By Dr Kim Fenton and Penny Ombler
The importance of a good memory cannot be underplayed. Yet, most of us could do with some improvement in the memory department. You don't have to accept your level of ability. It is within your control to develop exceptional memory skills.
Research has shown that in order to have a chance of remembering anything, the object, person or event must be:
Additionally, we have three types of memory: sensory, short term and long term.
Sensory memory is extremely short term – only a matter of seconds – and detects things that occur in your environment. It could be a loud sound or a car speeding past. With no need to store the information, those memories simply disappear. However, if you are motivated to notice something about the sound or the car, the dynamics are altered. For instance, if what you thought you heard was a gunshot, or you knew the car speeding past was driving away from a bank robbery, you would consciously register more information. The events would move into short-term memory. Interestingly, short-term memory has a limit to both the capacity of information that can be stored and the length of time for which it can be stored. When you are learning something new and you say your brain is full, you probably aren't exaggerating. Short-term memory is the reason you may forget the last two or three digits of a telephone number you've just been told. In order to remember it, you need to repeat it a number of times. If you have speed dial on your phone, you may never remember it off hand. If you do repeatedly dial that number manually, at some point, it enters your long-term memory.
Long-term memory is full of information from your short-term memory that you have chosen not to discard. Going back to the gunshot and the speeding car, if you know someone's just robbed a bank, you may prioritise in your memory the colour of the car, the make and model and the registration number. However, if you find out later that the car that sped past you was the getaway vehicle from a bank robbery, you may have difficulty accurately describing even the colour of the car. You may not even remember a car speeding past you at all.
We prioritise information that is meaningful to us. This explains the human consequences of a poor memory. We have all had that experience of not being remembered by someone. Last time it happened to you, it is likely that you felt insignificant to the other person. In a business sense, it can make it harder to build rapport and create productive professional relationships, if you are consistently forgetting details about your colleagues and customers.
So, what are some of the basic skills you can develop in order to maintain and improve your memory?
It is important to de-clutter your mind. Brain clutter may be blocking your ability to store new information. If you can recite the entire script from Guys and Dolls, but you can't remember your customer's standing order, you may need to reprioritise your brain space. As discussed, you will also need repetition as numbers are best remembered when used over and over again.
Forgetting someone's name in any environment can knock a few points off your scorecard, even if they've only registered it in their subconscious mind. Building rapport involves a combination of subtle interactions over time and remembering a name is one of the more important in this subliminal process.
Remembering a name is a twofold process. It's all about the introduction and the priority. When you are introduced to someone, ensure you accurately catch their name. This requires that you are interested to know their name and that you prioritise its place in your memory. In order to ensure accuracy, make eye contact and repeat their name back to them immediately after the introduction to begin the process of recall in your brain. So it can go something like this: "Hi, I'm Brent Michaels." "Brett was it?" "No, Brent." "Hi Brent, I'm Laura Evans."
People don't mind correcting you if you get their name wrong immediately after hearing it. However, if you continue to call him Brett for the next year, he will possibly be too embarrassed to correct you and it will affect the rapport you are able to build with him.
Immediately following the introduction, make eye contact and use their name in the next three sentences you say. It could be: "So, Brent, which company do you work for?" Or "Brent, can I get you a drink?" Or "Are you here with a group Brent?"
Finally, always say your name when someone gives you his or hers. "Hi, I'm Laura Evans" should be met with "Hi Laura, I'm Brent Michaels". It should never be met with "Hi".
More people are better with faces than with names. This is because most of us are better at recognising rather than recalling. Others have to meet someone three times in order to register that they've met them at all. Again, it comes down to priorities. You need to decide that remembering people is a priority. The skills you use to remember a person are the same as remembering a name. If you remember their name, you are unlikely to forget their face.
Relationships are based on history. The more history you can remember about someone, the more interest they feel you have in them. We feel special when someone remembers the details of past conversations. Remembering details of people's lives requires interest. As the listener, you need to be present in the conversation and register what is being said. At the same time, as the speaker, or the person wanting the details to be remembered, you need to be aware of your timing. Sometimes you have caught your listener off guard, or in the middle of something else, and the chances of igniting interest at that time are far less. Both parties have to be in tune to the needs of the other in order for high quality communication to occur.
The art of recall is a skill that you continually need to practice in order to maintain sharp proficiency. Your priorities, interests and behaviour will influence your ability to remember details, as well as your likelihood of being remembered. A good memory for the details of others, and assisting them to remember you, can be of enormous benefit to both your personal and professional relationships, creating rapport and ultimately, strong and lasting connections.
With over 33 years combined experience, Kim Fenton and Penny Ombler founded Successful Minds with the vision of providing personal and organisational development via compelling and constructive coaching and training. www.successfulminds.com.au.
