The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve 2

The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve

My wife Bianca and I spent 12 years living in North America, returning to New Zealand in 2020 during the Covid pandemic. Back in 2018, we signed up for a personalized 1-on-1 training course and learned how to shoot handguns at a firing range in San Francisco.

After we graduated from the course, Pablo, the instructor, said, “Shooting is a perishable skill. You have successfully graduated from this training, but the shooting skills you have learned will rapidly perish unless you book regular time at the range to maintain them.”

“How frequently do you recommend?” I asked. “Every 4 to 6 weeks,” Pablo replied.

Now I know why. It’s called the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, a concept described by Dr. Ebbinghaus, who studied the decline in memory retention over time.

The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve

According to Ebbinghaus, after 1 month, people can only recall about 20% of what they originally learned.

The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve applies to learning new knowledge, for example, reading a book or attending a lecture. Pablo assured me that the same principle applies to learning new skills like pistol shooting as well.

It reminded me of my time as a young sales manager many years ago. I would fly my sales reps to the head office every 90 days for training and role playing to make sure everyone was singing from the same song sheet in terms of our marketing messages and sales playbook. The reps would leave these meetings sharp as razors!

One month later, I would conduct field sales visits with the reps and be horrified by the deterioration in their recall. That’s not the messaging we agreed to? That’s not how we role-played handling that sales objection? WTF?

I did not know about the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve at the time, but I quickly learned (through my frustration) that I needed to spend a minimum of one day per month with every rep in the field, coaching them to “boost” their knowledge and skills back up to the required standard.

I have a saying that I share with clients, “Successful strategy execution is 20% getting clear about what needs to be done, and 80% following up to make sure it actually gets done.”

Many managers don’t like hearing this. They don’t like having to repeat their messages.

They don’t like having to repeatedly train people in core skills.

And they especially don’t like having to follow up with people to make sure things get done.

These managers think they should just make a decision, set clear expectations, provide the necessary tools and training, and trust people to get on with it.

That’s what the business media would like us to believe. Set clear expectations and get out of people’s way, the articles say.

But in my experience, to drive high performance, I learned that I had to communicate the same message, and reinforce the same skills, multiple times, in multiple different formats.

In a similar vein, Jeff Weiner, the CEO of LinkedIn, said, “You need to repeat yourself so often, you get sick of hearing yourself say it. And only then will people begin to internalize what you’re saying.”

I also got used to the fact that I had to constantly provide skills training and coaching if I wanted people to deliver to a consistently high standard.

I learned that spaced repetition and follow-up are essential if I wanted:

– Decisions to be understood
– Instructions to be followed
– Standards to be achieved
– Strategy to be executed
– Core values to be demonstrated

Repetition, repetition, repetition! Take whatever you think is reasonable, and multiply it by 10.

The more ways you can reinforce the same message, or the same skill, with spaced repetition, the better.

Say it verbally. Follow up in writing. Post visual reminders. Test people on their recall. Ask them to teach it to others. Remind people at meetings. Coach them on the job. Create heroes out of people who achieve the agreed standards. Actively confront people who fail to deliver.

Knowledge and skills perish rapidly. Assume that people will only remember 20% of what you taught them after one month. Spaced repetition and follow-up are key to knowledge and skill retention.

Repetition, repetition, repetition!

It’s a key part of the manager’s role. Deal with it.

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Until next time…
Stephen