Juntos or Mastermind Groups

Has anyone considered forming a Mastermind in Auckland, New Zealand or via Zoom?

There’s often occasions in work and business where we could use a little advice, an attentive ear or someone to just bounce ideas off.

We can be confident and open in conversations with partners and family, but often they’re not the right person to discuss potential business plans with.

A Junto or Mastermind is a group of 5 to 8 business peers who agree to meet on a regular basis to discuss their journey. With the aim of helping each other to perform better, make contacts and hone their skills and knowledge. I am keen for colleagues to form Juntos as they are fantastic for building trust, camaraderie and floating all boats with a rising tide.

Benjamin Franklin began at the age of 21 to perfect the Junto with his group of peers

You can see a full description of Benjamin’s Masterminds in Wikipedia – with a list of topics and member commitments. Whilst some of the questions Benjamin posed may seem outdated in wording they are more than relevant to life today. Here’s how they worked.

The Junto’s Friday evening meetings were organized around a series of questions that Franklin devised, covering a range of intellectual, personal, business, and community topics. These questions were used as a springboard for discussion and community action. In fact, through the Junto, Franklin promoted such concepts as volunteer fire-fighting clubs, improved security (night watchmen), and a public hospital.

I am confident that forming a group of peers who excel – and can push each other to excel – seems like a worthwhile use of anyone’s time.

That said – agreeing upon the right agenda and members is key.

Masterminds or Juntos of course all have their own agendas for meetings and frequency

Location independent Masterminds in Auckland or online

I regularly meet with an exceptional group of Entrepreneurs based in Texas and Nevada. Every Friday morning via Skype we gather over coffee. Our hot-seat sessions have fixed a variety of things from website conversion and business to management, legal issues and staff motivation. I haven’t had a meeting yet where diving deep on a particular topic hasn’t been fruitful. Each week I have more than a few things to follow up on, execute or try out myself.

Mastermind formats

Some focus on an individual and let all participants help them with their decisions and projects in one session and rotate through the group. Others meet for a longer period less frequently and allow all to air questions and offer advice. Have a listen to Taylor Pearson describe what he thinks are best practices – who is a serial Mastermind facilitator http://www.tropicalmba.com/mastermind.

A few common themes are:

• That finding a group of like minded peers might hinder the thoughts of the group, but having polar fundamental beliefs such as a bootstrapper and an angel investor in the same group would be worse.
• Having a Junto with similar levels of motivation and success was also key, someone struggling will take away from the growth of those performing well (For anyone that has read Tribal Leadership – level 4 or 5 leaders are best in a Junto. Level 3 teams and leaders would be the worst to have in your Junto and level 1 and 2 would not find masterminds, juntos or tribes of use).
• Non participants or those often absent or unbalanced (taking more than giving) would be asked to leave.
• Many use an agile format to kick off:
  • What they’ve accomplished
  • What’s on their list
  • Their burning issue to discuss with the group (roadblocks, or things they need help with).

If you would like to hear another short podcast of the benefits of joining a junto – Dan Miller talks about his Masterminds here.

Let’s give it a try

I hope that over the coming months I can help facilitate a number of Juntos or masterminds for my contacts to join.

If you’d like to participate or suggest a member for a Junto drop me an email – Nicholaswallen (at) gmail.com
Tweet @nickwallen or comment.