What's Your ROA?

ROI - return on investment - we've all heard about. Maybe more than we'd like.  Social marketers like to talk about ROE - return on engagement - especially since the data started showing that social marketing didn't drive sales. I have one more return acronym to add to the growing list: ROA - return on aggravation. And I'm wondering what your ROA is?

It started from a conversation with a colleague of mine. He was describing a project he was working on and how the process and people drove him crazy. His biggest issue was that all of the in-between time he used to spend coming up with good ideas (like when he went out for a run, or even taking a shower) he now spent spinning and re-spinning situations and events with these people on this project. His ROA was high and climbing.

I asked him what he thought he could accomplish if he reduced his ROA. His response was quick and to the point: he'd be happier, more productive and would have more time to help himself and his company.

All of us have ROA. The challenge is that the negative results deriving from it aren't always apparent right away. The aggravation a co-worker produces stops you from working successfully and furthering your own career. The aggravation a bad client produces stops you from creating great work and the time to find clients who you work better with (and are more profitable from).

Shifting your ROA is hard, as is all change. But as a wise person once told me "If you want to change something in your relationship with other people, the only thing you can actually change is your own behavior." As Hugh McLeod put it in his book "Ignore Everybody" people hate and resist change because when someone changes it shifts the balance of power.

In a perfect world your Return on Aggravation would be zero. Unfortunately, we don't live in a perfect world. But the goal is to reduce your ROA to the lowest number possible. 

What are some of the ways you could do this?

Pay Attention!

I found this on a blog last week and found it so inspiring I've taped this list up on my wall, and ordered the book.

I plan on presenting it to every client before every presentation I give or idea I share. What strikes me is how seldom marketing departments actual think about these things, let alone do them in their marketing. Imagine how much better marketing or advertising would be if we, ourselves, paid attention to this list.

[Cheers to the A List Apart blog, from which I'm lifting this section below]:

"In his book Brain Rules, John Medina identifies four significant characteristics of attention:

1. EMOTIONS GET OUR ATTENTION
Attention is most easily gripped by emotions, threats, and pleasures: ideas that challenge our deeply-held beliefs, images that shock or arouse us.

2. MEANING BEFORE DETAILS
We want to know why something is relevant to us. Only then will we be willing to spend the time it takes to understand the details of it. 

3. THE BRAIN CANNOT MULTITASK
The idea that multitasking is a myth seems to be well-established by now, although a decade ago it seemed like multitasking was the inevitable future of human consciousness. We are learning to work with, not against, our cognitive limitations. 

4. THE BRAIN NEEDS A BREAK
We believe in giving audiences freedom, even if it's the freedom to zone out or take a break from one part of a talk to focus on another part. That's how people learn."