How To Keep All Your Balls in the Air

Guest Contributor: Michelle Rumney
Michelle's Posts - Michelle's Blog


It's one thing starting a Mastermind Group, but quite another thing maintaining it and keeping the momentum going, especially if, like me, you're an EFNP in the Myers-Briggs sense of the word - ie. really good at starting many things, but not so good at the follow-through.

I started our original Mastermind Group in a small seaside village almost a year ago. Originally we met physically, each taking a turn to host the group in our homes on a weekly basis. A few months in, the commitment in the group was still going strong, but the momentum and energy in the actual sessions was waning. We took a democratic decision and voted to open the group up to some new members. That turned out to be a good decision all round and interestingly, the polarity reversed - now the energy in the sessions was better, but the commitment seemed a little less, with an absentee or two every week.

A few months into that, and the dynamics changed again - this time partly as a result of the Mastermind process itself - people's situations were clearly moving. Some were launching new businesses or going after better jobs elsewhere, others had changes afoot in their relationships or family circumstances. The one thing that is certain in life is change, right? And in Mastermind Groups the pace of change can be truly dramatic - sometimes it's just really difficult to keep all your balls in the air!

So, the next bridge to cross in order to keep this wonderful group of supportive individuals Masterminding with each other, was coping with physical separation - this is old hat to those of you who run your Mastermind Groups via conference calls, but to us it was all an exciting experiment. We tried using Skype in a few sessions, which was great, and we tried scheduling phone calls, but the small number of the group left in the village didn't seem to be able to get the same energy together to treat the phone meetings with the same commitment as the physical ones, so it only took a few no-shows that end and us 'satellite' members had nothing actually to join in with. Sometimes, despite best efforts, you just can't keep all the balls in the air, but I've decided that this is actually OK in the big scheme of things.

Finally, by default, we resorted to group emails. I sent a daily mail out for about 6 weeks with some pro-active ideas for personal and business development, so that at least we were all thinking together, if not actually meeting or talking. While the replies were sporadic, as everyone coped in their own ways with the long school vacation over the summer (most of us have kids), they were also hugely positive and uplifting. This again is an interesting dynamic - most of the group members were actually having the hardest time for a long while - the honeymoon periods of their various moves being over and a whole new set of challenges presenting themselves. It's rewarding to know that, when the going gets tough, giving a word of support to another group member somehow helps you keep all your own balls in the air too.

As in the business world, it seems that managing change within a group, large or small, 'professional' or not, is a constant tall order, requiring commitment and some sort of cohesion or glue to keep you together. It's also one of the most difficult things to get right. But, if there's one thing I'm sure of, it's that these group dynamics will change again and again in the future, so if you have any experiences or suggestions for how you've coped with change in your own groups, post them here and share them!