What to keep in mind for your first peer-mentorship group
And how I ran mine.
During the 2020 pandemic I started facilitating my own peer-mentorship group (also known as a mastermind group). This is the second part of a series that I have written about my experience facilitating. In the first one I explain how running these sessions can make you a better designer. In this part I talk about how I organised my sessions and give some practical advice.
A mastermind group is a peer-to-peer mentoring group where two or more people come together on an ongoing basis to solve problems with input or advice from each other. The concept was coined in 1925 by author Napoleon Hill in his book The Law of Success.
Although I haven’t read Napoleon Hill’s book, there are plenty of sources out there with advice on how to facilitate the sessions effectively. My method is just one of many, but you might find these points useful when you organise your own group. Here is a summary of what to keep in mind when you start your first peer-mentorship sessions:
Trust your intuition
The friends I invited to join the group had one thing in common. Every time we spoke, the conversation would naturally shift to business or personal projects and afterwards I would feel full of ideas and energy. I just wanted to get more time to bounce ideas off them and learn.
Trust your gut when it comes to participants. If you feel that a person gets your mind whizzing and your ‘creative juices’ flowing, s/he will probably fit into your mentorship group.
Timing takes time
We live in different parts of Europe and have varied weekly schedules. It’s challenging to find a time that works for everyone. So when the pandemic hit and we were all staying home, it felt like the perfect opportunity to pitch the setup. Mind you, my friends didn’t know each other before. After a small WhatsApp intro we found a date for our kick-off session.
Being mindful about everyone’s schedule gets more difficult the more people are included. However, it’s worth putting in the effort and finding a time that works for everyone. If someone still can’t make it, don’t be discouraged. You can run the group with only 2 people in it and there are other ways to keep in touch with people who can’t get involved. Try to time the meetings outside a holiday season.
Choosing a format
In preparation for the kick-off meeting I looked around to see how others run their group sessions. This is the format I drew up originally.
- Quick check-in (5 to 10 minutes)
- Last commitments (5 to 10 minutes)
- Deep dive into one project (up to 30 minutes)
- For the next session (5 to 10 minutes)
After getting people on board and agreeing on the framework, we decided to have bi-weekly one-hour calls.
Have a separate kick-off before the meetings start. Introduce participants, ask about their goals and what they expect from the sessions. Write up a flexible agenda after gathering these thoughts and allow some wiggle room for conversations naturally evolving.
Making the aim clear
You will spend time together every 1 to 4 weeks on a regular basis, so friendships inevitably arise and that’s ok. However, the sessions are supposed to serve a goal you set at the beginning so everyone should leave their unrelated topics for another time.
At the kick-off meeting, agree on what goes into the format and what doesn’t. 60–90 minutes is a very short time even for a small group. As a facilitator it’s your job to make sure the focus stays on the goals.
Making documentation clear
Sounds obvious, but having the sessions in everyone’s calendar with a reminder switched on is crucial. In addition to this, I also put the agenda doc and the hot seat schedule in the description of the event, to make it easy to find. Everyone has access to edit these and jot down notes afterwards.
Create a link to the agenda from the calendar invitation and announce what channel you will use for the meet up. If you meet in person, decide on the location and check the availability well ahead of each meeting.
Choosing the channels of communication
As a small team of friends we don’t have to go pro on the tools. We used Google Docs for note taking and agenda, Google Slides for weekly goals, Hangouts for the calls and WhatsApp for communication and sharing resources.
Make sure you provide a running document that’s available for everyone. Having an instant communication channel is also great for participants sharing relevant findings in between sessions and keeping each other up-to-date.
Choosing a goal and a deadline
At the kick-off session I asked my group to think about what project they wanted to bring to the table. Without knowing exactly when the lockdown would be lifted, we couldn’t tell how long until the summer vacations. Eventually we settled on a 12-week long schedule, meaning 6 sessions. This would put everyone in the hotseat twice.
Having a deadline set will make it easier for participants to scope their weekly goals. You can still decide to extend the time. if everyone agrees, but make sure you can all commit to it. Aim to set measurable outcomes at the start, eg. ‘By this date I will have 3 products ready to sell / 1000 subscribers to the newsletter’ etc.
Adjust when necessary
Since my initial agenda we have made plenty of adaptations to fit our needs.. My group members were always keen to discuss improvements and that’s how we arrived at our latest format.
If you feel the need to make adjustments, the participants probably feel it too. Don’t hesitate to bring this up as an open question (“How do you feel about the agenda?”).
Reflect
There is a chance that goals will change over time, or the strategy will be different from what you pitched and that’s okay. However, I would suggest not to switch to a drastically different goal within the same cycle. For instance, if you planned to draft a novel, don’t switch to baking videos within one mastermind cycle. Pivoting is fine, but changing your goal might just be part of a ‘shiny object syndrome’ and that’s what the mastermind sessions are perfect for — keeping you on track.
After the first 3–4 sessions, take time to reflect on your progress. Have you done enough to bring your project to life or are you giving up on your goals too easily? Have you exhausted all your opportunities and tools? Can you pivot in such a way that this project might still work?
My group is still meeting bi-weekly at the time of writing. After the first 12 weeks we took a summer break and then made a conscious decision to continue in a lighter format. Here are some of the changes we made:
- Instead of 12 weeks we decided to continue without a set deadline.
- Instead of having the hot seat (or deep dive) rotation set from the beginning, we decide on the hot seat schedule the week before each meeting. Sometimes you just can’t move forward with your plan as fast as you want to… That’s just the reality.
- Instead of one person in the hot seat per week, we sometimes have 2 shorter updates or even 3, depending on how we have progressed since the previous session.
- Instead of committing to a goal weeks ahead we set a broad topic in which we aim to improve weekly.
This is the second part of a series that I have written about my experience facilitating. In the first one I show you how running these sessions can make you a better designer.
