Journal · Formats
Mastermind or peer advisory group: which one
The question usually comes up at the point of paying. It turns on a single characteristic, and it is not the price.
What is the difference between a mastermind and a peer advisory group? The centre. A mastermind is convened and run by someone, usually a coach who also sells the programme. A peer advisory group has no centre: it has members of comparable weight, and the quality rests entirely on them.
| Mastermind | Peer advisory group | |
|---|---|---|
| Who convenes | A facilitator, often a coach, who also sells the programme. | The group itself, or a third party who does not sit in it. |
| Selection | The organiser's audience or client list. | An explicit rule: size, sponsorship, non-competition. |
| What holds the quality | The facilitator's skill. | The members' calibre and the protocol they keep. |
| Point of failure | If the facilitator leaves, the group dissolves. | If one member is out of their depth, the room protects itself and dries up. |
| What gets said | What you say in front of someone who invoices you. | What you say nowhere else, when the confidentiality rule holds. |
What the centre actually changes
A facilitator brings three real things: they protect the airtime, they stop the loudest member from setting the frame, and they make everyone come back. That is a lot, and it is why masterminds outlast informal groups.
They also bring an asymmetry. The person running the room has an interest in the group continuing, and you know it while you speak. The conversations that matter most, the ones a founder holds nowhere else, happen when nobody in the room has a reason to prefer one answer.
A mastermind has a centre. A peer group has only equals. Everything else follows from that.
Deciding, in two questions
- What are you short of, regularity or candour? If it is regularity, take the facilitator. If it is candour, look for equals.
- Who decides who joins? If the answer is "whoever runs it", you already know what the room will look like in two years.
What neither of them does
Neither answers on the Thursday the decision is due, and neither keeps a written record of what was worked through. Both gaps are structural: these are calendar formats, not decision formats.
See also what a mastermind group is, peer advisory groups and how to choose one.
Five Peers editorial note. No study compares the effectiveness of these two formats; what is compared here is their structure, which is observable.
Five methods that do not converge, convened on the day the call is due, and a record that keeps what was decided.
Compose my board