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Another Way to Make Training Stick – The Long Term Memory Trick

Linking to the Past Secures a Space in Long Term Memory
Starting as early as pre-learning or “pre-work” assignments, help participants reduce the insecurity that comes from looking up the steep side of a learning curve by providing them with opportunities to anchor their understanding to past knowledge or experiences.
Here’s how it works.
Remember the days when offices were38142303_l full of filing cabinets? Good. Now, think of the adult learner’s brain like a room full of those gray behemoths. Instead of asking learners to label a new file folder and find room in already overcrowded drawers for the new information in the new file, it’s much easier for them if you give them the opportunity to staple the new information to materials already contained in an existing folder. Essentially, you’re asking them to “hook” the new information resident in short term memory to some piece of information already in their long-term memory.
For example, a pre-work or in session assignment for a coaching course could be for participants to recall a coaching experience that went well and one that did not go as well—critically assessing the difference between the two. Then, present the new coaching behavior or model tying key points to elements from their personal stories. Now, the new approach is “attached” to the past experiences and filed away with them in the person’s long term memory.


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A Wordle About This Site


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Behavior Change: A Talent Development Challenge

hMany organizations today have Talent Management functions staffed with human resource professionals diligently trying
to attract, train, and retain “talent” (the newish word for those paid to do a job. You know, employees.) An important mandate for these Talent Management groups is “talent development”; growing the skills, knowledge, and capabilities of the talent. Implicit in the term “talent development” is the notion that the “talent” will change their behavior in order to improve their performance levels ideally toward the achievement of organizational objectives. Netting it out, this means inside of organizations there’s a department of employees expected to convince other employees to make serious changes in their lives.

Have you ever tried to break an old habit or start a new one? It’s not an easy thing to do. Now, imagine trying to get someone else to break a habit, adopt a new habit, learn a new skill, use a new software program, or do a task differently than they have for the last umpteen years. That’s the challenge faced by talent developers (otherwise known as corporate learning teams, capability developers, trainers, facilitators, instructional designers, etc.).

 This brings us to two essential questions: 

1. Why is change so difficult?
2. How can we influence others to change their behavior?

The Trouble with Change
According to David Rock and Jeffrey Schwartz, breakthroughs in neuroscience prove out what most of us who have tried to change our behaviors already know. Change is painful. It is actually physiologically painful. In their Strategy + Business article titled “The Neuroscience of Leadership,” Rock and Schwartz explain, “Trying to change any hardwired habit requires a lot of effort, in the form of attention. This often leads to a feeling that many people find uncomfortable. So they do what they can to avoid change.”

Another reason change is difficult is a perceived difference between expectation and actuality triggers activity in the parts of the brain that cause people to react more emotionally and impulsively.


Have you ever tried to drive on a heavily rutted dirt road? You know the kind where deep tire tracks forged in mud are solidified hard as concrete when the ground dries? Once your tires drop into the ruts; it’s almost impossible to pull them out to drive on smoother parts of the road. Our minds work the same way.

We develop schemata or patterns of thoughts and behaviors for our activities. These patterns make us efficient. When was the last time you had to think about brushing your teeth? You were taught step by step; but as time went on, you grouped those steps into a schema or routine. Now, it’s not something you think about step by step but rather as a single task accomplished almost exactly the same way each time.

Schemata are the ruts in the roads of our minds. Changing our behaviors means fighting to pull our mental wheels out of the deep grooves to which we’ve grown accustom. Even when we get the tires onto flat ground, we still feel uncomfortable and anxious. The discomfort does not abate until we’ve worn in a new set of ruts; built a new schema.

Talent Managers and other organizational leaders should recognize and never underestimate the power of the pain of change.  Employees’ perception of the required change and the physiological reactions they experience will greatly impact the outcome.


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Becoming An Influential Content Marketer

The Fine Art of Content Marketing

DELL Dons Beret

credit: DELL





Create a Visibility Strategy


 Be Compelling and Relevant


Don’t Sound Contrived


Devise an Appropriate Real World Strategy



 1). Does it promote my brand?

2). Does it detract from my message?

3). Does it create value for others?

4). Does it influence a call to action?


What steps are you taking to market your content?





How Leaders Can Build Up or Bring Down an Organization




Leadership Impacts Outcomes



High Ceilings




Reducing the Gap






Cup Half Full or Half Empty


Post Written by Joe Folkman


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