The Dead Battery Effect
What is The Dead Battery Effect, how can it affect your business?
When was the last time you went to your vehicle of choice, opened the door sat in the front seat, inserted the key, turned the ignition and nothing happened? The battery is as dead as a dead parrot that is no longer alive (thank you Monty Python). I use the analogy of the dead car battery to emphasise something that we are all generally not very good at -“ taking care of what truly matters.
How annoying is it when the car stops working? How embarrassing when you find that through no fault of your own you can’t get to meet that client on time or potentially worse still, that family event will have to miss whilst you beat your car with the branch of a small tree? Failing to look after the detail and keep on top of what is important (but not necessarily urgent) is what keeps things flowing well.
Now think of the situations where you have taken something or someone for granted, where you may have failed to nurture that relationship or give it that extra bit of attention to make it special. We’ve all done it and continue to do so. With the speed of business and our personal lives nowadays we can’t afford the time or the fallout when it goes wrong.
In which personal or professional relationships are you taking someone for granted? Where are you not investing time and effort to make everything work better and become stronger, where you’re just going through the motions? Beware this is when the -“dead battery effect”will catch you unawares, just when you least expect it that person that you have relied upon wholeheartedly for years hands in their resignation, moves house or becomes seriously ill.
The skill is looking after the people that matter most; they might be the ones who have been incredibly influential in the past or those that have the greatest potential for positive impact in the future. Who are they? On a scale of 1-10, how well do you look after them, how committed are they to you and what two small things could you do that would have a positive effect?
Just think if you did just 2 things every month with those that matter most, what effect would that have on your personal and professional well-being? You know it can be this simple but as always ways we mess it up by letting our batteries go flat, Faffing About in the areas that don’t bring us the returns they should -“ and you know my views on Faffing About!