplaces and the variety of solutions we arrive at to tackle each one. We operate as a board of advisors for each other's companies. There is time for feedback which provides learning for all of us.

We entrepreneurs don't have the luxury of the water cooler or coffee break to mingle or shmooze about our daily issues. The mastermind group serves those functions in a focused and structured way. At the end of each meeting we commit to goals for the following month. They are recorded. Each of us feels an enormous power of obligation to accomplish that to which we committed. We are energized by each other's enthusiasm and motivation and usually leave the meetings excited to move forward towards our newly set goals.

Mastermind groups are in operation all over this country and are getting easier to participate in. A trend I hear of more and more is mastermind groups conducted via the telephone.

Tailwind.com is testing this format currently with a group of 12 entrepreneurs who work and live all across the United States. The format is the same-rounds of sharing successes, challenges and goals. The unique difference is that we are not face-to-face, only voice-to-voice. Also, unlike my Connecticut group, none of the participants knew each other before the first call. The noted benefits to meeting this way are:

• ease of getting together - no elements to deal with, no travel time and no concern with how we look (!)
• the sense that we're all in this together-no matter where we are in the country, in our career, in our lives. There are common struggles. The need to reach out and communicate is universal.
• excellent networking and sharing of resources On the last call, one member thanked another for the affirmations she'd been sent regarding a particular issue she was confronting. Another used a website that had been mentioned to research pricing her products in accordance with her competitors.

Whether you form a group that can meet face-to-face or voice-to-voice, I encourage you to join the mastermind movement and experience for yourself and your business the power of this process.