At the beginning of the 20th century, Napoleon Hill, motivational writer of several bestsellers, immortalized the word MASTER MIND (Master Mind Alliance), which we can define as follows: A Master Mind is an active alliance of two or more minds, in a spirit of perfect harmony for the achievement of a common goal, and paves the way for a true shared vision. As is well known, every company benefits when it has the participation of collaborators who come together to work in harmony with a common purpose. The success acts in line with the strong impact of the dynamics of groups that merge and create impulses.
When a Master Mind is properly formed, it contributes to the good of all concerned. Each member of the alliance works to achieve their part of the project in direct combination with the other members. Members do not need to be friends or even like each other. The essential thing is that you respect each other and be 100% harmonious in the work you are involved in together. In addition, it is essential that each member makes a complementary contribution – no effort less than that of the others is tolerable.
That is why membership has to be selective and based on harmony and execution capacity. Otherwise, the project can falter because the weight of the whole is not distributed equally.
The famous inventor Thomas Edison used this principle as the basis for his entire career. He did it to overcome his lack of academic training by harnessing and utilizing the special skills and knowledge of his associates. In this way, he managed to create such great inventions as the electric lamp and the phonograph.
How can a person form a Master Mind? Napoleon Hill teaches us this process step by step.
First adopt a defined purpose as the objective to be achieved by the alliance and the choice of each member whose education, experience and influence add the most value to achieving the proposed objective.
Establish a definite place where alliance members will meet, make a definite plan, and set a definite time for mutual discussion of the plan. Don’t forget that your plan must be linked to your primary defined purpose.
Once you have established the relationship between your mind and the minds of the other associates of your Master Mind, you will see the ease with which ideas and proposals flow between all the members. When a Master Mind fulfills its purpose, it produces ideas that a single mind would not be capable of generating. The discussion table will be the place where the whole group meets and where each member can speak with confidence. Everyone will participate in the discussion of the topic. It is important that there are frequent and regular contacts between the members.
It is the responsibility of the leader of the alliance to ensure that harmony exists and is maintained among all members and that the course of action is continuous in the fulfillment of the main objective established. The watchword of the alliance must be to fulfill the Defined Purpose, the forceful part of the plan, backed by continuous perfect harmony. The main strength of the alliance lies in the perfect mix of the minds of all members.
The number of individuals in an alliance will depend entirely on the nature and magnitude of the results to be achieved. If it were a similar purpose to that of Mr. Edison, it would undoubtedly need the support of a large number of people with special talents and training. Smaller projects will logically require considerably smaller groups of people. In general, it is better to have as few members as possible, as it will be much easier to maintain harmony between them.
Aristotle Nielsen, its President , has specialized in Organizational Development and then graduated as Capital Strategist (Human Capital Institute, Washington, DC). He is a Napoleon Hill Leader Certificate (NHLC), Points of You Facilitator and recently is a Certified MTa® Experiential Learning Facilitator, a World Class methodology of Experiential Learning. Since 2018 he is a full time Professor in the Master’s Degree in Organizational Psychology (UAI) in Argentina.